I dreamed the ocean remembered my name

I was standing on a shore that wasn’t mine, but the waves knew me. Not by face, not by voice—by the way I used to stand in the rain after drills, shoulders hunched like I was bracing for something that never came. The water didn’t crash; it whispered. One wave rolled in and said my name—not loud, just clear, like a radio tuning between stations. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My throat was full of salt and silence. When I woke, my pillow was damp. Not from sweat. From something older.