The Door of Unmade Choices: Chapter 25

 

Chapter 25 — The Door Weakens

The first door disappeared while a man was still talking to it.

He was mid-sentence—something about if I’d just stayed—when the frame thinned like breath on cold glass. The door became translucent. Then it was just… gone.

The man finished his sentence anyway. He stood there blinking, mouth still slightly open, hand hovering where the handle should be. He looked embarrassed, like he’d been caught sneaking into the part of an old video rental stores where they used to hide the pornos.

Frank watched from across the street.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

“I did,” I said. “Door ghosted him.”

“That feels… rude.”

“Doors aren’t big on closure. Ironic, I know.”

The man muttered something under his breath and walked away, shoulders slumped, but lighter somehow. Like someone who finally said the thing they’d been rehearsing for years, only to realize there was no audience left.

We kept walking.

There were fewer doors that day. Not gone yet but diminished. Less confident. One flickered like a bad fluorescent light. Another looked warped, the grain bending inward, as if the wood itself was reconsidering its life choices.

Frank noticed it too. He was quieter, but not in the way he used to be—this wasn’t the coiled, desperate silence. It’s the kind you get after crying hard and drinking water and realizing the world didn’t end while you weren’t looking.

A woman across the street opened her door—her real door—and stepped outside with a cup of coffee. She froze when she saw the what-if door faintly hovering beside her porch, almost polite.

She studied it for a moment, then said, “No,” very calmly but firmly.

The door faded like it’s been scolded.

Frank exhaled. A laugh almost escaped from him, then thinks better of it.

“So… this is because of me, isn’t it?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said. “The doors feed on unresolved longing. You were basically an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“Were?”

I glanced at him. He was standing straighter. The sadness and fatigue were still there but he was present, anchored.

“Yeah,” I said. “Past tense.”

We passed a hardware store where there used to be three doors.: Startup Life, Marriage-That-Worked, Version-Of-You-With-Better-Hair. Now there was only one small, narrow door. Barely noticeable unless you’re looking for it. Frank stopped

“What’s that one?” he asked

I studied it carefully. No pull. No hunger. No pressure.

“That,” I said, “is a door that only opens if you’re not running from something.”

He nodded like he understood but I knew he didn’t. He wisely chose not to touch it.

As we headed back toward The Perpetual Egg, another door vanished mid-creak behind us, the sound cutting off like a record scratch from a universe that no longer exists. Frank flinched.

“Do you think they’re mad?” he asks. “I kinda feel like they’re mad at me.

“They’re hungry,” I said, “and you’re starving them.”

He smiled at that. A real one. The kind that shows up without checking to see if it’s allowed.

Inside the diner, the air felt less charged. Like the pressure before a storm finally broke somewhere else. Frank slid into the booth and we both ordered coffees. When they arrived, he slapped his hands around his mug like it was an anchor point.

“I still think about them,” he said. “The lives. The versions.”

“Of course you do.”

“But it doesn’t feel like I have to chase them anymore.”

I nodded. “Nostalgia’s fine. Obsession’s where things get grabby.”

He watched steam curl up from his mug. “So, what happens now?”

I glanced out the window. Across the street, a door flickered, tried to solidify, then gave up entirely. It vanished before it could finish becoming anything.

“Now,” I said, “the doors weaken.”

Frank considered that. Then, quieter: “And if one comes back?”

I met his eyes.

“Then you’ll know the difference between wanting to look and needing to leave.”

He nodded as if he understood. And this time, I believed he did.

Outside, the street looked almost normal except for one last door lingering at the far end of the block, pale and unsure, like it was waiting to see if it was still welcome in this version of the world. It wasn’t.

And it knew it.

 *****

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