This is Just a Dream

Chapter 10

The apartment was bathed in the clinical, harsh glare of a single desk lamp, the only light source in a room otherwise swallowed by shadows. Eden sat hunched over her textbook, the pages of Educational Psychology a blur of academic jargon that refused to stick. It was 11:45 PM. The silence of the apartment complex was absolute, save for the occasional, distant rumble of a car passing on the street below or the rhythmic, muffled ticking of the wall clock.

She was exhausted, a bone-deep fatigue that no amount of caffeine could touch. Her fingers were stained with blue ink, and her hair was pulled into a messy, haphazard bun that kept threatening to collapse. She had been studying for her midterms for six hours straight, driven by a singular, desperate need to keep her GPA pristine, to prove that she was holding up her end of their bargain.

If I work hard enough, she reasoned, her thoughts circling back to him as they always did, I’ll have a life ready for him. I’ll be the teacher we dreamed of. I’ll be the woman we both deserve.

She reached for her water glass, her movements slow and deliberate. Her eyes drifted toward the window, looking out into the dark, empty parking lot. She often found herself staring into that darkness, half-expecting to see his truck pull in, half-expecting to see him step out of the shadows, his uniform dusty, his grin lopsided, his arms wide open.

It was a haunting, persistent fantasy, one that she allowed herself only in the quietest, loneliest hours of the night.

She turned back to her notes, her pen hovering over a definition of cognitive development. She was just about to start a new paragraph when the sound cut through the silence like a sharp, serrated blade.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three precise, heavy raps on the apartment door.

Eden froze. Her heart skipped a beat, then began to hammer against her ribs with a frantic, uneven rhythm. It was nearly midnight. She wasn't expecting anyone. Her roommates were away for the weekend, and she didn't have a social life that involved late-night visits.

A cold, irrational flicker of hope flared in her chest. Adam? Had he come home?

Could he have gotten an early leave? Could he have flown in and decided to surprise her?

She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping against the floor with a sound that seemed deafening in the stillness. She ran across the room, her heart ascending into her throat, her hand trembling as she reached for the deadbolt. She didn't look through the peephole; she didn't need to. She was already mentally preparing to throw herself into his arms, to feel the familiar, grounding warmth of his embrace, to have his smell fill her nose, his scent that was unique to Adam

She unlocked the door and flung it open, the scent of the cool night air washing over her.

"Adam?"

The word died on her lips, and the smile she had faded quickly.

Standing under the porch light was not the boy she had left at the airport. It was a man, a figure that seemed to loom larger than reality itself. He was dressed in his formal military uniform, the fabric crisp and impeccable, his posture so rigid it looked as if he were holding himself together by sheer force of will. He was as large as the door frame, shaved head, tattoos covering every inch of skin that could be seen except his face that was hardened by time and war.

It was Commander Garrett Hanson.

Eden’s mind reeled, trying to reconcile the figure before her with the images of the desert she had conjured in her head. She knew who he was, She knew this man, she could spot this man in any crowd thanks to Adams descriptive letters— the "Monster," the stoic, hardened officer who led his squad through the fires of the mission.

But seeing him here, on her doorstep, in the quiet, mundane reality of her college apartment, felt like an intrusion, an omen of something dark and irredeemable.

"Commander?" she whispered, her voice trembling. The hope that had flared in her chest plummeted, replaced by a cold, sharp dread that started at the tips of her fingers and radiated down to her spine. "Is... is he okay? Is something wrong?"

Garrett stood motionless, his face a mask of iron, his eyes a slate-grey that seemed to look right through her, not with malice, but with a profound, weary sadness. He didn't speak immediately. He just looked at her, his jaw tightening, his hands at his sides, his fingers curled into tight fists.

The silence that stretched between them was heavy, suffocating, and filled with a gravity that made the floor beneath Eden’s feet feel like it was shifting.

"Ms. Henderson," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate in the air,a boom of thunder in a raging storm.

"Yes," she said, her voice barely audible. "What is it? Why are you here? Where is Adam?" she leaned her head out of the door frame of her apartment looking around, was this a joke, was he hiding?

Garrett took a slow, deliberate breath, the sound of it a harsh whip in the quiet night. He looked away from her for a brief second, his gaze focusing on something in the dark beyond the porch, before turning back to her.

He didn't need to say the words. In the way he held himself, in the way he looked at her—not as a superior officer to a civilian, but as a man bearing a weight that he couldn't put down—Eden saw the ending of her world.

She saw the telegram, the flag-draped box, the hollow, crushing reality of the news that had been delivered to countless women throughout history, a news that had now arrived on her own doorstep at midnight on a Friday.

"Commander," she whispered, a sob tearing through her throat, "please."

Garrett stepped forward, his movements slow and careful, as if he were approaching a wounded animal. "May I come in?"

Eden stumbled back, her knees feeling weak, her entire world tilting on its axis. She didn't consciously move, but she backed away from the threshold, clearing the way for him.

Garrett stepped into the apartment, the door clicking shut behind him. The sound was final, a seal being placed on the chapter of her life that had just ended. He stood in the middle of the room, looking around at the mundane mess of her academic life—the textbooks, the half-empty water glass, the scattered pens. It was a life that felt suddenly, devastatingly small.

"I am so sorry," Garrett said, his voice breaking, the iron mask finally beginning to crack.

Eden's knees collapsed under her, her knees hitting the hard floor. Her heart stopped beating, her world stopped moving.

“No,” she said. She looked up to Garrett “Not Adam," she said clutching her chest, willing the breath to enter her burning lungs.

She heard the creak of the floorboards as he knelt down in front of her. She felt the heavy, comforting presence of his hand on her shoulder, a gesture that was both professional and deeply, painfully human.

"Tell me," she wept, the words coming out as a strangled, incoherent plea. "Just tell me."

Garrett reached into his inner pocket, his hand moving with a reverence that Eden would never forget. He withdrew a small, familiar item—something that, even in the haze of her grief, she recognized immediately.

He held it out to her, his hand trembling. It was the photograph—the polaroid of her that Adam had carried in his wallet, the one he had looked at when the world was burning, the one he had held onto until the very last breath, it lasted him through football games, classes, jobs, training, and now his death.

It was stained with dried blood.

Eden took the photograph, her fingers brushing against the rough, ruined surface. She didn't need to see the rest. The sight of the blood, the sight of the way the photo had been folded and guarded, told her everything she needed to know.

The scream that left her throat was not a sound of protest; it was a sound of surrender. It was the sound of a heart being torn from its strings, the sound of her world cracking open and bleeding in agony.

Garrett stayed there, on his knees in front of her, his presence a steady, unwavering anchor in the middle of her devastation. He didn't offer empty comfort. He didn't tell her it would be alright. He didn't tell her that he was sorry, even though the words were on his lips.

He simply waited. He watched the light of the room shift and fade, he listened to the rhythm of her sobbing, and he held the space of her grief.

In the quiet of the dorm, surrounded by the remnants of the life she had been building, Eden Henderson realized that she was no longer the girl who was waiting.

She was the girl who had been left behind. Adam had left her.

And as the hours of the night bled into the early, gray light of the morning, she felt the first, cold, biting winds of the reality that she would have to face for the rest of her life..

And as she wept, the photograph of herself clutched to her chest, Garrett Hanson—the man of shadows, the monster, the beast, the witness of Adam's end—stayed by her side, a silent, steady sentinel in the dark.

He was the one who had brought the news, and now, he was the one who would guard what was so precious and dear to Adam.

The night was long, and the grief was profound. Eden would never be the same and in this moment she thought she might never be able to breathe again.

Her world was shattered and broken, every dream she had was gone in the blink of an eye.