Butterflies in the Middle of the ChaosA Dream Too Real to Forget
Some dreams don't make sense when you try to explain them.
But they make perfect sense while you're living inside them.
This one began in a building I had never seen before, yet somehow knew my way around. The corridors were wide, full of voices, footsteps, half-open doors, and familiar faces appearing where they shouldn't have been. It felt like a school, a function, and an old memory had been folded into one place.
I had gone there with a friend.
At least, I thought I had.
One moment she was beside me, walking through the crowd with me, and the next, she was gone.
I stopped near the staircase, searching for her in between faces I hadn't expected to see again. Some belonged to people I once called close. Some still carried the softness of old friendships. Some carried the sting of things that had never properly healed.
I spoke to a few of them.
Politely.
Carefully.
The way you talk to people who know too much about the old version of you.
But even while I was trying to find my friend, my attention shifted.
Because I heard him.
Not clearly.
Not enough to know what he was saying.
But enough for my heart to recognize the voice before my mind did.
He was going downstairs.
I don't know what came over me, but I ran after him. I called out my friend's name, loudly, pretending I was only looking for her.
Maybe I was.
Maybe I wasn't.
Maybe a part of me wanted him to turn around.
He didn't.
He kept walking, as if my voice hadn't reached him at all.
And somehow, even in a dream, that tiny ignorance hurt.
By the time I reached the ground floor, my friend had already been found by the others. I should have stopped searching then, but I didn't. For one foolish minute, I kept pretending to look around, as if I had not already found the only person my eyes had been chasing.
I was wearing white.
So was he.
I noticed it with the kind of helpless attention I wished I didn't have.
There was a t-shirt and a shirt in my hands, and while I moved through the crowd, I passed near him. Close enough to feel the strange pull of his presence. Close enough to pretend it meant nothing.
That was the thing about him.
Even doing nothing, he made me aware of everything.
Later, I returned to my friends.
One of them leaned toward me and whispered that a girl nearby was pretty.
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the girl she was talking about didn't even seem real. I hadn't seen her face. I didn't know where she came from. She existed more like an idea than a person, something my mind had placed there for no reason at all.
But he was real.
At least in that moment, he felt real.
A little later, I changed into a black t-shirt.
When I looked at him from a distance, he was wearing black too.
It was ridiculous, noticing things like that.
It was even more ridiculous how much it mattered.
Then the mood around us shifted.
Something had happened with his friend.
People had gathered in small groups, whispering, judging, making the air heavier than it needed to be. He stood with him, trying to explain something, frustration sharp in his voice.
"If you don't want my help, say it clearly. I won't do it. I'll stand by you, but I won't waste my efforts for no reason."
I didn't know the whole matter then.
I only knew he sounded tired.
Not angry exactly.
Tired.
Like someone who had been trying to help and was slowly running out of patience.
A boy passed by, and I stopped him to ask what had happened. He told me his friend had known about some question papers, that people were saying things about him, that the marks everyone had praised suddenly had a shadow behind them.
It should have changed how I looked at the situation.
But it didn't.
Because when someone is your friend, the world can turn against them and your first instinct is still to stand where they can see you.
Maybe that was why he stayed beside him too.
A crowd gathered after that, and we tried to look through the spaces between shoulders.
There they were.
He and his friend.
Arm wrestling.
For a second, it seemed serious.
Then I saw it.
He wasn't even trying to win.
He was letting himself lose.
His friend pushed harder, celebrated too dramatically, and even tried to climb over him in victory. It was so stupid that all of us started laughing from a distance.
And in that moment, something softened.
The tension, the whispers, the heaviness—everything loosened a little.
He had lost on purpose.
Just to make his friend smile.
And I don't know why that small thing stayed with me.
Maybe because kindness looks different when it tries to hide itself.
One of my friends nudged me then, smiling like she knew exactly where my eyes had been.
"I still remember when you used to love him so much."
I smiled.
Not denying it.
Not accepting it either.
Just smiling the way people do when a truth is too old to argue with.
"Let's go," I said, because the matter seemed solved.
But we didn't leave.
Somehow, we ended up in a classroom.
Rows of desks stretched under pale light. Bags were scattered around. People moved lazily, as if they were waiting for another announcement, another reason to stay or leave.
He sat in the last row, toward the corner.
I wasn't sitting.
Of course I wasn't.
I was wandering around the room, pretending I had reasons to be near that side.
There was a bottle kept somewhere nearby. I picked it up and handed it to an old friend, someone who had once known me better than she did now.
She looked at me and smiled.
Not because of the bottle.
Because she understood.
Everyone always understands the things you try hardest to hide.
Then she walked to the desk ahead of him and sighed dramatically.
"All this stuff still needs to be packed. Who's going to do it?"
The answer came out of me too quickly.
"I'll help."
I hated how excited I sounded.
Before I could even move, another old friend cut in.
"Why will you do it? We don't even talk now. Move, I'll do it."
The words were simple.
The hurt wasn't.
It came suddenly, like a hand pressing on an old bruise.
I stepped back.
Not because I wanted to.
Because sometimes people remind you of your place before you even realize you were trying to enter.
I went to sit beside my friend, close enough that he was still in the same line of sight. My throat tightened before I could stop it. I started talking too fast, too emotionally, wiping my eyes with the tissue in my hand.
"She knew what she was doing. If the other one had no problem, why did she?"
I don't know whether he noticed.
I don't know whether he looked.
But others did.
I could feel their glances.
Soft.
Careful.
Kind in a way that made me want to cry more.
Then an announcement came.
All girls had to leave.
At first I thought it meant only a few.
My friend corrected me.
All girls.
She stood up first.
His friend stood too, passing by her in a way that looked almost like he had held her waist for a second. It was so sudden that both of us froze.
She went ahead and waited for me.
I stood too.
And that's when I saw him.
He was looking at me.
His head rested against one hand, body tilted slightly, eyes soft with mischief. A smile played on his lips as if he had seen everything and was waiting for me to say something first.
I laughed because I didn't know what else to do.
"What happened? You want to do the same thing too?"
His smile deepened.
"I can try. I want to."
For half a second, I forgot there were other people in the room.
Then he stood.
Before I could prepare myself, his hand reached my waist.
Gently.
Carefully.
Like he was joking, but not entirely.
Like he knew exactly what he was doing and still wanted to see how I would react.
He guided me forward and placed me near my friend.
That was all.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that should have made my heart behave the way it did.
But the warmth of his hand stayed.
It spread through me slowly, quietly, impossibly.
My thoughts scattered.
My breath caught.
My whole body seemed to pause around that one touch.
I don't know what the class thought.
I don't know who looked.
I don't know who smiled.
For once, I didn't care.
Because inside me, something was happening that felt too soft to explain and too big to ignore.
And then, because apparently I had lost all sense, I realized I had forgotten my bag.
My books.
My things.
Everything.
So we returned to the classroom.
Just the two of us.
The room felt different now.
Quieter.
Closer.
As if the world had stepped out for a while and left us with the mess I had forgotten.
My stuff was scattered everywhere.
He looked at it, then at me, half amused and half genuinely concerned.
"Is all of this yours?"
I smiled, embarrassed.
He started packing it for me.
One thing after another.
Books.
Papers.
Small things I didn't even remember bringing.
"How were you planning to carry all this?"
I didn't answer.
I just watched him.
Because there was something so dangerously sweet about the way he did it.
No big words.
No dramatic promises.
Just him, quietly gathering the things I had left behind.
Maybe that was why my heart felt so full.
Because sometimes care doesn't announce itself.
Sometimes it simply zips your bag and asks how you were planning to carry the weight alone.
Someone called out from the corridor.
The moment cracked.
He looked away, finishing the last zipper.
And just like that, the dream began to fade.
The classroom blurred.
The voices softened.
The warmth of his hand was the last thing that stayed.
When I woke up, morning had already taken him away.
But the feeling remained.
Like butterflies.
Right in the middle of all that chaos.