Chapter five: We've been here before
1309 Words
Lena hadn’t intended to stay in Lagos another night. Her schedule had been tight, her meetings mostly wrapped, and her overnight bag only half-packed with the assumption that she’d be gone by sunrise. But by the time evening rolled in, and the memory of Miles’ voice and the strange intimacy of the dream-filled conversation from the day before lingered, she found herself cancelling her return ticket.
The excuse she gave herself was simple: there was a loose end at Omnitech she could tie up in the morning. But the truth, bare and inconvenient, sat at the pit of her stomach.
She didn’t want to leave. Not yet. Not without understanding what this thing was.
They had exchanged numbers in a quiet, almost casual way. No heavy looks. No drama. Just the silent agreement that something had happened—something neither of them had words for. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t infatuation. It was recognition. Like stumbling into someone you had once known, only to realize you couldn’t remember when, or how, or in what lifetime.
She sent him a message the next morning.
Want to meet somewhere less... weird?
He replied two minutes later.
Sure. You pick.
She chose a small, outdoor art space near Freedom Park. No bookshops, no cozy corners. She needed a neutral space. Somewhere daylight and strangers could hold them accountable. Somewhere she could look him in the eye without the dream of him clouding her judgment.
He arrived late. Not so much that it was rude, but enough that it made her pulse quicken when she finally spotted him walking toward her, hands in pockets, the same unsure expression he’d worn in the café.
“Morning,” he said, nodding once.
“You look more rested,” she replied.
He gave her a tired smile. “Not really.”
They walked without touching, without brushing arms, keeping an intentional distance between them that felt both natural and frustrating.
The exhibit sprawled across a modest garden. Sculptures in steel and stone rose from the gravel, shaped like animals, or thoughts, or things only the artists understood. A few children darted between them, laughing. Lena watched them for a moment before returning her gaze to Miles.
“Do you remember all your dreams?” she asked.
He nodded. “Not every detail. But enough to know when they’re about you.”
“Me?”
He looked sheepish. “Not you exactly. But the woman in the dreams—she feels like you. Sounds like you. Sometimes even looks like you. And now I can’t separate them.”
Lena inhaled slowly. “Same here.”
They paused in front of a sculpture that looked like a pair of hands lifting something unseen. The longer she stared at it, the more she thought it looked like surrender.
“I keep thinking,” she said, “that maybe this is all in my head. That maybe I’m attaching meaning to something random.”
Miles didn’t answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.
“I’m engaged.”
Lena blinked. “What?”
He turned to her, eyes steady. “I’m engaged. To someone else. Her name’s Talia. We’ve been together four years.”
Lena stepped back slightly, her breath catching. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I should have told you yesterday. Because I didn’t plan to see you again, and now I have. And because I don’t want to lie by not saying it.”
Her chest tightened. The air felt thinner, like it couldn’t quite reach her lungs.
“Okay,” she said, swallowing hard. “So why are you here?”
“Because I don’t know what this is, and it’s messing with my head. I didn’t come here to start something behind Talia’s back. But I can’t ignore what I feel when I’m around you.”
She laughed bitterly. “What do you feel?”
“Like I already know you. Like we’ve done this before. And I don’t mean the park or the coffee. I mean this. You. Me. Whatever we are.”
Lena looked away, emotions swirling too fast to isolate.
“Talia knows about the dreams?”
He shook his head. “She knows I have nightmares sometimes. But I’ve never told her what they were about. I thought they were just that. Dreams. Fragments. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Do you love her?”
The question landed hard.
He hesitated. “I care about her. Deeply. She’s been good to me. Loyal. She deserves more than what I’m doing right now.”
Lena crossed her arms, chilled despite the sun. “Then why are you doing it?”
Miles opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared at the gravel beneath his shoes.
“Because you feel like something I forgot to remember,” he finally said.
They didn’t speak again for a while. Children still laughed in the distance. The air buzzed faintly with life going on around them.
Later, they sat on a bench under a tree just off the main path.
Lena rested her hands on her knees. “This isn’t a movie. We don’t get to follow our feelings into some other dimension.”
Miles smiled sadly. “Would be easier if it were.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s almost,” she said. “I don’t want to be a secret. Even if the universe thinks I’m part of your story.”
“You’re not an almost.”
“Not yet.”
________________________________________
That night, Lena couldn’t sleep. She turned her phone over and over in her hands, tempted to call him. Tempted to block him. Tempted to ask if any of this was real or just emotional projection.
She dreamed again. This time they were in a kitchen. He was cooking. She was barefoot. A window was open.
“We did this before,” she said.
“I know,” he replied. “But we never got it right.”
When she woke, she sat up with tears in her eyes.
________________________________________
He showed up the next day.
No text. No call. Just a knock at the hotel door, quiet and familiar.
She opened it slowly. He looked exhausted.
“I told her about you,” he said.
Lena froze.
“Not everything. But enough to know I owe her honesty. She didn’t take it well. We argued. I left.”
“And you came here?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
She stepped back, letting him in.
“This doesn’t make things easier,” she said.
“I’m not here to make it easier. I’m here because you’re the first thing in years that’s made me question the life I’ve been living on autopilot.”
Lena looked at him then, really looked. He wasn’t some stranger from a dream. He was a man trying to reconcile a thousand unspoken thoughts with one very real situation.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Time,” he said. “And a chance to understand this. Whatever this is.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s all I can give you.”
________________________________________
The next morning, she left him a note on the desk.
Miles,
I can’t build anything real on the ruins of something else.
Find clarity. Then find me.
—L
And then she left.
This time, she didn’t cancel her ticket.
She let the city fall away behind her, the bus winding through roads that seemed familiar even though she’d never driven them before.
She didn’t cry.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
But because it felt strangely right.
They had been here before. In some version of themselves. In some other life. Maybe they’d find each other again.
In this one.
Or the next.
- Writer
