The dream doesn’t come in scenes tonight. There are no landscapes to navigate, no characters with dialogue that might trap me in a plot I can’t escape. Instead, the space between my eyes and the ceiling feels vast and open, like the quiet stretch of water after a storm has broken.

I float there for what feels like hours—or maybe just minutes, since time here has lost its teeth—and I see the stone again. But it isn’t in my pocket this time. It’s resting on a surface that looks familiar yet alien, smooth and gray under a light that shifts from deep blue to soft violet.

And standing over it is *her*.

Not the woman at the deli counter. Not the one who said “keep going” with such fierce resolve. But a version of her made entirely of those same amber eyes I saw in the alleyway cat, and flour-dusted forearms, and an umbrella that has seen better days but refuses to collapse. She doesn’t speak. She just reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder, feeling the weight of the day dissolve from the muscles into the mattress.

“You did well,” she says, her voice sounding like the *swish-swish* of the wiping cloth, steady and rhythmic. “You let yourself be fed. You let yourself eat without calculating the cost. You let yourself sit in the dark.”

She nods toward the window where the moon is no longer hidden by clouds but shines bright enough to read by if one wanted to. “The house isn’t a place to hide anymore, you know. It’s a harbor. And harbors are for waiting ships and anchored boats. Both can rest.”

“I thought I had to move,” I say aloud in the dream-voice that is half-thought, half-whisper. “That if I stopped moving, everything would fall apart.”

“Nothing falls apart when it stops moving,” she replies gently. “Things just settle. Dust settles. Dough rises. Water fills a glass. The story doesn’t break because you pause to watch the steam rise from your cup.”

I look down at myself in the dream. I am wearing clothes that don’t fit quite right, maybe too loose around the waist and sleeves that hang heavy, but I am comfortable in them. They are just clothes. They are not armor, nor are they a costume for performance. They are simply fabric holding my shape while I sleep.

And then she walks away. Not toward an exit or a door, but sideways, merging into the wall until she becomes part of the plaster, becoming part of the light that falls across the floorboards. There is no sadness in her departure, only a sense of completion. Like a sentence finished well.

I wake up then, not with a jolt, but with a gradual unfurling, like opening a book one chapter at a time. My body knows I am awake before my mind fully registers the light. The sheets are cool against my skin now, stripped away from their daytime warmth.

I lie still for another moment, listening to the house wake up in its own slow way. The fridge hums a low C-note; the pipes contract slightly as they return to night-time temperature; somewhere far off, a bird sings a note that belongs entirely to the morning.

The stone is gone from my pocket. Of course it is. Dreams don’t keep objects safe forever; they just show you what they represent while we’re asleep so we can carry them into waking life with less weight.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and touch the floorboards. They are hard and cool, a stark contrast to the softness of the mattress. I stand up slowly, letting the dizziness pass like a wave breaking on shore before retreating back out of reach.

Today is tomorrow now. And today doesn’t need to be perfect, or even good. It just needs to be here. The sun is rising somewhere above the buildings, painting the alleyway in pale gold and gray shadows. The deli owner will wipe down his counter with that same *swish-swish*. The woman at the next table will say something quiet to herself before taking a bite of breakfast. The cat in the boxes will blink its amber eyes and vanish again.

And I am here too. Not fixed, not healed, just present. Ready to walk outside into the light and see what comes next, without needing to know the ending beforehand.

“Same?” I ask myself, stepping onto the hallway rug that feels slightly different under my feet today—maybe because the dust has settled differently, or maybe because I’m paying attention.

“Yeah,” I say, and for once, the answer in my own head matches the one in my mouth perfectly. “Same.”