***

“My cousin and I both remember a room that apparently doesn’t exist.

When we were both around 10, my cousin was having family problems, and my mom invited her to stay with us while it got sorted out. It was pretty fun, kind of like having a temporary sister. We ended up talking about it a few years ago, reminiscing about the weird things we would do together and some of the memories that stood out the most, among them the night we stayed up laughing at my golden retriever, who kept trying to steal my pillow off the bottom bunk when we were trying to get to sleep.

Only problem was, we didn’t have a dog, and I never had a bunk bed. For whatever reason, I’d never considered how little sense the memory made. Thinking maybe she was just going along with the story, I asked her what color the bedframe was. She thought about it for a second and then answered ‘red’. She was right.

According to my mom, we never stayed over at anyone else’s house — and even if we had, I still remember what her friends’ houses looked like. None of them had red bunk beds. I still have no idea what happened.”