The goodbye was behind me now, like an echo fading into the horizon, yet its resonance remained within me. I had made the decision to move forward, to learn how to live without Astrid as a constant beacon in my life. However, in the days that followed her letter, a new reality emerged: not everything disappears when you say goodbye.
At night, while the world slept and stillness took over my surroundings, she returned to me. Not as memories, but in dreams. In those hours when logic dissolved and the unreal became tangible, Astrid and I found each other again.
The first dream was so vivid that, upon waking, I could almost smell her in the air, as if she were still beside me. We were in the park where we used to spend our afternoons, that corner of the world that seemed to exist just for us. The colors were more vibrant than in reality: the green of the leaves, the blue of the sky, the golden light filtering through the trees. She smiled with the same light that used to illuminate my days, and I smiled back as if I had never lost her.
“It’s as if we never drifted apart, isn’t it?” she said, with a tranquility that disarmed me.
I nodded, unable to form words. In that moment, everything felt perfect, as though the pain and goodbyes were distant illusions. But just as I dared to believe in that reality, the world began to unravel.
The park transformed into a strange, fragmented landscape, as though I were seeing our story through a broken mirror. Each fragment showed a different moment: our laughter, our arguments, the last time I saw her. I tried to reach for her, but she disappeared into the cracks, leaving behind an emptiness that seemed infinite.
I woke up with my heart pounding. The clock read 3:14 a.m. I sat in the darkness, trying to make sense of what I had just felt. Was it just a dream, or was my mind trying to tell me something? I looked around the room, searching for something to ground me in the present, but all I felt was her absence, still lingering in every corner of my life.
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Parallel Worlds
The weeks that followed were a repetition of this pattern. Every night, a new dream. Sometimes, we were in familiar places: our favorite café, the library where we used to study together, the balcony of my old apartment. There was a warmth in those moments, a sense of belonging that had disappeared from my waking life. But other times, the dreams became strange. We were strangers meeting by chance on a train. Or coworkers sharing an inexplicable connection, as though our paths were destined to cross in any circumstance.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
In every dream, one thing remained constant: the feeling that, in those alternate worlds, we had found a way to be together.
“Do you think that somewhere, in some universe, we managed to be happy?” I asked her in one of those dreams, as we walked along a path covered in flowers.
She smiled, her expression tinged with melancholy, and replied:
“Maybe. But what matters isn’t what could have been. It’s what we do with what we have here.”
When I woke up, her words echoed in my mind like a mantra. Yet during the day, my obsession with those dreams grew. I found myself combing through books and articles about parallel universes, searching for answers. Was it possible that there were other worlds where our versions were still together? And what if those dreams were a window into something real?
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The Thin Line Between Hope and Obsession
What had started as a comfort soon became a burden. I stopped going out with friends, canceling invitations with excuses even I didn’t believe. My projects sat unfinished on my desk, gathering dust. My life became an endless cycle of superficial work and waiting: waiting to sleep, waiting to see her again.
The anxiety grew, like a shadow stretching longer with each passing night. I found myself watching the clock, willing the hours to pass faster so I could close my eyes. But each awakening was a blow, a reminder that those moments, no matter how beautiful, were not real.
It was then that I decided to write her a letter. Not a letter to send, but one to unburden my soul.
"Dear Astrid,
I dream of you every night, and though I know you’ll never read this, I need to tell you how I feel. In those dreams, we’re everything we never managed to be here. We laugh, we embrace, we understand each other. And each time I wake, the emptiness feels greater. Will I ever stop searching for you in those unreal worlds? I don’t know. But if you ever read this, I just want you to know that I still love you, in this universe and in all the others."
When I finished writing, I felt as though I had released a weight I’d been carrying in silence. I placed the letter on my desk and lay down, not expecting anything. That night, for the first time in weeks, I slept without dreaming. When I woke up, I felt a faint spark of peace. It was small, but it was there.
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A New Understanding
As the days passed, I began to reflect on my dreams. I realized they weren’t a doorway to alternate universes, but a mirror of my own interior. Each scenario, each version of Astrid, was a representation of my hopes, my fears, and my inability to let go. The dreams weren’t an escape; they were a reminder that I still had work to do.
I remembered Astrid’s words in one of those dreams: “What matters isn’t what could have been. It’s what we do with what we have here.” Perhaps that was the lesson I needed to learn—that my obsession with “what ifs” was only prolonging my pain.
The next step became clear: I had to confront my obsession, to let go of the need to hold onto what could no longer be. But how could I do that without feeling like I was betraying what Astrid had meant to me?
I sat down in front of the letter I’d written and read it one last time. Then, carefully, I placed it in a box along with other mementos of our relationship. Not to forget her, but to acknowledge that she was part of my past, not my present.
As I closed the box, I understood something important: letting go didn’t mean losing her. It meant making space to find myself.