Natalya
Present
The stone railing on the balcony is my favorite part of this place. When it rains, like now, the raindrops slide slowly down the stone, shimmering paths as they go and collide like two little soulmates. They darken the surface for a second, soak into it, and then vanish.
There’s something oddly hypnotizing about it. The kind of thing I can stare at for too long without realizing time is still moving.
It’s not a thick rain today, but it still leaves a thin, wet sheen hanging in the air, like the world has been gently varnished.
Rain always makes me feel better.
It feels like nobody is rushing me and the world has collectively agreed to lower its expectations. I can sit here and listen to the rain pattering without anyone watching me or judging the way I find stupid and insignificant things fascinating.
With my head resting against one knee, I let my other leg dangle lazily over the armrest of the sofa chair.
I dragged the chair right up to the balcony close enough so I could see outside while talking with her. I also need to sit weirdly to feel relaxed, never the correct way. One leg has to be up, or sideways, or hanging off something. If my body isn’t arranged wrong, my head won’t settle.
“Can you tell me what day it is today?” she asks somewhere behind me.
I don’t turn around. She doesn’t demand eye contact or posture or proof that I’m paying attention, which I find very pleasing. She just sits there and lets me do my thing as long as I answer her from time to time.
Her voice is soft and calm, it’s becoming pleasant. Sometimes it’s soothing enough for me to forget she’s even here. And then I stand up to go to the bathroom or reach for something, and—whoa—there she is.
I almost laugh, but then I remember she asked me something.
What day it is.
What day is it?
I repeat it silently, like that might summon an answer, but it doesn’t. The days blur together, stacking on top of each other without labels. Morning, night, rain, quiet. That’s usually as specific as it gets.
Well, I’m not sure, so I just say that.
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s okay,” she chimes in instantly, her voice reassuring.
I don’t need anyone to assure me.
“I know it’s okay,” I add. “I genuinely don’t care what day it is, so…”
Why would I? Time feels optional. Like something other people participate in.
“Did you dream again?” she asks.
“Dream, memory, reality, my reality, illusion,” I mumble lazily.
The words line up neatly in my head, one after another, and still refuse to behave. Sometimes I can tell them apart—with certainty even, or at least I think I can. But maybe that confidence is an illusion and that’s the problem. The moment I’m sure, I’m probably wrong. It’s one huge cycle.
He taught me some tricks to tell which is which. If I want to know whether I’m dreaming, I can count my fingers. More than five means it’s a dream. Simple enough.
Except, what if my mind is generous enough to give me the correct number just to keep me compliant?
If I want to know whether it’s an illusion, I check the ceiling. It usually glitches or ignites. But then there’s the other problem. What if my mind keeps the ceiling perfectly still just to convince me it’s real? To trick me?
And memory? Memory is the biggest mess of all.
Sometimes I dream about a memory and inside that memory, there’s an illusion threaded through it.
All of it tangled together. And then I wake up, not knowing whether I woke up into reality, or into another dream, or into another memory pretending to be one.
I’m actually not even sure if I’m awake right now. It’s almost funny, really.
And who came up with this system anyway? How do people know which one is happening at any given moment? Is there some universal guide everyone else has access to? Some rulebook I missed? Because I don’t think so. I think we’re all just guessing and agreeing not to question it out loud.
And reality or illusion…it all becomes a memory anyway. Everything ends up there eventually.
It’s exhausting, trying to recognize one from another, constantly checking, verifying, and testing.
I’m so tired of it.
It’s much easier if I just go with it. If it’s a nice dream, or a nice memory, I indulge it. I stay inside it for as long as it lets me.
And when it’s a bad one, I change it. Sometimes deliberately, folding reality in on itself until it fits better. Sometimes it just happens on its own, without asking for my permission first.
“Natalya,” she says, snapping me out of the loop.
Poor woman. I forgot about her again.
“Yes?” I answer, finally turning around to look at her so I don’t lose her once more.
“Did you dream today?” she asks.
My mouth curls into a smile before I can stop it, and I turn back toward the balcony, keeping that smile to myself.
Well, yes. I did, I think. Or memorized, or hallucinated.
“Yes.”
“You’re smiling,” she says. “Was it a good dream?”
Oh yeah, definitely.
“Weirdly,” I tilt my head. “It was.”
“Weirdly?”
“He didn’t hurt me this time.”
“Who?”
“Lucien. That’s how he gets me out of it.”
“Can you tell me more about the dream?”
I swallow and glance to my side, toward the bed, as if the answer might still be lingering there. I keep circling the feeling, trying to name it. It felt like a dream, but something about it didn’t sit right.
For a dream, he was too different. He used to be younger, the boyish version.
This version wasn’t like that at all. He felt more worn and older. That’s why I’m leaning toward the possibility that it wasn’t a dream at all, but more like an illusion.
Fuck it. Who cares what it was. It was nice.
“So,” I begin, choosing my words carefully. “I met a new version of him.”
I pause, measuring how much of this I’m willing to give away. Most of it feels private and fragile. I definitely want to keep the details to myself.
“Was it Lucien or the other one?” she asks.
“The second,” I say flatly.
“Do you think he’s real?”
He was, at some point, or he used to be. Until he wasn’t.
Was he ever?
If I created him solely inside my own mind, then honestly… good job. That would be impressive. Unhinged, maybe, but impressive.
But I know I didn’t. There are too many memories and details with too much weight. I couldn’t have fabricated all of that from nothing. That feels impossible.
My chest tightens suddenly, like something is cinching around it from the inside. Pressure blooms behind my eyes, threatening to spill over.
Familiar pain.
I focus back on the balcony railing, trying to suppress the tears.
Stop.
I made it all up.
I close my eyes, enter that stupid head of mine and shut some drawers.
When I open my eyes again, it’s better and the pressure eases away.
“Natalya, do you think it was real?” She repeats the question.
“He behaves like he’s real,” I say at last. “Yeah.”
“But do you believe it?”
“No,” I answer instantly.
It comes out too fast. It’s a lie. I actually let the idea slip in for a moment, but it didn’t make any sense.
“Who cares if it’s happening in space and time or only inside my head?” I continue. “If the feelings are the same or even stronger? Is an experience somehow stripped of meaning just because it happens in my mind? I don’t think so. Not for me.”
She nods as if she’s sincerely appreciating my point of view.
“So you believe it happened in your head?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “But I don’t mind,” I add. “People should stay in their heads more. Use their mental space. The world would be so much quieter and more peaceful.”
“What happened to you, when he was here?”
I take a deep breath, trying to put it into words.
“Surroundings stayed still, colors didn’t dissolve, everything felt normal,” I say. “For once.”
I don’t get it. Everything felt different, the solid matter around us unmoving, undissolving and not igniting.
“It’s helpful, right?” she says.
“Of course it’s helpful,” I reply. “When the world stays still for once.”
I roll my eyes in annoyance.
“Did you not like that question?” she says through a smile. “Why?”
I instantly feel guilty when I realize she saw that.
“Because sometimes people talk to me like I’m a complete mental case,” I say.
She tilts her head, waiting for me to elaborate.
“Sure, I know I’m a little out of it,” I admit.
“I know I don’t play by the usual rules anymore.
Time and space don’t mean much to me these days and I’ve found my own ways of navigating things,” I throw my hands around, trying to explain myself.
“But aside from that, I’m still me. I can function normally.
I cook, I draw, I talk to people, I read a lot. I do all the mundane stuff.”
She nods.
“And I’m not fucking stupid or weak,” I add.
“I agree,” she says simply, giving me a genuine smile and I smile back, because she feels so nice and honest that I don’t have any other choice.
“When the world doesn’t stay still,” she says, “what’s usually the first thing you feel?”
I think for a second.
“Lots of things. Hard to choose one,” I shrug.
“Give me an example.”
I look around the room.
“Just some need for proof,” I explain.
“What kind of proof feels safest?” she asks.
Safest.
Well, that depends. Pain, shock, pressure, cold.
“Pressure,” I say. “Or sometimes a voice is enough if it’s familiar.”
I can hear her writing that down. Her pen quietly scratches against paper while I try to understand what she could possibly find interesting about that, about something that feels so obvious to me it barely qualifies as information.
We sit in silence for a few seconds and the rain gets louder.
“Before we stop, I want us to agree on one thing.”
I nod, cautious without knowing exactly why.
“If the world starts moving too fast,” she says, “you don’t have to prove anything and you don’t have to check everything. And you don’t have to decide what’s real.”
I frown. “Then what do I do?”
“You reach for something that doesn’t hurt.”
That sounds easier in theory, but fine.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“For today,” she says gently.
She gets up, then her gaze falls on the stack of drawings on the ground.
“Can I?” she asks, gesturing toward them.
“Yeah, sure,” I nod, standing up while she starts pulling the huge canvas out and putting them next to each other, as if she’s comparing them.
“What is it?” she asks when I look at them and realize almost all of the drawings are the same.
Only the structure changes, but the flame never does—a blaze twisted into the shape of the letter V, slowly consuming the surface beneath it while crimson veins creep outward from its edges, carrying the fire farther and farther across the page.
“That’s what I usually see when everything starts to fall apart,” I say, standing above the paintings, my hands folded on my chest.
She tilts her head, studying them more.
“It’s the ceiling when it ignites,” she concludes.
“Yeah.”
She gives me a soft smile before leaving. She really is nice. Young, and without the quiet authority older people seem to carry around, the kind I never learned to respect.
The second the doors close behind her, I head toward the bathroom, catching my reflection in the mirror and tilting my head, studying myself like I might spot something new if I look long enough.
I’m so pale I’ll blend into the walls soon.
I should ask Kiara to go running with me, or something. I’d love to go alone, but nobody ever lets me. And I’m not risking running away, that would end way too dramatically.
I stare at my reflection longer than necessary and my hand lifts on its own, grazing my neck, exactly the way he did. That warm touch felt too real, but it didn’t hurt and it didn’t leave any bruises on my throat.
Lucien always left bruises. He always made sure it’s visible enough who’s fucking me. He always gave me proof of pain so I knew exactly that it’s him and no one else.
But this was different. This felt like nostalgia.
I can’t help it but smile.