The Lover Who Lived in My Dreams

She wasn’t a supermodel. She didn’t have the kind of face that stopped time or made men trip over their own tongues. But to me, she was unforgettable. Skin like warm earth after rain, eyes deep and dark like unanswered prayers, and a laugh that made the silence afterward feel too loud. She first appeared in a dream when I was seventeen, and somehow, she kept coming back.
At first, I thought it was random. A trick of the mind. One of those subconscious mash-ups of faces you’ve seen in passing—a stranger at a bus stop, someone’s cousin at a wedding, an image from a music video. But then she came again. And again. Same full lips, same quiet confidence, same calm presence that made my chest settle. She was never loud, never flashy. But she always felt… necessary.
I used to tell my friends about her. They laughed, joked about me watching too many romantic movies, said I needed to get out more. I stopped talking about her after a while. Not because I stopped dreaming about her, but because it felt too personal—like sharing her would somehow make her less mine.
In the real world, I dated other women. There were connections, sure. Some good moments, even real feelings. But none of them felt like her. I’d lie in bed after dates, staring at the ceiling, wondering why I missed someone I’d never really met. Some nights, I’d close my eyes just to see if she’d come back.
She always did. Not every night, but often enough to feel real. In my dreams, we talked about life. She asked me why I was always running—from love, from failure, from myself. We sat in kitchens with flickering bulbs, walked dusty roads holding hands, shared music and memories that weren’t mine but felt like they could be. She told me she was proud of me once, and I woke up with tears on my pillow. I never even got her name.
One night, she didn’t show. Then a week passed. A month. My dreams were filled with randomness—noisy, forgettable scraps. Her absence was a dull ache I couldn’t explain. I missed her in a way I couldn’t talk about without sounding crazy. I felt like someone who’d lost a country he’d never visited, but knew was home.
I was 26 when I saw her in real life. Not in a dream. Not in passing. Real, breathing, alive.
She walked into the small bookstore downtown where I’d been helping out on weekends. Wore a simple burgundy dress, hair tied in a loose bun. No makeup. Just her. She wasn’t exactly the same—her nose was a bit narrower, her smile a little crooked—but everything else… the feel of her? That was unchanged.
She looked at me. Paused. “Do I know you?” she asked.
I wanted to say, I’ve known you my whole life. But I just smiled and said, “Not yet.”
Her name was Ujunwa. She was studying social work, loved old books and hated sweet coffee. We sat and talked for an hour that first day. I didn’t tell her about the dreams. Not then. But I knew it in my bones—this wasn’t coincidence. This was convergence.
Falling for her in real life was different. Messier. No dream sequences. No perfect timing. She had doubts, moods, and a stubborn streak that could stretch for miles. But God, she was real. And with her, so was I.
Maybe the woman in my dreams was never meant to be a fantasy. Maybe she was a guide—an echo of what was waiting if I stayed open long enough, patient enough, alive enough to notice.
The lover who lived in my dreams taught me how to hope.
The woman who walked into that bookstore?
She’s teaching me how to stay.