I Can See What Follows Me

(Trigger Warning: mental health, suicide)

I first saw the man in the school library.

It was a required reading hour where most children pick at a comic book or browse through the shelves for an age. I did not. I had a novel snatched and a beanbag claimed before the teacher had even taken the register. Curled up and comfy, I became very quickly absorbed in the pages. So much so that I almost missed the giggles from a group of girls in the corner.

They were pointing at me, whispering behind their hands and snickering softly. I slowly pulled the book down and tilted my head at them.

“We just realised why you don’t have any friends,” One of them grinned, “you’re too busy with your nose in a book! Are the pages the only things that will talk to you?”

They turned back to their little laughing posse. I turned back to my book, but it was much harder to focus on the words when everything was blurred with tears. I just sat there, staring and praying they would go away. As I tried to blink back the sting, I looked up and spotted him.

He hadn’t come in with our class. I’d never seen him in the school. He was just standing there dressed in black, with bone white skin and grey scraggly hair. He wasn’t scary or creepy or strange. He just looked tired. Something told me that we were going to become very well acquainted as my life went on.

He stood there staring until the bell rang and we all left. Then I was left alone again and he vanished. I told my parents about it. They didn’t believe me, just said: “Kids will be kids.”

I think that’s the day he started following me. Just always out of sight, a feeling in the back of my head that would sometimes flare to life. No one else ever seemed to feel it.

I saw him again the year after. At a family dinner.

Everyone was chatting with each other, swapping stories about how life had been. I wasn’t participating, I was just eating quietly. Until someone asked me about school. About friends. About a boyfriend. I didn’t have much to share. Nothing had really changed.

“That’s disappointing.” Someone mused. It cut like a knife to the chest.

I stared at the plate, fork trembling in my hand as the conversation flowed again. Straight over me as though I wasn’t there. When I looked up again, he was there. Pressed in a corner and staring at me over the top of all of their heads. He said nothing, just watched but he was closer this time. I could see his hands now, peeking out from under the black cloth robe that draped over his frame.

For a moment, it felt strange seeing him. Then it just wasn’t. Nothing odd about it, having him there felt perfectly natural.

I told my parents about it again in the car. “That’s ridiculous.” They said. “We were surrounded by family.”

He appeared again when I got my exam results.

I opened that envelope and felt nothing but the tiniest shred of relief. I’d passed. I’d done it. I handed the letter to my parents. They read it and congratulated me. Then asked if we could get one of the papers re-marked because: “I feel like you could have crawled up a grade.”

That shred of relief shrivelled up and died.

We didn’t get anything remarked. We didn’t want to risk dragging me down a grade. When everybody else came out clutching their results, I congratulated everyone. I was happy. Then I heard my parents. “How’d yours do?” Numbers and comparisons were flying across their little huddle.

The man reappeared through the crowd. Closer again. Watching again. I could see every wrinkle on his skin. When we turned around and left, he followed. He was sat and waiting when we climbed into the car.

My parent began to talk about my friends. Their results. How wonderful it was that they were going to all of those different colleges. I clutched my paper. I didn’t cry this time. I looked at him and he looked back at me. I tried to tell them about it.

“That’s nice.” And they took control of the conversation again. We moved on.

He appeared again at the end of my prom night.

I went to prom with a boy I liked. He asked me in the canteen sat at a table with all of my friends. We spent about fifteen minutes with each other before he went to the bathroom. Then I waited for half an hour like an idiot before finding him with one of my friends. They were giggling with each other and they looked happy. I didn’t want to intrude.

I just looked up. There he was. Standing and watching and looking horrifically out of place among the disco lights and the fancy outfits. Everyone just moved around him as though he wasn’t even there. I just stared back, turned around and plastered on a smile and hung out with some other people for the rest of the night.

When I got home, he was waiting by the door. He followed me in and stood to watch as my parents asked how to night was. I lied. I told them it was great. I didn’t mention it stood behind me. I went to bed with him watching over me silently. I used to struggle to fall asleep when he was there. Now I could fall into a fitful sleep far easier after years of practise. He never made a sound. He just stood there.

He followed me all the time. I know he did. I could feel his eyes on me. Anyone I asked couldn’t feel it, hadn’t felt it and apparently would never feel it. I was imagining things they said.

He came back after my first job interview. I walked out of the office knowing that I wasn’t coming back. My handshake had been weak, I’d stuttered on answers and my confidence had crumbled as the hour had gone on. He appeared in front of me as I walked, blocking my path. I just stopped, unable to move on. We were face to face finally. Nothing particularly stood out. He looked like every other person I’d passed on the way to the office. But his eyes were still covered by shadow.

“Can I pass please?”

He said nothing. I stepped forward. He stayed put. I stepped around him instead. He didn’t flinch, just followed me with his head. I kept walking. He trailed after me, always there, just a few steps behind.

I got home to break the news, receiving the pitiful looks of disappointment that I was expecting whilst he just hovered, leaning over my shoulder and saying nothing.

When I collapsed into bed and pulled out my phone to scroll through others’ lives, he settled in the corner. As I scrolled, I saw a million lives that I wished I could have and he grew a few inches.

A new picture. A caption beneath it. Thousands of smiles and blessings. My finger got faster. My eyes scanned quicker. Colours blurred. Something snapped. I threw my phone at the wall.

“Why are you here?! Why do you keep following me!? Leave me alone! Give me some peace!”

My parents came running at the shout, asking questions and demanding to know what was wrong. I told them about it. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

Every time. A question. An honest answer. A brush-off.

…

The last time I saw the man was at the train station. When I stood on the bridge.

He was standing on the tracks, black fabric blowing in the breeze. Our eyes finally met for the first time.

I saw eternity. Endless voids that had seen the beginning and end of everything and that would remain after everything was gone. I saw pain and heartbreak and suffering and nothing. I saw myself. Every moment that he’d appeared and every moment he’d watched from the shadows. He’d always been there. He would never leave. Not unless I left instead.

I felt myself smile for the first time in years. Felt it stretch across my lips, not just a porcelain mask that I fixed on my head.

“You’ve been with me for so long. You’re never going to leave me alone. But you won’t follow me where I’m going to go.”

I heard the horn of the train. He didn’t move, planted on the tracks as though he was comfortable and at ease.

A car came screeching into the parking area. My parents tumbled out in a panicked heap, leaping over barriers and screaming my name. They were shouting why. Why was I doing this? Why didn’t I talk to them?

They still didn’t see him. Nobody had. Nobody would.

The wheels thundered down the tracks. I met his eyes one last time.

Then I closed them as I jumped.