Page 8 of While They Watch

“No, I like them. They’re as equally romantic as dangerous. I’m going to go grab us some water while you get the bed fixed back up.” I start working on the scavenger hunt that is finding my clothing amongst the bedding before slipping them back on.

“Hey, why are you putting those back on?” Luke protests as he looks me up and down slowly. I turn back toward him and put my hands on my hips.

“I’m not walking around a house that isn’t mine naked, you weirdo.”

“Who’s going to see you? You think the deer are looking in hoping to get a glimpse?” I see his shirt next to my foot, so I grab it and throw it at him, hitting him square in the face.

As I walk down the hallway, I hear more scratching coming from inside the empty room. Whatever critter is in there, I hope they don’t make it into the main part of the house. The last thing I want to do is go hunting around this place for a bunch of missing items. I walk past the room, deciding I’ll tell Luke later.

I’m happy we left the lights on before coming upstairs. I’m over walking through this place in the dark and I might insist on not turning them off the rest of the trip. I feel so light and at ease in this moment I practically float down the stairs.

When I get to the kitchen, I drink a full glass of water, realizing I haven't had much all day. Typical. I fill another glass for Luke when I sense something moving past the window above the sink. When I look up, I only see my reflection in the glass but as my eyes focus on the darkness outside, I see a tall, white figure at the edge of the trees. Horrified, I gasp, dropping the glass in the sink, causing it to shatter. Out of instinct, I look down at the broken glass, instantly regretting that I took my eyes away from the window. As I feared when I look back up, the figure is gone. My heart jumps into my throat, and I want to call out for Luke, but I can’t seem to summon the ability to use my voice. I run out of the kitchen toward the stairs but stop dead in my tracks when I see the front door is wide open.

I run over to the door as fast as I can and slam it shut. I’m shaking so badly that my fingers are having a hard time grasping the lock but after the longest couple seconds of my life, I’m able to turn it. I warily glance out of the small, eye-level window in the door, but I don’t see anyone. There is a light fog rolling in from the trees and the moon is casting shadows all over the yard. My eyes can’t decide where to look so I continue to glance side to side until I feel dizzy.

I’m startled when I hear Luke at the top of the stairs. “Hanna! What’s going on?” I break my attention from the window just as Luke runs down, practically crashing into me. I can’t figure out how to speak. I’m unable to do anything but shake. “What were you looking at? Are you okay?” I can hear the panic in his voice as he gets closer to me. He places his hands on both sides of my face, forcing me to look at him.

“Something is outside,” I whisper. “The front door was open.” My eyes go wide as it dawns on me that someone could be inside. I pull my face out of his hands as I turn around quickly, looking back down the hallway that leads to the kitchen. “Luke, the door was open, but whatever I saw was in the backyard before I got over here. What if it got inside?” I’m staring down the hallway, unable to look away while I hear him rustling around behind me. I feel him step beside me and when I look over, I see him holding bear spray.

“You saw someone outside?” I can’t bring myself to say anything more about it, so I simply nod. “Stay here. I’m going to look around.” As he starts to walk away from me, I grab his hand and hold him back.

“Please don’t. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Let’s go back upstairs and get the car keys and leave or call the police or something.”

He turns back around, looking at me sternly and says, “You know we can’t call anyone and even if we could, it would take the police too long to get out here. If you want to leave, we can, but the keys are on the dining room table, so I have to go look around either way. I’ll be okay; no one is going to be able to get past bear spray. The best thing we can do now is stay calm and what you can do for me is stay right here so I know you’re safe. I was just upstairs so no one is up there and the front door is locked so as long as you stay right here then you have nothing to worry about. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Even though I still don’t like the idea of separating, I nod again and squeeze his hand before letting him go. I watch him walk further into the cabin until he is out of sight. I count my breaths and hope that it will keep my mind from wandering as I take a few steps backwards. Once my back is touching the front door, I sink down until I’m sitting on the ground and wait. By the time I make it to two hundred, I can’t stop myself from going to find Luke. I push myself off the floor and start slowly creeping down the hallway, but before I can even make it to the kitchen, I see him walking toward me.

He jumps a little when he notices me. “What are you doing?”

“You were taking too long and I got scared. I wanted to have time to get to you if you needed to be rescued.” He closes the distance between us, giving me a quick, comforting hug.

“Thank you, that’s very thoughtful. You’ll be happy to know that the crisis is averted. No one is here. I searched everywhere–this time for real. I even went back down into the creepy basement. The only weird thing was, both the door to get down there and the… other one–you know the one–were open.” I start to open my mouth to say something but before I can, he holds his hands up in defense. “Don’t freak out! My thought is that this place is old and drafty and most likely I didn’t get the big door closed completely. In turn, it could have caused both doors up here to pop open. It’s not that unusual and I can’t remember if we locked the front door before going upstairs. Can you?” I shake my head, not feeling reassured. “Well, that must be what happened, but don’t worry, all the doors are locked now so it won’t happen again. And I’m not telling you what you saw but… just maybe you saw a deer, or hell, even an actual bear?” I get defensive and have to stop myself from acting on the feeling. It’s hard when I know it wasn’t a deer and it was so pale that it couldn’t have been a bear, which leaves me not knowing how to respond.

“I… I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at it. It all happened so fast. I don’t think it was an animal, though. It was tall, like really tall.” I lean back into him, laying my forehead on his chest. I can’t bring myself to wrap my arms around him as the frustration of not being believed sits heavily in my mind. So, I wrap my arms around myself and only let myself take the comfort of his smell and the sound of his heartbeat. He pulls me in close. “Bears can get up to 10 feet tall. My point is, we have no reason to assume anyone is out here and we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Like you said, it’s been a bizarre start to our time here and we both are on edge, especially combined with the spook I gave you earlier. It's enough to make anyone jumpy. What we need is a hot shower and a long sleep. We will laugh about this tomorrow, I promise.” I sigh and slowly hug him back, letting myself fully sink into his arms.

“Okay, you’re probably right. I guess, let’s get ready for bed,” I say with a forced smile, not that he can see it.

I don’t feel at peace with the situation, but I also know that this isn’t my type of environment in general. I gave my time, my safety and my peace to Luke this week and I really want to see it through. Other than my parents, he is the person I trust the most. I rely on him and isn’t that the point of this week anyway, to reconnect and grow our relationship?

If I’m honest with myself, I also agreed to this as a test for myself. I have always been someone who is scared easily, who never takes risks, and who also looks for things to fall apart. It’s a miserable, learned trait. I had a great childhood, but I was pampered. My parents always made sure I had everything I wanted, without a question, and they fixed anything that was wrong, no matter how small. As safe and cared for as my parents made me feel, I also never learned to stand on my own two feet and I’ve taken that into every adult relationship I’ve had. I look to be rescued, eternally the damsel in distress.

But this time, in this relationship, I promised myself it would be different. I’ll let Luke love me, care for me, protect me because I want him to, but I won’t allow myself to need him to. I’m learning that I can stand on my own two feet. I have to or I’m afraid I’ll never live up to my full potential. This mental, emotional side-quest is what really made me agree to this trip. This feels like the first real time away that is outside my comfort zone, and it’s already proving to be the challenge I was silently calling for.

I take a small step away from Luke and look up at him. “You head up and get showered. I don’t know if you noticed that I broke a glass in the sink but I’m gonna go clean it up so we don’t have to deal with it in the morning and then I’ll meet you up there.”

“I can stay and help.”

“No no, it was my fault and it’ll only take a few minutes, plus it will give me a few moments to calm myself down the rest of the way.”

“Okay… if you're sure?” He pauses when I don’t answer and then continues, “if you aren’t upstairs in 10 minutes, I’m coming back down.” I nod and smile in what I hope is a comforting way. He hesitates for a second longer before turning and walking away.

I need to do better. I don’t want him to feel stressed over how I’m feeling. When he gets stressed, I get more stressed and it becomes a crazy cycle that’s hard to break out of. I quickly rummage around my mind for something to lighten the mood before he is out of my sight.

“Also, I just want to point out, you’ve never showered in under 10 minutes in your life.” He looks back at me, playfully giving me the finger just before he turns the corner.

“You haven’t known me my whole life so how would you know?” He yells back at me. I genuinely smile now as I walk over to the sink. This time, I purposely stare out the window, searching for anything abnormal. I look around the trees and the yard, not seeing anything before deciding that it’s fine. I put my hands on the edge of the sink, dropping my head, and closing my eyes. “God-damn, overactive imagination,” I whisper to myself. This trip is going to give me a new thing to explore in therapy when I get back home. We need to tackle my paranoia problem, apparently. Could I be acting more insane on this trip? What is wrong with me? This is confirming to me though that I will always be a city girl.

____

I get the glass cleaned up, peeking out the window every few seconds but the yard continues to stay empty. I sigh a breath of relief and smile at myself, feeling somewhat embarrassed but mostly ready to get back to the night. As I walk out of the kitchen, I think about leaving all the lights on, but I decide I don’t want to feed into my fear, so I turn them off. I don’t stop myself, though, from speed-walking my way to the stairs.