She Said I Was Never Real—But I Remember Everything

The first time she told me I wasn’t real, we were standing in our old kitchen—her in a faded blue robe, me holding a cup of tea she said she didn’t remember making.

She stared at me as if I were some ghost wearing a familiar face.

“Stop this,” she said, her voice thin and trembling. “You’re not him.”

I laughed. A soft, nervous chuckle. “What are you talking about? It's me—Jamie. I’ve lived here for four years. We built this life together. Don’t you remember our trip to Lisbon? The broken lamp we both blamed on the cat? The night we—”

She dropped her mug. It shattered. So did something inside me.

The Unraveling

It started subtly. She began misplacing things—keys, books, words. Then memories. At first, I thought it was stress. Then denial. Then maybe an illness.

But it wasn’t her. It was me. At least, that’s what she claimed.

“I’ve never lived with anyone,” she whispered to the doctor after locking me outside the room. “I live alone. I always have.”

They both looked at me like I was a patient, not a partner.

The doctor asked me questions I couldn’t answer. Where I was born. Who my parents were. I couldn’t recall. My memories were vivid—but only with her. Only here. Every moment of my life before her felt blurred, like trying to remember a dream you swear you lived in.

I went to find my ID. Bank cards. Anything.

I found nothing.

Not even a toothbrush that wasn’t hers.

The Photographs Lied

Desperate, I opened our photo albums. Page after page, she smiled beside me—my arm around her, our faces close.

I brought the book to her with triumph.

“See? Here we are at the lake. You took this photo!”

She looked down at the image. Then back at me.

There was no one beside her.

My body turned cold. I looked again.

The space where I stood was empty.

She sat beside a blank bench, smiling toward nothing.

I ran to the others. One by one, the same. I was gone. Like I’d been erased, not removed. She watched my face sink as I flipped through our life, alone.

“You keep showing up,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Even after I forget you, you come back.”

The Room That Shouldn’t Exist

Late one night, unable to sleep, I wandered through the house we shared—or thought we did.

I found a door I didn’t recognize. Nestled between the bathroom and her study. My hand hesitated on the knob.

It opened to a child’s room.

Dust covered every surface. A tiny bed. Stuffed animals. A framed picture on the wall: a woman holding a baby. Her face: mine. But the child... he looked just like me.

I stumbled backward, breath shallow.

She appeared behind me. “I told you not to go in there.”

“Who is he?” I asked, pointing. “Why is my face in that photo?”

Tears welled in her eyes. She shook her head slowly. “You’re not him. My son died. Years ago. You’re not him. You’re what’s left when grief forgets how to let go.”

The Realization

Everything began to flicker—memories, colors, even time. Sometimes I’d blink and it would be morning. Sometimes, midnight.

I started seeing shadows that didn’t belong. Mirrors that didn’t reflect me. Doors that closed when I wasn’t near them.

And every time I begged her to believe me, she only cried harder.

“You’re just a dream that refuses to die,” she said. “I made you up. Because I missed him. Because I couldn’t survive the silence.”

But if she made me up… then why could I feel? Bleed? Why could I remember every second—the sound of her laugh, the way she danced when no one was watching?

Was I her son?

Was I her grief?

Or worse... was I a fragment of someone long gone, looping through a memory that refused to end?

Still Here

She’s gone now. Moved out. Or maybe she passed on. I don’t know anymore.

But I’m still here.

In this house.

In this moment.

In this memory.

Waiting for her to remember me again.

Because even if I’m not real...

I remember everything.