The World of Almosts and Wishes

I always thought love was easy.

I don't know where I got that from. Maybe from the old cartoons I used to watch in a quiet room as the daylight slowly faded into darkness.

In those cartoons, the happily-ever-after was sealed with a true love's kiss, and people were tricked into believing that was it. As if that was all love ever needed. They didn’t show what came next.

Maybe the princess threw her socks around.

Maybe the prince spent his evenings at the nearest bar.

Maybe they fought over small things.

Maybe their true love suffocated them.

I guess they didn’t show it on purpose.

It wouldn’t help sell the kiss, would it?

Those cartoons should be banned.

They should be marked harmful and hidden in the darkest corners—far enough from a naive child’s heart. Far enough not to spark that stubborn little hope that whispers every time the world around seems doomed. Far enough not to make the impossible feel like the biggest wish.

And even better, farther.

I always thought I knew everything about love. I don't know where I got that from. I didn’t even know what it was.

— Margaret’s diary

Margaret was in love. The desperate, burning kind—the one that only exists in books or old black-and-white films. The one that doesn’t need reason or explanation.

Andrew, her neighbor and childhood best friend, knew about it. He found her feelings unreasonable. He was sure soon enough they’d pass.

William, a boy a year above them—and the center of Margaret's quiet obsession—knew nothing about all of that and lived peacefully.

But her feelings persisted all the way from elementary school to the day when they all were about to leave those years behind.

The situation hadn't changed much, and Andrew was still convinced it never would.

And again, he was wrong.

That morning, she was getting ready for school. He was sitting in her chair while she spun in front of the mirror.

“Is this dress better than the last one?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

It was probably Andrew’s favorite answer—and certainly his most used one.

Sometimes, he meant it. But most of the time, he'd just hide behind it. Because otherwise, it would be admitting that he wanted something. In his opinion, saying it out loud would give it undeniable shape, expose it to judgment, demand something from him. And if he failed to act on it—it would unavoidably make him look like a failure in everyone’s eyes, including his own.

When one doesn't choose, the choice is made for them. And he was okay with it.

His friendship with Margaret fit neatly in that philosophy, so he followed her everywhere, like a shadow. Sometimes he felt like she saw him as one—unnoticeable but always present.

With that, he was also fine.

In the end, she was his. Even if she didn't see it yet.

No one ever understood her the way he did. And one day, she’d see that.

For now, Margaret noticed only her own annoyance.

But she continued, "The trip is going to be great. There will be… boys from another school, some football players."

"I don't like…" he trailed off, catching her implication.

No point trying to argue that. He pinched the bridge of his nose. She wasn't even listening anymore.

"I don't want to go,” he muttered.

But—as always—he followed her.

The bus ride to the forest camp was long and uneventful. Andrew was busy trying not to get carsick. Margaret was entertaining herself by counting the perfectly styled curls on William’s head. It was ridiculous.

A year ago, they would’ve talked the whole way and missed the road entirely.

After dinner and introductions, they were left to rest.

But Margaret was restless. Something in this house was luring her in. She could almost hear the forest whispering behind the window, calling to her. It was almost mystical.

She took a flashlight and went exploring an old mansion which now served as a dorm building.

Quietly, she walked around looking for the hidden signs of adventure until she noticed a rug in one of the rooms. Beneath it: a door in the floor. A cold stone staircase led down to a hidden library.

At the center was a massive book placed on a stand.

She was turning pages filled with drawings of flowers, castles, and strange creatures hiding in the magic green of this forest. One of them made her pause. It was an oak. Its drawing took the entire page. It was standing there like royalty, trying to reach outside the page with its strong, crooked branches. Enchanted, Margaret was absorbing every word of the oak's legend.

The Tree of the Greatest Wish.

She was still reading when a sudden noise upstairs startled her. She ran up, hiding the evidence just in time.

She was fighting her face not to look caught red-handed and was already rehearsing an explanation, when she realized the other person was William.

He looked at her for a second then smiled, relieved. "Another adventurer, I assume."

The rest of the night they spent talking and flipping through books in the hidden library. He asked her out for a date—during the hiking trip.

He said he hated hiking.

Margaret awkwardly smiled and said she did too, which Andrew would instantly spot as a badly executed lie.

At sunrise, she burst into Andrew’s room, spilling every detail: the library, the oak, William, the date.

She jumped around like fire while Andrew was getting paler.

Then she left, just as suddenly.

To be fair, the date was nice. They watched a movie in the common room.

Until the peace was shattered by the chaos of the group coming back earlier.

Their instructor was shouting for space on the sofa as Andrew carried in a girl from another school—she’d tripped over the root of a giant oak, following Andrew to its stem.

“My oak,” Margaret thought, pierced with jealousy. "He led her to my oak."

Their eyes met. Her indignation vanished under a wave of embarrassment. She tried to dismiss this unreasonable feeling and rushed to her room, hiding her rosy cheeks.

Four days passed.

They didn’t speak. Didn’t even pass by each other.

She never noticed his presence—his absence she felt sharply.

The trip was coming to an end, but all her thoughts were consumed with the look in his eyes when they last met.

Since they were kids, Andrew had never gone a day without reaching out. Something definitely was off, but she couldn't force herself outside the room.

It wasn't her responsibility to check on him, was it?

And yet she couldn't fight that sticky feeling.

Something changed.

That girl was cute, and she couldn't quite tell why it even mattered. Any thought of William in her head was completely gone after years of him living there rent-free. Now that she actually had what she was dreaming about, she didn't feel like wanting it anymore.

She went downstairs to the kitchen to make hot chocolate, just like her mom used to, whenever her mind wouldn’t let her sleep. And she saw them. The way the girl looked at him, she saw him—and he seemed to like it.

She loved him better.

They were laughing, genuinely, happily.

And then she reached to kiss him.

Margaret dropped the jar with cocoa powder, and before she knew it, her legs were carrying her into the whispering, watching forest.

She ran blindly, unable to stop, cursing every tree with its roots and sharp grass, when she suddenly remembered the story she'd read in that weird book.

"Tree, I need to find a tree," she thought, "The Tree of the Greatest Wish."

She didn't know how long she had been wandering through the thickets. Her legs were hurting, the sun had long since set, and her phone was about to die.

Margaret wanted to go back, but all the turns were the same; she felt like she was walking in circles, the forest refusing to let her go. The path she walked had forked behind her without her noticing. The trees whispered like they knew her name, but not in the right voice.

It twisted and turned until she was lost.

She lost him.

All that remained was the tree. And she decided to find it.

When she was about to collapse, the trees and bushes parted and revealed a giant old oak, mottled with words like a canvas. She walked around it, admiring its might and quiet… longing? Or was it pain? The tree carried almost a sorrow, etched in every scar left by the deepest, most desperate human desires carved into its thick bark. And one of them was her name.

She looked at a faint inscription, almost as if it were embarrassed by its secret, slightly crooked writing.

It was his.

She traced the letters gently and passed out.

When Margaret opened her eyes, she was in a big, empty hallway with lots of doors.

“Be aware of what you wish for,” the sound echoed, bouncing through the space.

“And what it costs.”

With all her courage, she turned the handle of one of them, and the light from the inside blinded her. When Margaret was finally able to see again, she found herself near the big old tree they had behind the school. "I remember this place," she whispered to herself. The tree had been cut down years ago—but here it was, exactly like in her memory.

She froze for a second, trying to understand what was happening, and noticed a boy nervously pacing. He was looking into the chaos of the branches at the very top. Margaret followed his gaze and looked at… herself, but way younger. It was indeed a memory. She had been pushed to the very top by the idea of touching the sky. Back then, she'd dismissed Andrew's arguments against it as cowardice; now, she realized they were quite reasonable.

"He doesn't understand," she thought back then.

But despite how much he disagreed, he never left her side.

And when her leg slipped and she started falling, with no hesitation, he ran to catch her. She walked away mostly unhurt. He broke a rib.

She remembered thinking, “He’s so weak.”

Maybe she wasn't quite right both times.

The realization stuck in her throat with a growing lump. Her head spun, and in a split second, Margaret was in the hospital where Andrew had been taken after the accident. He stayed there for several days. His parents forbade them from talking, but she sneaked into his room.

“Bring me my album, please,” he asked.

His album with pictures and notes he'd made. The one he fiercely protected and hid. She'd often try to steal it, not out of curiosity – she thought she knew everything about him – but simply to annoy him.

But this time, he told her in detail where it was, making sure she'd find it, and told her deliberately not to open it, subtly hoping she would do the opposite.

She didn't.

In her memory, she had simply handed it to him and left.

But this Margaret, the one reliving the moment, found herself turning pages filled with slowly burning love confessions. To her. With words only she would understand, his quiet love, coded in their shared language.

She ran into his room and fell in his arms. He sighed slightly, protecting his injured rib, and with a warm smile, hugged her back.

The grown Margaret tried to hold back tears.

Suddenly, she moved somewhere else. It was the cemetery. She saw herself again, but older, and realized it was the future. Her older self was standing in front of a grave.

Margaret came closer and read:

“To my best friend and beloved husband.”

His name beneath.

She stumbled back in horror.

Back into the hallway.

The door disappeared.

She ran hectically from door to door, finding memories behind them. But they all were rewritten. Somewhere she finally saw him—but lost him anyway, over and over again. Others, where he hated her, forgot her. The ones where he was with someone else.

But in every version where he lived, she had let him go.

Exhausted, she was standing in a hallway while the question echoed from the walls.

“What will you choose?”

Her vision spun. Everything went dark.

She woke up, disturbed by a loud voice steeped with worry and fear, calling her name. His voice.

The night air smelled of spring flowers and warm humidity, filling her lungs with a sweet scent. She was no longer in the hallway, but she wasn’t quite sure whether she was in the forest either.

She looked up.

Andrew's eyes hovered over her—filled with that expression he always wore when she did something reckless.

So, almost always.

"I saw your face in the kitchen. I should have told you, but you ran off so fast. I froze and then I couldn't see you anymore. You scared me so much," he said, his voice shaking. "I am so happy I found you. What if I hadn’t?"

She reached up, covering his lips with her palm.

“You did,” she whispered. “You always do.”

For a long moment, they just looked at each other—like they met for the first time.

The night was generously sowing the stars across the sky. Who could know how many universes lay hidden in that endless depth? In choices not made. In people who love us—and miss us. In almosts and in what-ifs.

Maybe one of those universes never even got to know them together.

Maybe that was the best choice behind one of the doors.

Her head was resting on Andrew's chest.

Maybe in another world, they never even met. And maybe they are truly happy somewhere.

She listened to his slowing heartbeat, his deepening breath, as he was falling asleep.

It's definitely worth exploring, Margaret thought.

Tomorrow.

Tonight she wanted him to sleep.