I got goosebumps.
Then he confessed the worst part.
He had fallen asleep once. And when he woke up…
It was already too late.
After that, he turned the house into a fortress: closed closets, bells on the doors, latches on the windows. I felt as if I were living in a prison built out of fear.
I asked in a low voice, “Do you think I could…?”
He interrupted me immediately.
—No. But fear doesn’t require logic.
Then came the first real shock.
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He had been holding me, soaked in sweat, preventing me from falling.
He looked at me and said, almost desperately:
See? I wasn’t wrong.
I was afraid, of myself, of what was hidden inside me. But I also saw something new in my fear: I wasn’t going to let it break me.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I asked.
“Because if I fall asleep,” he said, “history repeats itself.”
One night the light went out. In the darkness, for the first time, I took his hand. He didn’t let go.
I whispered: “What if I’m scared?”
He answered as if it were an oath:
“Then I will continue watching until morning.”
And that same darkness revealed another secret.
He was ill. He didn’t have much time left.
“I didn’t want to leave you alone,” he said, “in this house… in this world.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“So you bought me?”
He hit her head.
—No. I trusted you… with my greatest fear.
Something strange happened after that. Fear became routine. Routine became a kind of security.
And then he collapsed.
The following morning, there was no chair, no footsteps, no silent vigilance. Only sirens and the hospital.
The white walls seemed like a prison. The machine’s beeps, the smell of medicine, the hurried shoes… everything intensified my fear.
He lay unconscious, older and more worn than he had ever seen him.
A doctor took me aside.
“His condition is critical ,” he said. “His heart and mind… What are you to him?”
Dude, and in that hesitation I realized that this marriage was already “paper”.
I answered firmly:
“I am his wife.”
He remained unconscious for three days. On the fourth, his fingers moved. He opened his eyes.
The first thing he asked, so gently that it broke me, was:
“Were you asleep?”
Tears flooded my eyes.
“No,” I said. ” Now it’s my turn to watch.”
While I was still recovering, I learned another truth that changed everything. An older nurse stopped me in the hallway.
“I won’t tell you everything,” he said.
He showed me old records. The death of his first wife was not natural. She fell from the roof during an episode of sleepwalking.
Before that, she had survived three similar incidents, always because he was awake and caught her.
“People thought it was strange,” the nurse said. “But the truth is, he was a guard.”
My hands began to tremble.
