The world felt quieter now.
The chaos, the noise, the flashing lights of fame, they all seemed like echoes from another lifetime.
The city still moved, people still hurried, stories still began and ended, but for me… time had slowed into something tender, something sacred.
It had been months since everything changed, since I woke up, since the boundaries between dream and reality dissolved, since Ken became my constant again.
Not a fragment of a dream.
Not a figment of my imagination.
But real.
Solid.
Breathing.
Mine.
Sometimes, I'd wake up before him and just watch him sleep, the soft rise and fall of his chest, the faint crease between his brows that only disappeared when I brushed my fingers across his skin.
There were mornings where I'd whisper, half-teasing, half-in awe, "You're real, right?"
And he'd smile, eyes still closed, pulling me close. "I am. Always will be."
We didn't talk about the past much anymore, not about the coma, not about the dream, not about the universe that tried to separate us.
Some things didn't need to be dissected or explained.
Some things were meant to be felt.
Our love was one of them.
We moved through life gently, carefully, like people who had been given a second chance and didn't want to waste a second of it.
There were late-night drives to nowhere, movie nights that ended with burnt popcorn and laughter, lazy mornings tangled in sheets and sunlight.
And sometimes, silence.
The kind that wasn't empty but full, full of understanding, full of gratitude, full of love that didn't always need words.
There were moments, though, when I'd stand by the window, looking out at the city lights, and wonder:
Was that all real? The other life.
The small apartment.
The cigarettes I quit.
The loneliness that led me to him.
But then, Ken would come up behind me, wrap his arms around my waist, and rest his chin on my shoulder. "You're thinking too much again," he'd murmur, lips brushing against my neck.
And I'd smile. "Maybe I'm just remembering."
"Then remember this," he'd say softly, turning me around, his gaze grounding me to this world. "We found each other once. We'll always find each other again."
I believed him.
Because maybe love wasn't just about meeting someone.
Maybe it was about recognizing a soul, in every lifetime, in every universe, in every version of yourself.
It wasn't luck that brought us together.
It wasn't fate in the fairytale sense.
It was something deeper, something older.
Like the universe itself had written our names side by side long before we were born.
And even if it tried to separate us, even if it placed us in different worlds, different dreams, different timelines, it couldn't undo what was already written.
Because when two souls are meant to meet, they will.
In this life.
In the next.
In every version that exists.
So if I ever wake up again somewhere unfamiliar, a city I don't know, a face I've never seen, a world that feels foreign, I'll look for him.
And I know, without a doubt, that he'll find me too.
Because I once thought it would be somewhere we never met.
But now I know, it was somewhere we always met.
Always.
Again and again.
Until the universe runs out of time.