The Best Man

the long version

I didn’t know her name, but I heard her laugh, tasted her lips, felt her warm skin as I held her in my arms. Together we watched our young children playing in the sand, the warm ocean lapping at the shore behind them as the setting sun painted the sky. She was my soulmate and this was our life, our beautiful forever …Then I woke up—alone in a hospital room, connected to wires and machines.There was no wife. No kids. Not a single soul waiting for me. That life I dreamt of—never existed.The woman