You stand there in the shadows.

Watching.

Waiting.

Perhaps lurking would be a more fitting term?

You would laugh at that, mirthlessly, and make one of your incredulous expressions, if only there were anyone there to see you. To witness your lips curling in one of your trademark smirks, your eyebrows furrowing in your signature scowl.

But there's no one there.

Wrong.

You're not there.

Yet, you are. Hiding in plain sight. Always there, with them, but not being able to touch or feel or speak. After the initial shock wore off, after you yelled and thrashed and tried so hard to reach out to someone, anyone, after you shook off the catatonic state you'd quietly slipped into when the anger wasn't enough anymore, you're still there. Watching. Talking to them sometimes, even though they can't hear you.

Waiting.

But what you are waiting for, you don't know.

As days turn into weeks into months into years, you come to terms with it. Nobody's looking for you. You're just a fading memory to them. A name spoken less and less every day, until you're just an occasional toast on New Year's Eve or other stupid celebration. They honor your sacrifice. And you would laugh at this again, wholeheartedly, and make one of your snide remarks, because you know better. There's no honor in getting struck by lightning. And there's no sacrifice because technically, you're not dead.

Just there, in the cracks.

Waiting.

It's infuriating at first. How you're never able to move away from any of them. Perpetually there, seeing them live their lives without you. Unknown. Unrequited. The story of your life.

But years go by and you're still there, forced to keep on watching. You discover there's a certain voyeuristic pleasure in it. One that goes beyond the limits of the flesh you no longer have. You never suspected you had it in you.

Pleasure should be immaterial now.

Not a ghost. Not a body. Not alive. Not dead.

You wonder briefly if that's what he felt like, being written out of history. Stuck on an impossible train for ages, and almost not a single living soul remembering he was ever there. And it was all your fault.

But if he could do it, so can you. Until she finds you and sets you free, just like she did with him.

So you just settle there nicely and follow her everywhere. The love of your life and you, her own personal, totally useless, guardian angel.

You watch her be happy. Working hard to be happy. You see her riding the tide of victory after they win without you. You're happy for her and even happier for yourself because that means she'll start looking for you now.

It takes you a while to realize that she has no intention to.

To them, you're not there anymore. Already forgotten.

But there's nowhere else to go.

So you watch her making it work with her new lover, old lover, the shoes you thought you'd fill but were so devastatingly mistaken. All of that domestic bliss would make your stomach turn if you still had one.

They're together most of the time so you watch them both, even as they grow apart. You watch her screw up what she has and how she lies about it. She never does seem to learn, does she? She screws up again and again, the little fool, until it's too late to make it right.

You watch them fight and make up. Fight again and hurl insults at each other. And eventually, they decide to part ways, as you always expected they would.

You'd gloat right now, if you could. Only that you don't feel like it. Not after you witness the mess your great love left in her wake.

Somewhere along the way, your attention shifted focus and you didn't even realize it. You should hate this woman with all your might. It should have been you in her place. For a while, you pretend that you do hate her and you tell yourself that what you do is just 'keeping an eye on the competition.'

But when she's all alone and she thinks nobody can see her, she's just like you. You hide behind sarcasm and passive-aggressive banter. She hides behind dry humor and science. But with her guard down, you can see just how vulnerable she really is. And you can't hate her.

After the breakup, she throws herself into her work with the desperation and determination of a little dog on their first day in the park. She does kind of remind you of a puppy, with those big, brown, wet eyes of hers.

You watch her work, curiously. Test tubes, strange substances, petri dishes with unknown cultures.

This is her life.

It's almost as sad as yours.

And when all work is done, every item cleaned and polished and placed where it belongs, she finally breaks. Her shoulders slumped forward, chest heaving, angry sobs and wails dying in her throat, choking her. Ever polite and proper, even in heartbreak.

You shift your gaze, uncomfortably. It's funny how even now, away from prying eyes and questioning gazes, you're still embarrassed by crying.

When the violent wave of pain and anger finally subsides she lowers herself on the floor, leans her back against a wall, and stays there, motionless, staring into nothingness for hours on end. You give in pretty quickly. Mumbling an excuse only you can hear, you sit next to her as gently as possible so as not to disturb her. And then you chastise yourself for being an idiot. It's not like she can hear you or feel you there anyway.

After a while, you find that staring into nothingness is more comforting than you remembered. More comforting in her presence. You would let your guard down now, if it hadn't been lowered already by all these years as a mute, invisible witness.

Neither of you moves away that night, and morning finds you still there.

Staring.

Waiting.

Waiting for what.

You know now.

For it to stop hurting.

For her. For you.

Her presence soon becomes oddly soothing so you start finding excuses to avoid going away and checking on the others. What's worse is that you can't even find her boring anymore. In your defense, even a speck of dust traveling on a gust of wind from point A to point B at a constant speed of 15 miles per hour would be more interesting than your existence right now.

So you stay with her, watching her do tedious house chores and quirky experiments, watching her read biology books and pulp novels – her guilty pleasure no one but you knows about, and you make jokes and sarcastic comments from the safety of your invisibility. All in good nature, but sometimes you just take it too far, as you always did. And then you berate yourself and apologize profusely. Even though it falls on deaf ears.

You're pretty certain this would qualify for creepy stalkerish behavior but you couldn't care less. You've never felt this alive before.

You don't even realize when you start talking to her, really talking. Telling her things about yourself no one has ever known. Things even you can barely remember. Things about yourself you never dreamed of telling anyone else. She can't respond, but you imagine she does. You start giving meaning to her gestures while you talk, as if she was actually reacting to your stories. A frown shows disbelief, while the way she sometimes tilts her head to the left means she is encouraging you to go on. When she purses her lips, it's because she's trying to hold back a laugh. Obviously.

There's a strange comfort in this one-sided conversation, you soon find out.

Slowly, you resign yourself to the idea that this is your life now. That this is what the rest of your life will be like.

You don't even have to think that hard.

There are others, much worse ways to go. Worse ways to live.

But any kind of bliss is short-lived, you should know better. One day, she starts acting strange out of the blue. A haunted look on her face most of the time, she keeps on looking behind her, over her shoulder, as if there's something following her. Watching her. There's no one there though. You try talking to her, whispering reassuring nothings in her ear, your hand hovering over hers but never quite touching. It seems to make matters worse.

It's particularly bad one evening, when she's so nervous that she barricades herself in her bedroom, baseball bat cradled in her arms and a particularly large and heavy cabinet pushed against the door to make sure it stays shut. Your words of reassurance are useless, yet you still try, not bearing to see her like this. After a while, she calms down a bit, and deep down inside you can't help yourself but hope that you were able to get through to her.

You watch her pick up the phone and going through her contacts, stopping briefly to look at a name before she scrolls down again. Wondering who she could call.

Nobody, apparently.

She's as alone as you are.

So you decide that staying with her was quite possibly the best thing you've ever done in your life. You're not going to leave her. Probably never.

She eventually falls asleep, exhausted and you breathe a sigh of relief. The next morning, she's still on edge. "Is anyone there," she asks as she slips out of the room, baseball bat still in hand. She seems to relax a bit when she realizes how empty the house feels.

You want to help so you look everywhere. Just to be sure. When you return to the living room, declaring smugly that 'There's nobody here,' she jerks her head upwards and grips the bat even tighter, while her eyes scan the room, betraying panic and fear.

Your heart constricts in a way you never thought possible.

It was you all along. You're the one who drove her to this state. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she became attuned to your presence.

Must have been all that stupid talking you did.

And you panic, much in the way you did those first days when you realized nobody could see you or hear you or feel you. So you do the only reasonable thing and leave. You should see how the others are doing anyway.

You can't stay far for long but when you come back you don't talk anymore. You don't even move. Just stand in a corner, watching.

Still, she knows you're there.

Days go by and she seems to relax a bit. Becoming used to you. Still tense, but not afraid.

Your determination to not consider her boring anymore is severely challenged as she starts spending more time in the archives, buried under piles of old, dusty books from centuries ago. She seems particularly interested in Greek mythology and pre-Edda Norse texts. You stay with her, sometimes reading what she reads over her shoulder, sometimes wandering around the bookshelves, scanning the titles. But most of the time, you just look at her, studying her face and body language for any signs, for any indication that she is aware of your presence.

You remember what you said to her years before – one of the last things you told her before you were gone. Half in angry acceptance, half in a half-assed attempt at being mature. That the best woman won. That she won. That she was, is the best. An absolute truth, if ever you knew one.

Watching her now, bent over an ancient book, eyes focused and her lips shut tight in a stern expression of determination, you couldn't agree more.

Things slowly quiet down. She seems to have recovered from the scare you gave her. Less tense, less concerned about your presence. Her visits to the archives become less frequent.

She even goes out sometimes, drinking or dancing. Always alone. Even if some of her random hookups would like to invite themselves over or ask her out, she always leaves before they even have the chance to zip up their pants.

You approve.

You know you shouldn't care but you don't want to see her invested in a relationship. To see her get hurt again.

Slowly you pluck up the courage to start talking to her again and you do it so eagerly it makes you stop and question your sanity.

There is no sanity. That was gone long ago.

You gleefully recount old tales of jousting and mindless acts of bravery. Pathetic stories of woe. Distant memories of passionate nights.

She doesn't seem to respond. Her sensing you, or whatever it was, must be gone. Possibly forever.

But then one day, as you watch her sit down for dinner, a glass of wine in hand, she lifts her eyes and scans the room.

Your heart skips a beat. You could swear that her gaze settled on you just now.

She puts down her glass and fork and takes a deep breath. "Tamsin, is that you?" she asks tentatively.

You're pretty sure you'd be hyperventilating now. If you still had lungs.

She doesn't wait for your answer. Not that you'd be able to give her one. "I think I can help," she adds and smiles broadly.

And in that moment, there's nothing you wish for more than a stupid pack of tarot cards and having thought of a nerve-gritting, obsession-inducing theme song sooner.


This feels a bit weird. Is it weird? Or weirder?