The silence was heavy, like a thick blanket draped over the room. Darkness clung to the corners, untouched by the faint light peeking through the window. Then—suddenly—a loud sound shattered the stillness.
"Ann!" a voice called out sharply, yanking me from the edge of a dream.
It was my mother. Her voice echoed again, firmer this time, filled with urgency. "Ann! Wake up! You're going to be late!"
I blinked, dazed, my heart still pounding from the remnants of what I'd just experienced. The dream had felt so real—too real. I could still feel the warmth of his hand in mine, hear his soft laughter in my ears, see the way he had looked at me like I was the only one in the world. We had been walking down a quiet street, beneath cherry blossom trees that danced in the wind. Everything about that dream had been perfect—unbelievably perfect.
But it was all a lie.
It wasn't real.
As I sat up in bed, a hollow ache settled in my chest. Reality returned like a cold slap, and with it, a sharp pain that tore through my heart. I could feel it breaking—shattering into a thousand tiny, invisible pieces. How could something imagined feel so deeply? So heartbreakingly true?
My mother's voice came again from the kitchen, this time with a little more frustration. "Ann, come on! You're going to miss your computer class!"
I forced myself out of bed, my movements slow, as though I was dragging the weight of my broken hopes behind me. I got dressed quickly, barely paying attention to what I was putting on. My thoughts were elsewhere—stuck in that dream, stuck on him.
When I stepped outside and reached the classroom, my eyes instinctively searched for him. And there he was—standing by the door, chatting with someone, laughing. But the boy I saw wasn't the one from my dream. His eyes didn't hold the same softness. His smile wasn't meant for me. His whole presence felt distant, unfamiliar, like a stranger in the body of someone I once thought I knew.
He looked at me for the briefest of moments—a quick, emotionless glance. No spark. No warmth. Just… nothing.
And in that nothingness, I realized the truth I had been too blind to see: he never loved me.
He never saw me the way I saw him.
All those moments I had held on to, all those little signs I had overanalyzed, hoping they meant something more—they were all illusions I had built in my mind, carefully crafted into a story I desperately wanted to be true.
I felt foolish.
I had allowed a dream to convince me of a lie. I had poured so much of my heart into a fantasy that the reality now felt unbearable. He hadn't changed. He had always been like this. It was me who had changed—who had dared to hope, who had dared to believe in something that never truly existed.
As I sat down in the classroom and opened my laptop, I stared at the screen, my mind still swirling with the fading traces of my dream. I knew I had to move on. I knew I had to let go of the version of him I had created in my mind.
But it still hurt.
Because even lies can feel real when they come from the heart.
And sometimes, the most painful truths are the ones we wake up to.