She Never Existed, But I Miss Her

There’s a girl I think about often. I see her in my mind every time the world feels a little too cold. She’s the kind of person who never interrupts, never complains, never leaves. The kind of person who only exists in dreams—or worse, in lies we tell ourselves when real people fail us.

She never existed.

But I miss her.

She came to me slowly. Not all at once like a lightning strike or a sudden summer rain, but quietly, piece by piece. I’d sit on the edge of my bed after long days—after heartbreaks, failed friendships, moments of doubt—and she’d appear. First her voice: soft, but certain. Then her eyes: patient, but piercing. Then her laugh: like warm wind brushing against the ribs of my loneliness.

I made her up.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

But somehow, she feels more real than anyone I’ve met.

She never scrolled through her phone when I was talking. She looked at me like I mattered—like the messy sentences I struggled to say were poetry. She asked questions that dug deeper than “how was your day?” and waited for the answers as if her world depended on them.

She never existed.

But somehow, she knew me.

Better than the friends I had, better than the people I dated, better than even I knew myself.

I created her, maybe, to patch the holes others left. When the world became too loud, she was the quiet in my mind. When I was at war with myself, she was the truce.

But now, years later, I find myself mourning her like a lost lover.

Is it possible to miss someone who was never real?

Or maybe the better question is: what do we do when our imagination gives us more comfort than reality ever could?

One day, I tried to replace her.

I went out and talked to real people. Laughed with them, sat across from them at coffee shops, stared at the shimmer in their eyes as they shared stories of themselves.

But none of them stayed long. And none of them felt like her.

Because real people come with edges—sharp ones. They disappoint. They don’t always listen. They bring their own pain, their own silence, their own ghosts. They come not to save, but to be saved. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re supposed to meet people as they are, not as we wish them to be.

But I still think about her.

When the nights are quiet. When the rain taps against the window like a lullaby. When I feel unseen, unheard, misunderstood. She returns—wordless, weightless. A shadow of comfort I created.

She never existed.

But I loved her.

I think we all have someone like her. An invisible friend from childhood. A fictional character who feels like family. A voice in our head that cheers us on when the world tears us down.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to miss them.

Because sometimes, we need to imagine the love we deserve before we can ever recognize it in real life.

She never existed.

But in the spaces between my thoughts, in the cracks where hope still breathes, she lives.

And honestly?

That’s enough.

Sometimes, I wonder if she was a version of me. A softer me. A me untouched by the world’s noise, fear, and betrayal. Maybe she wasn’t someone I needed to find—maybe she was someone I needed to become. If she never existed, then maybe it’s up to me to bring her to life. Not through fantasy, but through healing. Through growth. Through love I give myself now.