This is Just a Dream

Chapter 17

The base had become a blur of routine, a static hum of drills and inspections that Garrett executed with the detached, lethal efficiency of a machine. But beneath the surface, a shift had occurred that he found both exhilarating and profoundly terrifying. His world, once compartmentalized into rigid sectors of duty and grief, had begun to bleed into a single, focal point: the small, glowing screen in his pocket.

He found himself checking it with a frequency that bordered on obsession. During briefings, as he stared down rows of junior officers, his mind was often calculating how long it had been since Eden’s last update. When he stood at the edge of the firing range, the roar of gunfire didn't command his attention; he was instead mentally crafting the dry, cynical witticisms he would use to deflate the latest absurdity from her classroom.

He was broody and harsh when he didn't hear from her. She was the only reason fragments of humanity were visible in his rough demeanor.

He was falling into a routine that felt, in every sense, like a lifeline.

One afternoon, standing in his office surrounded by the sterile, gray geometry of military logistics, his phone buzzed.

Leo tried to eat the glue again, Eden had written, followed by a photo of a finger-painting that looked like a localized artistic catastrophe. I told him if he didn’t stop, he was going to be grounded until college. He looked at me with such genuine betrayal, I think I’ve been permanently cast as the villain.

Garrett felt that familiar, lopsided smile tugging at his lips.

He typed back, his thumbs dancing over the glass. Don’t the villains always have more fun?

Are you the villain, commander?, she replied, followed by a laughing emoji.

Most would say so, He typed back with a smile on his face.

I think the hamster is plotting a coup. He looked at me funny when I confiscated the glue.

Garrett stared at the screen, a genuine, hearty laugh escaping him. It was a sound he hadn't heard from himself in years. He felt a sense of belonging, a warmth that flooded the cold, tactical corners of his existence. He was a commander, a man of war, a man of brute force, he was the villain that the enemy didn't want to see coming; after all he had to earn the name Monster somehow—but here, in this digital space, he was something else. He was something softer for a woman who loved children and was perfectly content spending her days being covered in glue and glitter.

But then the laughter faded, the warmth abruptly vanished, replaced by a cold, viscous acid pooling in his stomach.

He sat back in his chair, the office around him suddenly feeling like an interrogation room. He looked at his hands—the same hands that had pried that photograph from Adam’s stiffening fingers, the same hands that had been stained by the boy’s blood. The same hands that have brutally taken lives, hands that have pulled the trigger on countless enemies, hands that have been covered in cuts, bruises, and blood from vicious attacks.

The guilt hit him, not as a gradual realization, but as a violent, physical explosion.

What are you doing? he thought, his jaw clenching until it ached.

He had promised to protect her. He had vowed to help with her grief. But somewhere along the way, the boundary had shifted. He wasn't just protecting her; he was consuming her. He was taking the space that belonged to the boy who had died in the sand.

Every laugh they shared felt like an act of theft. Every text, every intimate, late-night phone call, felt like he was walking onto sacred ground, desecrating the memory of the soldier he had come to think of like a younger brother. Adam had died for her. Adam had carried that photograph as his final, singular comfort. And here was Garrett—the man who had led him into the fire—slowly filling the void, building a life in the ruins of the boy’s promise.

He stood up, pacing the small room, the walls feeling like they were drawing in. He was a traitor. He was the commander who had brought the boy to his grave, and now, he was the man who was keeping his girl alive by slowly inserting himself into her heart.

He was the villain.

It’s f*****g wrong, he thought, the word echoing in his mind with the force of a command. It is fundamentally, irrevocably wrong.

He picked up the photograph of Adam he kept in his desk drawer, the one he had held onto after the funeral. He looked at the boy’s face—the youthful, stubborn, idealistic face of a soldier who had trusted him with his life, his mission, and his future.

"I’m sorry," Garrett whispered, the words sounding deep and hollow in the quiet of the office. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

But the apology didn't fix the fracture. He knew the nature of the terrain better than anyone; he knew that you couldn't stand on a fault line and expect not to be swallowed.

He was in love with her. He had been in love with her for weeks, perhaps months, without ever allowing himself to acknowledge the truth. It was a love that had grown in the dark, fed by their shared trauma, nourished by the desperate, clinging necessity of their late-night conversations.

It was a beautiful, terrible thing.

His phone buzzed again, a soft, inviting sound that used to bring him a sense of joy. Now, it felt like a summons to a court-martial.

Are you still there? she asked. The hamster has been moved to solitary confinement. I’m about to start the afternoon reading session.

Garrett stood over his desk, his hand hovering over the device. He could ignore it. He could pull back, re-establish the boundary, and return to the iron existence he had spent almost two decades perfecting. He could become the ghost he had been before the knock on her door.

But as he looked at the screen, he realized he couldn't. Not because he was weak, but because he was already too far gone. He had let her in, and in doing so, he had invited the light back into a room that had been dark for a lifetime. To leave her now would be to commit a second, perhaps even greater, betrayal.

He typed, his movements stiff and formal.

Busy with logistics, he wrote. Keep up the good work. The hamster won’t win.

He sent the message and immediately tossed the phone onto the blotter, as if it were a live grenade. He had created distance, but he could feel the pull—the gravitational tugthat belonged to only her.

He walked to the window, looking out over the base. The evening was settling in, the sky a bruising, beautiful purple. He had a duty to her, a duty that transcended the simple, selfish desire for his own salvation.

But could he do it? Could he be the man who protected her, while simultaneously being the man who stole her from the ghost of the boy he had failed to save?

He felt the weight of his uniform, the weight of the medals, the weight of years of decisions that had led to this singular, agonizing point. He had been a commander, a strategist, a soldier. He had known how to order men into the fire. But he didn't know how to navigate the wreckage of a heart that was torn between two soldiers.

He thought of the porch. He thought of the ring. He thought of the life that was supposed to happen, and the brutal, definitive way it had been silenced.

I am a thief, he realized. I am stealing a future I was supposed to be guarding.

Garrett felt a sudden, sharp, and overwhelming urge to walk out of the office, to drive until the gas ran out, to disappear into the vast, indifferent landscape of the world. But he didn't. He knew the rules. You stayed at your post. You did what was asked, regardless of the cost.

He picked up the phone. He didn't want to be the man who felt this, but he was and he was too obsessed, too consumed to tear this connection apart.

I have to handle some things here, he typed, his voice in his head sounding calm, professional, and entirely untrue. I’ll be in touch later.

Okay, she replied. Take care of yourself, Garrett. You work too hard.

I’m fine, he wrote.

He put the phone away and walked out of the office, the corridors echoing with his own heavy, solitary footsteps. His thoughts as heavy as a city's polluted smog.

He walked into the fading light, the cool evening air pressing against his face. He felt the weight of the guilt, the sharp, relentless edge of his own betrayal, and the quiet, stubborn persistence of his love.

As the night deepened, the base was settling into the quiet, rhythmic hum of the night. He saw the lights of the barracks flickering on, the recruits moving with the awkward, hopeful energy of the uninitiated.

He walked further into the night, the darkness rising to meet him like a friend, his hand resting firmly on the phone in his pocket—the silent, glowing, and devastating center of his own, personal war.

He was a thief, a liar.

The stars shone above, cold, brilliant, and indifferent. He looked up at them, not for guidance, but for perspective. He was a small, fragile, and temporary thing, a man who had fought wars.

He marched on, his stride steady, his resolve absolute. The guilt would remain, the ghost would remain, and the betrayal would remain—a permanent, immovable part of the geography of his existence. But he was too far gone to stop now.

For her, he was so completely and irrevocably obsessed with her that the only option he had now was to let the guilt remain as a lingering thought.