> "The mind protects us from pain, not by hiding it —
but by rewriting the story until the knife looks like a key."
---
The first dream begins in a hallway.
Always the same hallway.
Dimly lit.
Smelling of rain and rehearsals.
Lined with mirrors that don't reflect.
I walk down it barefoot,
trailing notes behind me like petals.
And at the end — always — he waits.
Sometimes in a hoodie.
Sometimes in the coat he wore the day we said goodbye.
Sometimes younger.
Sometimes a stranger in his skin.
But always him.
---
> "I missed you," he says.
I never know if he means now —
or always.
> "Are you real this time?" I ask.
He tilts his head.
> "Does it matter?"
---
I wake before I answer.
The room is silent.
My arms feel like they've been holding someone all night.
But they're empty.
---
Journal Fragment (Typed, Unsigned):
> "They say dreams are the mind's attempt to resolve unfinished business.
But mine just replay different endings to the same song.
I've stopped looking for closure.
Now I'm just looking for consistency."
---
The second dream starts on a rooftop.
We're watching a sunrise that never rises.
He hands me a cup of coffee.
There's no heat in it.
> "Tell me what you miss," he says.
> "The way your silences used to feel safe," I whisper.
He nods.
> "But silence doesn't stay soft forever."
> "No," I say. "It turns to stone."
---
In this dream, he kisses me.
But his lips taste like cardboard.
Like something printed, not lived.
---
The third dream is wrong from the beginning.
He's waiting for me on stage.
But the stage is underwater.
When I reach him,
his eyes are gone.
Two black voids,
and a smile that stretches too wide.
> "You asked me to stay," he says.
> "You said you'd fight for me."
I try to run.
But the water holds me.
Not to drown —
to listen.
He opens his mouth.
And from it comes a song I wrote,
but never released:
> "You fell for the echo,
not the voice.
You loved the silence
because it sounded like choice."
---
I wake up screaming.
This time, the walls scream back.
---
Therapy Session 13 — Reconstructed Transcript
> Dr. [redacted]: "Do you believe he exists outside your memory?"
Patient: "I want to."
Dr: "That wasn't the question."
Patient: "No. I think I built him."
Dr: "Why?"
Patient: "Because the world didn't hold me gently. So I made someone who did."
---
Fourth dream: a bus stop in winter.
He's humming a tune that never ends.
> "If you get on this bus," he says,
"you forget everything."
> "Including you?"
> "Especially me."
I sit next to him.
Hold his hand.
> "I already forgot myself," I say.
"I just didn't notice."
He looks at me like I've betrayed him.
But maybe I did.
Maybe I loved the comfort of who I imagined him to be
more than I ever loved who he really was.
If he really was.
---
Back in waking life, I pace the studio.
No lights.
No clocks.
Just the tape deck humming on loop.
I pull out the tapes.
One is labeled in faded pen:
> "For Her — Before She Vanishes Too."
I press play.
---
> "This isn't a confession.
It's a surrender."
> "You made me feel real.
But maybe that's because you didn't feel real yourself."
> "And when you stared at me,
I think you were trying to see who you were —
in my eyes."
---
I don't know if he ever said those words.
Or if I just needed to hear them.
---
Fifth dream:
He doesn't appear.
Only his shadow.
Only his voice.
> "You built me from scraps,
but you gave me everything."
> "So now I'm yours.
And you can't forget me
without forgetting what you survived."
---
I wake with tears on my neck.
But not sadness.
Not grief.
Gratitude.
Because maybe I did build him.
Maybe he was just a constellation of memory, music, and unmet needs.
But he saved me.
Even if he was never real.
---
Last page of journal (handwritten):
> "You weren't my home.
You were the lie I loved
so I could build one."