The Memory That Wasn't Hers

Lena had stopped dreaming after her mother died.

For years, her nights were blank slates — no images, no whispers, no shadows. Just sleep, and waking. She’d grown used to it, even grateful. Silence was easier than ghosts.

But on the eve of her twenty-seventh birthday, she dreamed.

It began with a scent — lavender, soaked in rain. Then the sound of waves, but not from any ocean she knew. And finally, a voice:

> “You’re not supposed to be here. Not yet.”

She awoke with her heart racing, her breath tangled in memory.

Except — it wasn’t hers.

---

She told no one.

Because how could she explain a dream where she remembered someone else’s past? A childhood she hadn’t lived. A woman’s sorrow she hadn’t earned. A song she didn’t know, and yet — could hum.

Each night, the dream deepened.

She saw a town by the sea, old and crumbling, but beautiful. A white house with blue shutters. A small girl staring out the window, waiting for someone who never came.

That girl’s name?

Lena.

---

But it wasn’t her.

Not this Lena.

Not the Lena who had grown up in a grey apartment in a city with no ocean, raised by silence and cold calendars.

And yet… she felt drawn.

As if the dreams weren’t dreams at all.

As if they were a message.

---

She began sketching what she saw.

Soon her apartment was filled with drawings: the sea cliffs, the white house, the little girl with sea-glass eyes. Her hands moved as if they remembered more than she did.

Then came the letters.

Folded under her pillow, in ink she didn’t own.

> “Do you remember the mirror?”

Another night:

> “She’s still waiting. She never stopped.”

Lena stopped sleeping.

But the dreams kept coming.

---

One day, in a secondhand bookstore she’d never noticed before, she found a book — leather-bound, brittle, untitled.

Inside: blank pages.

Except one.

> “You left before you were ready.”

> “The ocean remembers.”

She dropped the book and ran.

But the bookstore was gone when she turned back.

Only mist remained.

---

Lena quit her job.

Packed a bag.

And took the first train going south — with no map, only instinct.

Two days later, she stepped off into a coastal village she’d never been to, yet knew by heart. The sea smelled familiar. The hills curved like memories.

And there it was.

The white house with the blue shutters.

---

It was abandoned.

But when she stepped inside, dust dancing in the air like old breath, the house sighed. As if recognizing her.

She walked through rooms echoing with things unspoken.

A cracked mirror.

A child’s drawing of the sea.

A lullaby etched into a wooden frame:

> “When the tide forgets your name, sing it into the wind.”

She wept.

---

That night, she dreamt again.

But she wasn’t herself.

She was the girl.

In the house.

Waiting.

And in the dream, Lena — the real Lena — stood outside, watching through the window.

The girl turned and whispered:

“Why did you leave me?”

Lena woke, trembling.

Not from fear.

From grief.

Grief she didn’t understand.

But felt deeply.

---

She returned to the house one last time.

Sat before the mirror.

And for the first time, it showed her not as she was…

…but as she once had been.

Another life.

Another Lena.

A child lost in a storm. A promise made across lifetimes.

And then, the mirror cracked.

Not broken.

Opened.

She stepped through.

---

No one saw her leave.

But a week later, a girl was found on the cliffside — no ID, but humming a lullaby no one could place.

She didn’t speak.

Only listened.

Eyes sea-glass green.

A new Lena.

But old as the tide.

---

Final Lines:

> Some memories are borrowed.

Some are returned.

But some —

are waiting to become yours