Grinning at that idea, I reach for my wife and pull her to me. "Good morning, baby..."
I freeze when I touch her skin.
She's cold.
She's so cold and hard.
"Wendy?"
She looks like she's asleep, eyes closed, face completely slack in peace... but she's so goddamn cold.
Why is she so cold? Does she need more blankets? I'll cuddle her close, I'll use my body heat to warm her up. She always runs a little cold, which's why I usually wake up to find her plastered to me.
But she's never like this. Why is she this cold? I pull her flush toward me, but her body is stiff; there's no flexing of her arms or legs.
She's stiff.Whyis she so stiff?
"Wendy..." I choke out, pulling her toward me and rubbing her arms, her torso, her face. "Baby, no..."
There's only one reason why someone would be that stiff. My brain rejects it even as my soul knows.
"No. No. Please don't go..." I beg her, my hands cupping her cold face, shaking her and willing her to open up those beautiful green eyes, to look at me, to smile at me, to see me, toforgive me for everything I didn't do right.
But she doesn't, no matter how hard I shake her, no matter how much I beg and plead.
She's dead.
"It's not real... it's not real...." I shake my head, not willing to believe it. Denial crashes into terror as I try to shake her a few more times.
When I finally find the courage, I place shaky fingers at her neck and feel... nothing.
"Baby, please, I'm so sorry..." I apologize, tears welling and falling fast down my cheeks, hitting her pale, gray-tinted skin. I wrap her further in my arms, burying my face in her neck, and I weep, grief ripping through me so violently I can barely breathe.
My wife, my Wendy, my baby, my entire fucking soul.
"Atlas!"
I freeze, pulling my face back as hope swells and then dies when I see her unmoving face. I heard her voice, muffled like I'm underwater, but I heard it.
"Please don't leave me..." I beg once more, because it's the only thing I'm capable of saying right now.
"Atlas!"
My eyes snap open, the room that was just bathed in early sunlight now completely dark. Everything blurs together, still half-in and half-out of the nightmare. My heart slams against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
I quickly become very aware of the position I'm in, my arm around Wendy, pressing her even tighter to me.
Her hands are on my face—her warm, soft hands are on my face, stroking my cheeks. I'm closer to her than I've been in too long, and all I need to do is lean forward a couple of inches, press my lips to hers, and kiss my wife like I'm dying to.
I don't, still locked in some hazy spell from the nightmare, adrenaline, and terror vibrating my bones.
Closing my eyes, I exist in this moment where there is no fear, where the last year didn't happen, and the entire worldis just us in this house—me and my wife, our sons sleeping peacefully in their bedrooms.
No death, no worry, nothing can touch us.
This is the lie my brain needs to keep going.
Then she presses her lips to my forehead, kissing it sweetly, and I nearly come undone. I grasp onto the moment desperately, trying to hold onto this peace, but the harder I pull, the more it slips away.
