When light bends: Echoes Of you

Chapter 3 — Still Feels Real

Zoe’s Diary

I thought the morning air would rinse him away. It didn’t.

By the time sunlight filled the room, I’d showered twice, changed the sheets, opened every window. Still, every breath I took tasted like last night—soft heat and the quiet hum of a voice I can’t stop hearing.

The world feels too bright today. Even the light hurts. It’s as if my body remembers something my mind keeps insisting never happened. When I brushed my hair, my fingertips trembled; when I tied my shoes, I realized I’d been holding my breath. My reflection looked… startled. Like someone who’s just been kissed by a ghost.

I carried my notebook to the little café across from campus—the one that smells like espresso and cinnamon even when it rains. The place buzzed with late-morning chatter, laptops clicking, milk steamers hissing. I thought noise would ground me. It didn’t. Everything around me moved in regular time while I sat there, watching my own hands as though they belonged to someone else.

I wrote his name in the margin again even though I still don’t know it. I wrote "HIM" The capital letter looked absurdly dramatic, but leaving it lowercase felt dishonest. He doesn’t feel small.

I tried to describe the sound of his voice: Low, steady, like a song you half-remember from childhood.

And the way he looked at me—even in a dream—like he already knew every unfinished sentence inside me. How do you explain that?

Ava texted halfway through my second coffee:

You alive? You missed intro psych again.

I stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard. I almost typed, I met someone, but what would that even mean?

Instead, I sent back:

Just tired. Dream hangover.

She sent three laughing emojis and a get over him already, assuming it was one of the perfectly real guys she’s been trying to set me up with since last month. I smiled, slid the phone face-down, and closed my eyes.

The city outside the window blurred into light and motion. A couple argued softly at the corner table; a barista dropped a spoon; somewhere, a bus hissed to a stop. All those tiny human sounds felt oddly far away, as though I were listening from underwater.

And then—this part still makes no sense—I swear I smelled him.

Just for a second: rain on warm skin, faint and impossible. I looked around too quickly, heart jerking, expecting someone familiar. No one was there. Only a stranger in a gray hoodie glancing up from his textbook. Still, the air shimmered with that scent, that feeling. It left as fast as it came, like the universe teasing me.

I wrote in the diary again, slower this time, careful handwriting:

It’s not just a dream. It can’t be. My body wouldn’t lie like this.

When I touched my wrist, it pulsed harder, echoing that same rhythm from last night. Not faster—deeper. Like a second heartbeat nested inside my own. I pressed two fingers to it until the pressure hurt, hoping pain would prove I’m awake.

Ava appeared around noon, sunlight in her hair and her energy cranked to eleven. She dropped her gym bag on the chair opposite mine.

“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” she asked.

“Maybe I did,” I said before I could stop myself.

She laughed. “Okay, Miss Poetry. You seriously need to get out of your head. Come lift something heavy with me later.”

I promised I’d think about it.

After she left, I stared at the foam pattern in my coffee until it went cold. The swirl looked like a fingerprint, almost identical to the mark his thumb had left on my dream-skin. I touched it and whispered, “Who are you?”

No answer, obviously. Only the hiss of milk steaming somewhere behind me and the clink of ceramic cups.

Back in my dorm, everything felt smaller. The desk. The bed. Even the air. I stretched out and watched sunlight crawl across the ceiling, trying to remember every second before it faded. The problem is, the memory keeps changing. Each time I recall him, the details sharpen—the tone of his sigh, the warmth of his breath against my neck. Dreams usually dissolve; this one refocuses.

I tried music, hoping it would drown him out. It didn’t. Every song turned into him. Even the quiet ones. Especially the quiet ones.

By late afternoon, I was pacing. The mirror caught me mid-stride: flushed cheeks, restless eyes, hair escaping its braid. I looked alive in a way that embarrassed me. I should’ve been studying, or answering Ava’s texts, or at least pretending to be normal. Instead, I opened my journal again.

He felt real enough to ruin every real thing around me.

The sentence scared me. I slammed the notebook shut. But an hour later, I opened it again.

What if he’s not gone? What if dreams are just doors we forgot how to use?

I’ve never written things like that before. I sound like someone who believes in ghosts, and maybe I do now.

Evening crept in. The campus courtyard shimmered with the glow of streetlamps; laughter spilled from somewhere near the dining hall. Ava called, her voice a mix of teasing and concern.

“You still coming to the gym?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Zoe, you’ve been weird all week.”

“Define weird.”

“Staring-into-space-like-you-saw-God weird.”

I laughed too hard, hoping it sounded casual. “Just tired.”

She sighed. “Fine, but if you start naming your pillow, I’m staging an intervention.”

When the call ended, the room felt even quieter. I opened the window. Night air slipped in, cool and damp, carrying the scent of wet pavement. It reminded me of the way his dream-skin had smelled—earthy, electric. My chest tightened.

I lay down without turning on the light. The city murmured through the window: a siren somewhere distant, laughter, a car horn. I tried to tell myself that whatever happened last night was just chemistry—neurons firing, lonely brain inventing company. But my body disagreed. Every cell seemed to wait for something unseen.

Maybe that’s what love is before it finds a face: a waiting so vivid it feels like memory.

I rolled onto my side, hugging the pillow. It was still warm from the day’s sunlight. My heartbeat slowed into that same strange rhythm. For a moment, I swore I felt fingers thread through mine. I whispered into the dark, “If you’re real, come back.”

The air moved. Just barely—a draft, a breath, something. Goosebumps chased down my arm. I laughed nervously at myself, but the sound came out shaky.

I reached for my phone to distract myself and noticed the time: 11:11 p.m. Ava always says that’s the moment to make a wish. So I did. I wished to dream again.

Now I’m writing this by the light of my desk lamp, trying to decide if I’m brave or foolish. My handwriting’s messy, looping. I keep pausing because sometimes it feels like someone’s reading over my shoulder. I glance back—no one, of course. Just the hum of the mini-fridge, the faint flicker of the streetlight outside.

He’s closer than he should be. I can feel him even when I’m awake.

I don’t know what to do with that sentence. Maybe I’ll pretend it’s poetry homework. Maybe it is.

My eyelids are heavy again, the way they were last night right before everything shifted. The boundary between sleep and being awake feels thinner now, like paper held up to light. I’m scared to cross it, but part of me can’t wait.

If he’s waiting there—whatever “there” is—I’ll ask his name this time. I’ll ask why it feels like we’ve already met, and why my heart beats like it’s following instructions only he can give.

For now, I’ll close this notebook, turn off the lamp, and lie back. The sheets are cool against my skin. The city outside hums its lullaby.

I tell myself, it was just a dream.

Then I whisper back, but what if dreams are where real things start?

Goodnight, whoever you are. If you’re out there, find me again.