i had a dream about you so i slept a little longer

for the relationships that unraveled in life, but remain perfectly intact in the quiet corners of our minds

I had a dream about you, so I slept a little longer.

We were sitting in the bed of your truck, parked at the edge of a cliff on the California coast. The ocean stretched endlessly beneath us, the moonlight catching on the waves like scattered silver.

It was cold—colder than we expected. We huddled beneath blankets I’d stolen from my room before you snuck me out. Despite both of us being locals, the 1 a.m. coastal wind still caught us off guard.

I turned to you, and you looked exactly how I remembered. The same soft brown eyes, a little glassy. The curls in your hair had grown out, falling messily over your forehead, almost touching your eyebrows.

“You need a haircut,” I said, lazily twirling a piece between my fingers.

You leaned just out of reach with a teasing smile. “How about a buzzcut instead?”

I glared at you. “I’ve told you—I’ll break up with you if you ever get a buzzcut. Your hair is too perfect to get rid of on purpose. The only acceptable reason to go bald is if you get alopecia at fifty.”

You laughed, the sound familiar in that haunting, comforting way dreams carry. Then, after a beat, you said, “That would be cute if we weren’t already broken up.”

My stomach twisted.

The sky didn’t change, but everything else did. The wind felt sharper. The air heavier. And just like that, I remembered why this was a dream, and not something happening in real life.

I didn’t respond right away. I just looked at you—at the version of you my mind had summoned. You looked real enough to reach for, and yet I knew I couldn’t keep you.

You were still staring out at the ocean, as if looking at me was simply too hard to do. Maybe the dream was set at the coast because it was easier to drown in the horizon than admit we were treading water ourselves.

“Why do you keep showing up in my dreams?” I asked softly, not expecting an answer.

You tilted your head, still not looking at me. “Maybe you haven’t let go yet.”

“Or maybe you haven’t.”

That made you smile. Just a little. The same smile I’d seen after making stupid jokes or tickling you after you told me not to. But it faded quickly, like the tide pulling back too soon.

“Do you ever think we gave up too easily?” I asked.

You finally looked at me. “No,” you said. “I think we gave up exactly when we had to. We just haven’t figured out how to stop missing it yet.”

I swallowed hard. “Missing us.”

You nodded. “Yeah. Missing who we were when we didn’t know how to ruin it.”

I adjust my positioning, moving further from him but angling my body to face his. I look up at you. “You once said that you’d never stop loving me. You told me I was ‘the one’ if such a thing can exist and be known. Do you still feel that way?” My stomach turned in anticipation of an answer, unsure of which response I’d actually want to hear.

You took a deep breath, holding eye contact; “You already know the answer to that.”

I mean… did I? He broke ‘no contact’ again and again, trying to pull me back. But in the end, he let me go—because I needed to. Was it that he didn’t love me enough to hold on, or that he loved me enough not to hold me back?

After a moment, I break the silence, looking away. “Mind telling me anyway?” I bit my lip in preparation of an answer that could potentially break my heart all over again.

You looked at me like I already knew better—like this wasn’t a question, just a desperate reach for a different ending. “Of course I still love you,” you said, voice quiet but unwavering. “But that means nothing. Because love... love is not the reason we failed. You and I both know that.”

Your words landed with the weight of truth. The kind that doesn’t shout—it just sits in the center of your chest, heavy and still.

I wanted to protest, to challenge it. Because love should be enough, right? That’s what they always say in the movies. But we weren't in a movie. We were two people who kept circling the same wounds, hoping that eventually they’d stop bleeding.

“We tried,” I whispered, though it sounded more like I was reminding myself than you.

You nodded slowly. “We tried so hard we broke parts of ourselves we didn’t know could crack.”

I blinked, hard. The tears were subtle at first, collecting in corners, waiting to fall. “So what, that’s it? We just live with the almost? With the ‘what if’?”

You nodded. “That’s all we ever had, isn’t it? A love that almost worked. That almost made it.”

The words felt like a closing door. A gentle one, maybe, but final all the same.

I turned away, eyes on the ocean. The waves crashed below us like they didn’t care about the weight of things unspoken. I envied them for that—how easily they let go, how effortlessly they moved on.

After a while, I said, “I wish we’d met later. When we were softer. When we knew how to stay.”

You didn’t say anything. Just reached out and laid your hand over mine—a quiet gesture, soft and full of memory. It held no promises, no expectations. Just a trace of who we were, and a silent apology for who we couldn’t be anymore.

The prolonged silence between us wasn’t uncomfortable—it was familiar. The kind that once filled car rides and downtown trips and quiet nights laying next to each other in bed. It was the kind of silence that said, I know you. I still know you.

The waves crashed below, as if to fill the space we couldn’t.

A single tear slipped down my cheek, quiet and unannounced—the kind that comes when you finally stop fighting what’s already true. I looked down at my hands, fidgeting with my fingers, anything to ground myself in the moment. That’s when my eyes landed on my wrist.

I paused. Looked. Remembered.

A small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, tired and a little sad. With a soft, breathy laugh—the kind that comes out more like an exhale—I said,

“You know, I still wear the bracelet you gave me…The navy and red one. With our initials beaded.”

You laughed quietly. “I told you to keep it.”

“I didn’t know you meant forever.”

Another pause.

“I didn’t know I meant forever either,” you said.

The dream began to unravel at the edges again—like a reel running out of film. The light started shifting, and I could feel the pull of morning creeping in.

I wanted to stay. Just a little longer.

But I knew better now.

So I looked at you one last time. Memorized you all over again. Not because I needed to—but because I wanted to.

And as the dream faded, I heard your voice one more time.

“Hey,” you said. I turned to look.

You smiled, soft and sad. “I hope you stop living for what might have been—and start living for what could still be.”

Then you were gone.