No one believed me when I said she watched me sleep every night. It became something I rarely mentioned. People stopped listening, dismissing me as paranoid or attention-seeking. It started after my brother died. I was fourteen, and Simon had been the light in a lot of dark places. His gentle laughter still echoed in the crevices of our house long after he was gone.
We lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone. Simon, my brother, was the kind of person people naturally gravitated towards—bright, adventurous, always with a kind word. His sudden passing left a void in our family that felt impossible to fill. My parents dealt with it in their own way. My mother buried herself in books, volumes stacked high on the kitchen table, drowning in words she could barely focus on. My father worked late, his absence from home growing as the late nights did. I drifted, often imagining I saw Simon’s spirit, his boyish grin watching over me, ensuring I wasn’t alone.
That’s when she came. At first, I thought it was a trick of the mind, a residual reaction to grief. I was lying in bed, the weight of the blanket comforting against my skin, the cool breeze slipping in through the slightly opened window. Shadows danced around the walls, but there was one feeling that didn’t belong to them. A presence looming… aware and observant. My skin prickled, my breath caught. I feigned calmness, hoping it would pass as a figment of my imagination. But night after night, she was there. A silent guardian—or something else entirely—I didn’t know.
During the day, I tried to ignore it. I went to school, listened mechanically as the teachers spoke of equations and grammar rules, their voices blending into a monotonous blur. The cafeteria was a sanctuary, the hum of students’ chatter filling my ears, drowning out my thoughts. Yet, as the shadows lengthened, the fear returned. I whispered my worries to my friends, but they laughed it off. Over time, even their laughter waned, replaced by uneasy smiles and dismissive glances.
At home, unwritten rules governed our silences. Each of us existing in invisible bubbles of solitude. I remember standing in the kitchen one evening, the rich aroma of spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stove, clinging to the air. It was one of the few dishes I liked to make. As I stirred it, I glanced at my mother absorbed in her magazine, the steam fogging over her glasses. I considered telling her, but the words stayed trapped in my throat like so many before.
So I learned to live with it. This presence became a nightly visitor, perched by my bedside. Its watchfulness never threatening, yet its mere existence shred me with anxiety. I could feel her gaze, as real as the moonlight streaking through the blinds. Some nights, I pretended Simon had sent her, a sentinel to guard my dreams. Other nights, the weight of knowing I was observed kept me awake, heart pounding, counting till dawn.
The turning point came on a bleak winter morning. I was shuffling to school, the snow crunching under my boots, when a neighbor caught my eye—Mrs. Harper, an elderly woman with a thousand stories in her eyes. She invited me in for tea. Her house smelled of pine and spiced cookies, a stark contrast to the blankness that filled our home. We sat in her little kitchen, the teapot steaming between us. She popped open a tin of gingerbread men, offering me one.
She spoke about Simon, her memories painting him in flashes of vibrant colors. I hung on every word, her stories a temporary balm. She paused, her gaze probing, then asked about the shadow in my eyes. Perhaps it was the warmth of the room or the gentleness of her presence, but my defenses crumbled, and I told her. Everything. Her nod was small, a knowing gesture. I expected an explanation or a brush-off, but her silence was heavier, weighted with understanding.
That afternoon, while waiting for her words to catch up to the heartache, she suggested something simple—could it be my own mind, hoping for comfort where it was absent, playing the part of its own guardian, projecting? The concept made me pause. Could it truly be my own yearnings taking such a vivid form? An internal watcher to soothe the loneliness that gnawed at each waking hour?
As I walked home, her words spilled over inside my head, mingling with the cold air. If it was my own fabrication, then maybe, just maybe, I held some power. Was that all she was? A part of me longing so deeply that it conjured this nightly vigil?
That night, I lay in bed, still feeling that immutable presence beside me. I breathed deeply, trying to make sense of Mrs. Harper’s insight. Perhaps I had found a peculiar solace in inventing a watcher, a tether to sanity. I focused on my brother’s smile, that unyielding source of comfort, and felt a warmth encapsulating me, the familiar heaviness lightening.
I can’t say whether she was real or merely a dream woven in the web of solitude. But I chose to view her as a reflection of the companionship I craved, a figment I infused with unfulfilled desires for assurance. Over time, the weight lifted, nights felt less oppressive as if I’d somehow taken charge of that part of my psyche.
Now, years later, the memory occasionally surfaces but brings a tender reminder rather than fear. It speaks to me of loss and resilience, of a soul adapting in its own curious way. The girl who believed she was always watched has grown, holding tightly onto memories and learning that whether sensed in shadows or traced in moonlight, our minds craft what we sometimes most need.
In the quiet, I find my truth—grief births strange guardians. And maybe, the trick was never in escaping them, but in understanding what they truly wish to say.
