You had his eyes

Ryan awoke in the middle of the night to someone screaming. It took him a second to get reoriented and he turned the lamp on the nightstand on.

Jessica was sitting straight up in bed screaming. Her hands were clawing rapidly in the space between her legs on the bed.

"NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO! PLEASE NOT AGAIN!"

"Jessica! JESSICA!" Ryan began yelling her name, trying to wake her from the night terror. "Jessica, its Ryan! What's wrong!" He grabbed her wrist and tried to stop her hands from scratching her legs more. Jessica began flailing, trying to get away from Ryan.

"NOOOO! Don't touch me you son of a bitch!" She swung at Ryan and hit him hard in the nose. Ryan felt blood begin to run down his face. Still, he had to wake up Jessica.

"Jessica! Please wake up! Come back to me!" Ryan continued to yell.

Suddenly Jessica stopped flailing and dropped her hands. Her glazed over eyes began to clear and her pupils adjusted to the light. She began to emerge from the night terror and remember where she was. She looked around the room and then down at her hands. She screamed when she saw the blood on them.

Ryan's hands hastily wrapped around hers and steadied them. Jessica turned and at looked at Ryan. He had blood running down his face and onto his t-shirt.

"Ryan! What happened?" She asked him.

"You were having a night terror. You sat up and screamed. I couldn't get you to wake up."

Jessica dreaded asking her next question. "What happened to your face?"

Ryan sat there for a second before he answered. "You kind of…hit me."

Jessica looked at Ryan in shock. "Oh my god, I can't believe I did that! I'm so sorry Ryan! Can you forgive!"

Ryan smiled and gently kissed Jessica's forehead. "Always, there isn't a thing in this world that you could do that would ever make me hate you." He looked deep into her baby blue eyes. "I love you too much, and I always will."

Jessica's heart fluttered; neither she nor Ryan had said that they loved the other since that night at The Blue Treble. Though they both knew it, Jessica still thought it was wonderful that Ryan had said it.

"Come on," Jessica said, standing and pulling at Ryan's hands, "Let's go clean you up."

"Alright, I need it, too. My mean girlfriend punched me." Ryan made a pouty face at her. Jessica smacked him in the stomach. Ryan kissed the back of her neck and set shivers down her spine.

They walked into the bathroom and Jessica washed her hands. She discovered Ryan had left a fight bite on her right knuckle. Jessica then grabbed a washcloth and started cleaning Ryan's face with warm water. The best Jessica could tell it wasn't broken, but Ryan was going to have a pretty bad bruise on his lip, nose, and part of his face.

"I'm so sorry I messed up your pretty face." Jessica said, pouting at him this time and kissing the area of his collar bone exposed just above his shirt neck.

"That's alright, I look more gangster this way." Ryan smiled into her hair. Ryan felt Jessica tense under his touch. He pulled her back and looked at her.

"What was the nightmare about?" Ryan asked his voice full of concern.

Jessica didn't answer at first.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Ryan told her reassuringly.

Ryan scooped her up and sat her on the counter between the double sinks. He rested his hands on her legs and gently massaged them. Jessica hesitated and then decided it would be best to tell Ryan the truth about her dream.

"I was in James's apartment. I knew he was coming home and I thought about running, but I wasn't fast enough. I was pregnant and I knew he would beat it out of me again. Then he came home, drunk and beat me. I accidently told him that I was pregnant and he duct taped me to the floor and used a coat hanger to abort it. He left me laying there on the ground, still taped down, and dropped the dead baby on my stomach and left." Jessica began to weep. "It hurt so bad and the pain was so real! I couldn't believe I had to relive that day!"

Ryan held her close and kissed her hair. "This really happened to you, didn't it?"

Jessica nodded her head. "It was the first time he aborted my baby with a hanger."

Ryan felt tears form in his eyes. He hated hearing about Jessica being in pain. "I love you Jessie and I'll never let anything hurt you again."

Jessica leaned back and looked at Ryan. "The worst part was that it wasn't James in the dream."
"Who was it?"

Jessica looked at him and began to sob harder. Her whole body was shaking, and her head bent down. Ryan figured he knew what the answer was. "It was me, wasn't it?" Ryan finally asked.

Jessica continued to cry for a few minutes. Then she quietly said "But you had his eyes."