Watcher

Trigger warning: Violence, mental health and suicide.

“You can’t just leave without telling me. I need to know where you are, Rose. You could get hurt without me. It’s a man’s duty to know where his woman is! You understand me?!” he yelled, staring into her hazel eyes. Her thin red lip quivered and I watched as she recoiled from him, her body trembling as he neared her. Rose tried to resist as he grabbed her wrist. “Jesus, you’re staring at this again?”

His words referenced the steady stream of tears that slowly yet forcefully made their way down her pale white cheeks. He used his grip to push her down, her black hair flying into her face as she was thrown against the cold leather couch.

“Hunter, please stop. You’re hurting me. Please, just be normal with me! I know I messed up and I’m sorry! I’m sorry I didn’t tell you!” Hunter shook his head and turned his back to her.

“Does it make you happy?”

“What do you–”

“Do you enjoy making me mad?” he said through gritted teeth.

“No. Hunter, I don’t. I enjoy it when you’re happy– when we both are. When we can sit together and talk and melt hours away, just the two of us.”

“Then you need to think more before you act.”

The slap was sudden. I nearly flinched from my position at her window, as the sound of flesh attacking flesh pierced it, and my ears tased her pain. She wasn’t ready for it. Her head snapped awkwardly to the right, and her eyes widened. The pale white of her cheek was now an angry red, the blood inside of it frustrated. A small whine came from her mouth and she gingerly placed her hand on the fresh mark.

“I don’t like this either, Rose. You know I don’t enjoy putting my hands on you.” He placed his hand on her other cheek and brushed away her hair, now wet with tears. “I love you.”

Rose’s breaths were shallow, and she avoided Hunter’s gaze.

“I love you too.”

“Then you know that I do what I do because it’s what you need.”

Hunter planted a kiss on her forehead and made his way to the door. He walked slowly, looking over the things inside of Rose’s house in the same way a man would look over his own property. His eyes glazed over her neatly stacked books, some with bookmarks in varying places. He had always had disdain for her love of the arts. The paintings lining her walls were how she expressed herself, but men like him could never understand.

When Hunter left through the door, I hurried to the shrubs. I looked at his face as he entered his car and felt something inside of my chest, a rallying cry to approach him. I recognized this as a foolish primal instinct to avenge the one I dedicated myself to. But I was no fool.

As he sped away, I found myself returning to the window. I wanted to feel the emotions that I watched Rose feel. I wanted to be helpless to stop the tears from rushing down my face, just like her, I wanted to feel grief flood my body and entrap my mind in a sad display of self pity. Instead, I continued to watch her until she cried herself into an uneasy slumber. I watched and watched and watched. Even as my eyes grew weary, I remained ever vigilant in my gaze. I saw as her chest rose and fell and realized that she was at peace in her unconsciousness. All of the anger and sadness and stress had melted away and had been replaced with the calm familiarity of nothingness. This was the purest form of déjà vu I could experience. The repetition of grief giving may to calm

After some time, I, too, fell asleep, nestled in the uncomfortable greenery surrounding Rose’s home. I dreamt of her. She never leaves my sight, even when my eyes are closed. She danced in my dream. She was laughing with her coworkers, and her smile was on full display. This was my favorite way to see her. This was the way she deserved to be: full of joy and carelessness, full of love and absent of worry.

But through her smile, I spotted a crack. A break in the beauty. She faltered for a moment, and I knew she thought of him. I knew she wondered if the next time he visited, he would finally hurt her too badly to recover from. Internally, I wanted to comfort her, but even in this figment of my imagination, I was unable to approach. I simply stayed at my perch and watched.

I awoke before her. The tears had mostly dried on the soft brown cushion that held her body above the ground, and her makeup was messy on her face.

There is a peace to unconsciousness that many people don’t understand. It is purity, freedom from emotion, and the true way someone is. Emotion changes people, making them look better or worse, forcing them to act kind or rude. But when they sleep, they are as they were intended. They are nothing.

She stirred eventually, later than she would have liked, this suspicion of mine confirmed by her sighing at her watch. She would usually get up for work at eight, but the time then was nine. She slowly began to rise from the gentle cushion that she slept on. Slowly. Slower than usual.

As she became more conscious, I saw that face of her’s. I saw the potential for beauty and grace and magic turned sour. She adopted a hurt face, her lip low, and her eyebrows lazy. It was as if an artist, who instead of finishing the final stroke and creating a masterpiece, decided to rip it all apart.

Her feet followed their usual path, heading to the same place they always did in the mornings. She did her usual morning routine, but that day, the fake smile she always gave the mirror cracked in the dim light of her bathroom. The makeup freshly placed upon her perfect face once again began to flee with her tears. Once again, she shuddered and placed her arms around her chest.

She was very late for work. It was nine-thirty. “She should leave,” I thought.

But she went back to the couch and laid back down. Her face was a mess of grief. I wished that I wasn’t the way I was. She looked so in need of comfort and assurance. Of love. And instead of providing her with those things, I watched and watched as she developed into a being unbeknownst to me. A being of pure sorrow lied upon that couch.

She pulled her little pocket knife from her purse and toyed with it in her hands. I felt something as she aligned it along with her wrist. For the first time, I felt a real sensation within my chest. I believe it was pity.

As she ended herself, her face darkened and lightened all at once. She realized she was leaving this world, but her mind was drowned in the heart-crushing feeling of true loneliness. She had no one to turn to. She had pushed everyone in her life away for him. Every friend, every member of her family had sought to help her. But she justified the black and the blue.

My darling Rose looked so peaceful as her life drained from her veins. Her blood, newly freed, ran unbound. She died rather quickly. I could see the rise and fall of her chest stop after a final breath.

Alone again. I had been with her for quite some time. And she had left me. They had always left me. No matter what. Those I’d spoken to left me, along with those I’d loved. Rose felt abandoned in the end, but I was always there, ever vigilant. Rose thought she felt true loneliness, but she never experienced the sickening feeling in her chest that one feels when they finally understand that they are unable to be loved. The feeling when your heart truly shatters. Maybe I don’t deserve love, but I never stopped wanting it. Just for once, for someone to smile at me. For someone to acknowledge me. Hunter did love her, even though his love resulted in her death. Love is such a cruel thing perhaps, but even so, I would kill for another human being to feel that cruel feeling for me.

I visited Hunter that night. It was easy enough to enter through his window. I think I finally did feel love that night. As I used his own kitchen knife to open his throat, the shock and fear and awe in his eyes as he awoke filled me with love. He grabbed my arm, but I shook his flimsy grasp off. I smiled at the sight of his shirt. It was feeding off of his blood. It was beautiful. The way he attempted to breathe only to be met with an intake of his own blood made me giddy with glee. Eventually, he mirrored his lover, and his chest rose one final time.

I returned to Rose’s house. I walked to her front door. The surrealism of entering a place you know so well having never been inside is a deliciously disorienting feeling. Saw her skin lying motionless on the couch. I finally neared Rose and planted my fingers on her skin. She was cold to the touch. I ran my hand along her wrist, wiping some of the blood from her body. Finally, we had met. The woman that I loved, in the flesh, in my grasp. Was at peace in her presence The final act of love I would give her would have to be to join her in her exit. With one hand, I took hers into mine. With the other, I raised the bloody knife to my throat and cut myself from ear to ear. The pain only amplified the love I felt. I laid myself down on the floor and soon I could no longer keep my grasp on her hand. Then soon, I was no more.