Nightmares.

          She jolted awake, sweat rolling down her face, trickling slowly from her hairline to her jaw.  Her chest heaving up and down as she tried desperately to calm her rampant heartbeat to normal, she allowed her dilated pupils to take in her surroundings   Every shadow held the possibility of something she feared, something unknown.  Her trembling body moved her entire mattress, filling the once-silent room with a soft, repetitive squeak giving way from the old bed frame.  She reached up and ran those shaking hands down her face in an attempt to brush off the panic flooding through her, a panic that she just couldn't seem to shake.

          Her roommate Jude burst through the door as he called out to her, "Liv!  Liv, are you okay?"

          Startled, she jumped at the commotion and cowered away from the door.  Realizing after a moment that there was nothing to fear, she reached out to him as he made his way to her bed.  He grasped onto her and she clung to him as if he were her only protection, her deliverance, her salvation.

          "Livvy, I heard you screaming from the other side of the apartment and I seriously... what...?  What is it this time?"  She could hear the worry and uneasiness in his voice.

          She refused to loosen her grip on him and only buried herself deeper within his embrace.  Now that the initial terror had worn down a bit, despair overwhelmed her, eliciting a free-flowing of tears, entirely out of her control.  Sobs wrecked her body, it was as if she was convulsing.  She cried out, further burrowing herself into Jude's chest; she knew the only way she would ever feel safe and calm again was if she could fold herself up inside him.

          He let her release it all onto him.  He didn't speak another word, but she could tell from the way his body quivered ever so slightly that he was just as fearful as she, but she knew it was for an entirely different reason.  She knew he feared for her sanity.  He'd seen things like this from her before and every time it happened he only grew more concerned.  He tried not to pry and she understood.  He didn't want her thinking that he was being nosy; he wanted to be there for her, and oh did she want him there.  She was sure he often wondered if there was something greater, something darker at work that she refused to share with him.

          There was.  But Olivia knew she could never tell him.  He wouldn't understand.  He would never allow her to lean on him in this way if he knew what she was, what she'd done, why these nightmares that seemed so real plagued her almost nightly.

          After a long time, a time that seemed like hours, she had cried herself back into sleep.  It wasn't a pleasant slumber that she'd fallen into, but it was one that her body desperately needed.  Jude contemplated what he should do.  His girlfriend Dana was in their bedroom, and he was sure she had grown quite suspicious of his absence by now.  When he'd bolted awake at the sounds of Olivia's mortifying shrieks, Dana had merely mumbled, "Oh my God, not again.  I swear she does it for the attention."

          "Dana, she's had nightmares since grade school.  It's not like she can control it.  I'm going in there."

          Dana opened her eyes and leaned up on her elbows. Glaring at him she snapped, "Seriously?  How much longer are you going to play into this?  She knows you'll go in there for her, like you always do, and that's what she wants Jude.  There are two other people in this house who can be her shoulder to cry on.  Leave it alone."

          Another gut-wrenching wail came and Jude knew that he had to go and comfort her.  As he flung himself towards to door he could hear Dana say, "You'd swear she was your girlfriend the way you always fawn over her."

          Now with Olivia clutching to him like a dying woman, he thought about the consequences of his actions.  Honestly, did he really care what Dana thought?  Olivia had been his best friend since they were in preschool.  He'd always been there for her and he imagined he always would be.  They were all each other had had for the longest time.  He knew that she had been like this ever since age ten when Olivia witnessed her mother commit suicide.  He knew that bad things always seemed to make their way to her as if the world was destined to turn this beautiful girl into a broken, blackened, damaged soul.  He knew things that she thought he didn't, but he'd never tell her because he knew how ashamed she'd be.  He needed her just as much as she needed him.  And he refused to let the evil she'd lived, that she was forced to dream, consume her; he knew he could be and he desperately wanted to be her savior.



Short and sweet... may add more another time.  Just had a hankerin'

Until next time...