I dreamt in grey that night.
The air felt heavy, the kind that sits on your chest like forgotten memories. I was walking through a cemetery, but I didn’t recognize it. Still, my feet knew where to go. The gravel under my shoes crunched softly, almost like it was trying to tell me something. Somewhere, off in the distance, wind chimes clinked out of rhythm, unsettling in their discord.
My heart beat too loudly.
And then I saw him.
Wyatt.
He stood beside a grave I couldn’t read, his hands in his coat pockets, staring at me with those familiar dark eyes. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He just lifted his hand and waved, slow and deliberate.
“Wyatt?” I called out, stepping closer. “What are you doing here?”
But before he could answer, the ringing started.
I gasped awake, my heart leaping into my throat. The darkness of my bedroom felt suffocating. I looked beside me. Wyatt wasn’t there. His side of the bed was still cold, untouched. Panic crawled up my spine. I reached for my phone, my hands trembling, my mind still lost in that strange dream.
An unknown number flashed on the screen.
“Hello?” My voice was shaky, barely my own.
A woman’s voice answered, cold, clinical, detached.
“Good evening, ma’am. I’m sorry to inform you, but your husband…”
Her words hung in the air like a heavy fog, suffocating me.
“What? What do you mean? Wyatt’s supposed to be home. He worked the late shift. He should be here by now!” My voice cracked, the terror creeping in.
“I… I’m so sorry,” she said, and then there was a pause, followed by a faint click. “I believe I’ve called the wrong number. Please forgive me.”
Before I could say another word, she hung up.
I sat in the dark, my breath shallow, mind racing. I checked the time: 4:17 A.M. Wyatt’s shift was supposed to end an hour ago. No call. No text. He wasn’t home.
I swung my legs out of bed, my feet hitting the cold floor. I needed something—water, anything to steady the shaking in my hands. The house felt too quiet, too still, like it was holding its breath with me.
That’s when I saw him.
Through the kitchen window, the moonlight caught something that made my stomach drop. Wyatt. Floating face down in the backyard pool.
My scream got stuck in my throat.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Then, something inside me snapped into action. I threw open the sliding door with a force that made it bang against the frame, and I ran across the wet grass, barefoot, my skin stinging from the cold.
“Wyatt!” I cried, but it was more of a sob. “Wyatt, no!”
He was still. Silent. Wrong.
I fell to my knees at the edge of the pool, my hands shaking as I fumbled for my phone. It almost slipped from my grip twice before I finally managed to hit 911.
“Emergency services, what’s your emergency?” The operator’s voice was calm, but my panic made everything feel like it was moving in slow motion.
“My husband!” I gasped, struggling for air. “He’s not breathing! He’s in the pool! I need an ambulance! Now!”
I put the phone on speaker and plunged both arms into the water, dragging him out of the pool. He was heavy—so heavy, like the world had already started taking him from me.
When I pulled him onto the grass, his body hit the ground with a sickening thud. His skin was cold, his lips a sickly blue. His chest didn’t rise. His eyes didn’t flutter. He wasn’t breathing.
“No! No, no, no! Wyatt! Please!” My voice broke as I knelt beside him, my hands shaking with terror and desperation.
I started chest compressions, my palms slipping against his cold skin. “One, two, three, four… Come back to me, Wyatt. Please!” I kept repeating, my voice breaking with each breath I forced.
I gave him mouth-to-mouth. Again. Nothing. Again.
“Please, Wyatt. Don’t leave me,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face.
Then, just as I was about to give up, he gasped. It was wet, broken, but it was a sound that was nothing short of miraculous. Water spilled from his mouth as his body jerked, life fighting its way back into him.
I collapsed beside him, sobbing with relief, my forehead pressed against his chest. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder. Red and blue lights sliced through the night.
He was alive. Wyatt was alive.
At the hospital, I sat in the too-white waiting room, arms wrapped around myself, shivering from the cold, my sweater damp against my skin. The sterile quiet was suffocating. The only sounds were the soft murmurs of nurses, the click of shoes on the tiles, the faint hum of vending machines that no one ever used.
Time didn’t move forward; it just pulsed, like the world had stopped for me, waiting.
Finally, a doctor appeared. She looked exhausted, her scrubs wrinkled, but her eyes held a quiet kindness that broke through the haze of panic.
“He’s stable, June,” she said gently. “You saved his life.”
I exhaled, but it wasn’t a sigh of relief—it was more of a shudder, like the tension I’d been holding in my chest had finally started to release.
“But,” she continued, her voice faltering for a brief moment, “we discovered something else. Your husband has a serious heart condition. It’s likely been undiagnosed for years.”
I nodded, but her words didn’t settle. They hovered in the air, unanswered. “He’s lucky you acted when you did,” she added, her voice soft.
Lucky. Lucky?
I stood up without thinking, moving towards the reception desk. I needed water, or something to distract myself from the storm of emotions threatening to overwhelm me.
When I got there, I froze.
The receptionist. It was her. The same voice from the phone call.
“You called me earlier,” I said, my voice trembling. “About Wyatt…”
The woman blinked, confused. “I didn’t make any calls, ma’am. I’ve been here all night, just finished a twelve-hour shift. Your husband is my last patient before I head home.”
Her voice was soft now, warmer, more real than it had been on the phone. But it was still the same voice. The same cadence.
I stared at her, my skin prickling. What had happened? What had woken me up? What had led me to the window, to see Wyatt in the pool? And why did her voice feel so… familiar?
I wasn’t scared anymore. I wasn’t even confused. I was awestruck.
Something had come for me. Something had come to save us.
Wyatt was alive. He was stable. And I wasn’t alone.
The therapist’s words echoed in my head, soothing the chaos inside me.
“You were never alone, June.”
I didn’t know what to make of it. But I didn’t need to.
I walked back to Wyatt’s room, my hand still shaking but my heart a little calmer.
When I walked in, I saw him, hooked up to the steady beeping of machines, his chest rising and falling. And then, his eyes opened. Just a crack.
“June,” he rasped, his voice a thread of sound.
I rushed to his side, my hand gripping his tightly. “I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m right here.”
“I remember,” he said, his voice weak. “I was standing somewhere… cold. It felt like I was being called. Like something was pulling me.”
I held his hand tighter, afraid to let go, afraid that if I did, he might slip away again.
He paused, looking at me through tired eyes. “And then I saw you. Not really, but like a shadow of you. You were crying, and I couldn’t leave you.”
I couldn’t speak. I could only hold him, overwhelmed by the fact that I had saved him. Somehow, against all odds, I had saved him.
And as I sat there beside him, feeling his pulse steady in my fingers, I knew this—what had happened—was no coincidence.
Maybe it was love. Maybe it was something else. But I didn’t need to understand it. I just needed him. And he was still here.