Jason woke up to find Charlemagne in her usual position, arm draped over him with her face nuzzled into his shoulder. He smiled, planted a kiss that wouldn’t wake a baby on her forehead, and carefully slid out of bed.

Apparently, not carefully enough. “Morning already?” she murmured, her eyes still closed. Even half-asleep, she was a vision that took his breath away—her skin glowing softly in the morning light, her hair a golden halo around her face, and her lips slightly parted as if on the verge of whispering sweet secrets.

“Morning,” he replied, his voice tinged with a subtle sadness she didn’t catch, her consciousness still straddling the border between the dreamworld and reality. “I love you.”

“Love you back,” she said, stretching before getting up.

---

Jason was one of the fortunate few who absolutely loved his job, but today, the office had become a foreign landscape, a maze of cubicles and faces that seemed to blur into a monochrome palette of insignificance. His normally tidy desk was utter chaos: a stack of unattended paperwork on one side, unanswered emails piling up on his computer screen, and a coffee mug that had seen better days.

Amanda, his coworker and the closest thing he had to a friend at work, noticed his sudden transformation. “Jason, are you alright?” she probed, eyes narrowing with concern.

Jason looked up, realizing only then how deeply he had been lost in thought. “I’m fine,” he managed, forcing his lips into something resembling a smile. “Just a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

Amanda wasn’t easily fooled. “If you need to talk, I’m here.”

Jason hesitated. He had never been one to share his personal life at work, but the growing strain was becoming a behemoth he could no longer ignore. “It’s complicated,” he finally said, his eyes dropping to the keyboard. “But thanks, Amanda. I’ll keep that in mind.”

His computer monitor stared back at him, a blank canvas that mirrored the emptiness he felt within. His thoughts continually drifted to Charlemagne, the love he couldn’t explain and the secret he couldn’t share.

---

Back home, the evening unfolded like a well-rehearsed play, each act imbued with a sense of comforting familiarity. Jason and Charlemagne stepped into the kitchen, a symphony of slicing and sautéing beginning almost immediately.

“So, pesto or marinara?” Jason asked, looking over an array of ingredients.

“Let’s go with pesto tonight,” Charlemagne decided, her eyes twinkling. “You know how much I love it.”

With that, he started grinding basil leaves in a mortar while she focused on finely chopping garlic. Soon, the kitchen was filled with the intoxicating aromas of fresh herbs and spices.

As they cooked, their hands occasionally touched, sending sparks of warmth through Jason’s body. When dinner was ready, they sat down to enjoy the pasta, both relishing the homemade pesto that seemed to taste better with each bite.

After dinner, they settled on the couch, a bowl of popcorn between them, and turned on that comedy show they both loved. Laughter filled the room as they lost themselves in the humor, Charlemagne snorting out loud at a particularly funny scene, causing Jason to laugh even harder.

“God, I needed that,” Charlemagne said, wiping away a tear of mirth.

“Me too,” Jason agreed, his eyes meeting hers. For a moment, the world outside ceased to exist. It was just the two of them, bound by a happiness so pure it was almost ethereal.

They closed the evening with their nightly ritual of sitting on the porch. But tonight, concern etched Charlemagne’s features as she sensed Jason’s internal struggle. “You seem distant,” she remarked.

Jason looked deep into her eyes, eyes he had gotten lost in so many times before. “I have something to tell you, but I’m terrified it will change everything,” he hesitated, his voice quivering with tension.

Charlemagne furrowed her brows, her eyes filled with concern. “Okay, now you’ve got me worried. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Jason took a deep breath and mustered every ounce of courage he had. “Charlemagne… you’re not real.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“You’re a sort of figment of my imagination, a dream I’ve clung to for so long, wished for so hard, that you finally became real to me.”

“Do you hear yourself?” She pulled back, looking at him incredulously. “Are you aware of how insane you sound right now?”

“You know everything I know because you’re an extension of me. If you look within yourself deep enough, you’ll know what I’m saying is true.”

For a long moment, Charlemagne didn’t react. Her expression shifted from disbelief to introspection. It was as if she were undergoing her own existential crisis, grappling with the staggering implication that she might not be real, despite her emotions, thoughts, and burgeoning self-awareness.

“If I’m not me, then who am I?” she asked, her eyes searching his for an answer, any answer.

Jason sighed, his gaze dropping to the floor as if the truth were too heavy to carry. “You’re an amalgamation, a composite of women I’ve loved or thought I loved. All failed relationships. I took the best parts of them—their kindness, intelligence, the way they made me feel loved—and I constructed you, the perfect mate for me.”

Charlemagne’s face contorted with a mix of fascination and horror. “So I’m what? A Frankenstein of your failed romances? A living highlight reel?”

“I wouldn’t think of it that way,” Jason said, his voice tinged with a sadness that seeped into his words. “You’re far more than that. You became someone I could talk to, laugh with, share my life with.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?”

“Because our relationship was so fragile then. I was afraid you’d vanish into thin air, and I’d never be able to get you back.”

“Why tell me now?” she asked with a voice filled with a vulnerability he had never heard before.

“The longer I kept this from you, the heavier it weighed on me. It’s a terrible thing to love a dream so much you can’t bear to wake up.”

Charlemagne’s eyes narrowed, clearly conflicted. “But I feel real…I feel alive…and now I’m stuck in this existential paradox. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be suddenly aware of your own unreality? What does that even make me?”

Jason reached out, taking her hand. It felt as warm as it always had—almost real. “You’re more real to me than anyone I’ve ever known. In my heart, you’re irreplaceable.”

The night air was silent except for their breathing, each trying to make sense of a love that transcended the boundaries of reality and illusion.

Charlemagne’s eyes bore into Jason’s, a turbulent sea of emotion and conflict behind them. “Have you ever stopped to consider what it feels like to be told you’re not real?” she asked, her voice tinged with an existential melancholy. “To suddenly question your own thoughts, emotions, the very fabric of your consciousness?”

Jason felt the weight of her words sink deep into him. For a moment, he closed his eyes, plunging himself into an existential abyss. He thought of Charlemagne—her laughter, her warmth, the love he felt emanating from her—and how all of that might be unreal. Then he pondered the concept of unreality itself, the unfathomable chasm that separates existence from non-existence. If she was unreal, then what did it say about him? What did it say about the universe where such love, such vivid emotions, could be mere illusions?

Finally, he spoke, his voice thick with newfound understanding. “I can’t even begin to grasp the depth of what you’re going through. Being confronted with your own unreality must be like looking into an abyss that reflects nothing back.”

Charlemagne studied him with a serious but inscrutable expression as if measuring the sincerity of his words. Then her lips parted, and she said something he would never forget.

“Good. Now, I have something to tell you, Jason…I’m not the one who isn’t real.”