The nightmare comes like it always does.
The desert. The heat. The road that stretches endlessly in both directions. The convoy moving slow because one of the trucks is having mechanical issues and we're three hours behind schedule and the sun is beating down and something feels wrong.
Something always feels wrong in the dream because I know what's coming.
The explosion hits the lead vehicle first. Then the one behind it. Then ours. Fire and smoke and the sound—God, the sound—of metal tearing apart and men screaming and I'm trying to get out, trying to reach them, but there's so much smoke I can't see, can't breathe, can't find anyone.
And then I'm alone.
Standing in the desert with bodies around me and smoke in my lungs and the absolute certainty that I should be dead too. That I was supposed to die with them.
I wake up gasping.
Sweating. Disoriented. The blanket tangled around my legs and I don't know where I am, don't know what's real, and I need space, need air, need to get away from—
I stumble off the couch and back into the corner of the room. My back hits the wall and I slide down, knees pulled to my chest,trying to remember how to breathe. The nightmare is still right there, still playing behind my eyes every time I blink, and I can smell smoke even though I know there's no smoke, can hear screaming even though the apartment is silent.
"Cole?"
Her voice. Chloe's voice.
I open my eyes.
She's sitting up on the couch, the blanket wrapped around her, her hair messy from sleep. Concern etched across her face.
"I'm fine," I manage. My voice sounds wrong. Too rough, too strained.
"No, you're not."
She stands up, lets the blanket fall, and walks over to me completely naked. She doesn't hesitate. Doesn't ask permission. Just lowers herself to the floor next to me and wraps her arms around me as much as she can given the size difference.
"It was a nightmare," I say. Stating the obvious because I don't know what else to say.
"I know."
"I get them every night."
"I know that too."
She holds me tighter. Her cheek pressed against my shoulder, her body warm against mine, and slowly, so slowly, the nightmare starts to recede. The smell of smoke fades. The sounds quiet. The feeling that I'm still in the desert, still surrounded by death, gradually loosens its grip.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't apologize."
"I woke you up."
"I don't care." She pulls back slightly to look at me. "Cole, listen to me. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You have nightmares? Okay. We'll deal with them together."
"You don't understand what you're signing up for."
"Then explain it to me. Help me understand."
I look at her, this woman who walked into my gym less than two weeks ago asking to learn self-defense, who somehow became the most important person in my world in the span of days. Who's sitting naked on my floor at what's probably four in the morning, holding me while I come down from a nightmare, and she's not running. She's not scared.
She's just here.
"My entire unit died," I say. The words come out flat, emotionless, because that's the only way I can say them. "Eleven years ago. Ambush in Afghanistan. IED took out the lead vehicle, then insurgents attacked from both sides. I was the only one who made it out."
