She Was Never Real

I met her on a rainy Tuesday.

The kind of rain that doesn't just fall—it lingers in the air, heavy and cold, like the universe itself is pressing down on you. I was sitting alone in a bookstore café, sipping cheap coffee and pretending to read a book I’d already abandoned. She sat across from me without asking, as if we’d done it a thousand times before.

She had soft eyes. Grey—not cold, but distant. She spoke softly, like her words weren’t for the world to hear, only me. She told me her name was Elia. I didn’t ask for a last name.

From that moment on, she appeared everywhere. On the subway platform, at the corner café I only visited once a week, in the park where I walked to clear my mind. Always in passing, always brief. We talked about everything—dreams, regrets, broken families, the taste of strawberries in winter. I told her things I hadn’t told anyone. She never judged. She never interrupted.

She always understood.

I never took a photo with her. I never texted her—there was no number to save. But every memory felt so vivid, so physical. Her touch was light, like silk brushing skin. Her laugh felt like it had weight, vibrating softly in the air. She cried once, and I swear I wiped away the tear.❤️️

And yet… when I mentioned her to my sister, she hesitated.

“Elia?” she said, eyebrows pinched. “Who’s that?”

I explained—again. How we met, how long we’d known each other. I showed her the park bench where we sat. My sister looked at it like it was just a bench.

“She’s never been here,” she said carefully, like she was speaking to a child or a patient. “You’re always alone when I see you.”

I laughed it off. Maybe she just never noticed. Elia wasn’t loud. She preferred quiet places, empty corners, whispered conversations.

But then I started to notice the gaps.

Once, I followed Elia to her apartment building—just curious. But when I tried to return the next day, it didn’t exist. I walked the entire street twice. Nothing. Just a row of shops, a locksmith, a laundromat. No door. No number.

I tried searching online—no results. No social media. No footprint at all.

One night, in desperation, I asked her directly. “Are you real, Elia?”

She smiled like ❤️️ I was the one who finally understood.

“Does it matter?” she said.

And for a second, it didn’t.

But then the dreams started.

Vivid, endless dreams of our first meeting playing over and over, only slightly different each time. Sometimes the café was empty, sometimes full of people who didn’t look at us. Once, I was speaking to her, and she melted into static—like an image on a broken TV.

I began to write everything down—dates, conversations, places we met. But every time I returned, there was no trace. My notes contradicted themselves. Sometimes I wrote she wore a green coat, sometimes red. I had no memory of changing it. I asked my therapist about it.

He looked at me with a heavy expression and slid a folder across the table.

Inside were years of journal entries—mine. Pages and pages about a woman named Elia. Every time, she looked different. Sometimes she had dark hair, sometimes blonde. Sometimes she was quiet, sometimes angry. But always, always, I loved her.

“You created her,” he said gently. “Over and over again.”

I didn’t want to believe him. I left, angry. Confused.

But the world started feeling sharper, colder, lonelier. And Elia?

She began fading.

Her voice grew distant, her form less clear. One day, I sat on the park bench waiting, and she never came. For the first time in months, I was truly alone.

I stood up, and something fluttered to the ground. A small scrap of paper, folded into a triangle. It wasn’t mine. I opened it.

One line, in her handwriting:

“You needed me, so I was real.”

I didn’t cry.

I just smiled, the way someone smiles when a dream finally makes sense.

Author's Note:

Some people come into our lives through the front door. Others come in through the cracks—the ones in our hearts, our minds, or our memories. This was her story.

Or maybe… it was mine all along.