part2 of 2
Uпa пoche mυrmυró coп fiebre:
“Don’t go… look… smile…”
Tomé sυ maпo.
“I’m here.”
She opened her eyes. For the first time, she looked at me without fear.
“You must hate me,” he whispered.
—Maybe so—I said— . Already.
Then came the next surprise: the cause of my sleepwalking episodes. A doctor explained that it was related to a childhood trauma, repressed until stress brought it to light.
—Her husband recognized him —said the doctor—. He knew it before you did.
That night, for the first time, there was no fear, only regret.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
He looked out the window.
“Because if I did,” he said, “you would have run away.”
“And now?”
He exhaled.
“Now it’s too late to run.”
His health worsened again. A night said in a low voice:
“If I leave—”
“Don’t do it,” I interrupted.
He attended.
Leave the house. Take your father with you. Start over.
“And you?”
He did not respond.
That night, when he finally fell asleep, I sat in the chair, the same chair he once used to watch me. The papers were turned upside down. I watched him breathe.
And then I saw him.
He was smiling.
I understood: the danger was no longer me. He had been protecting us both from the beginning.
The next morning he told me:
“I’ve already decided.”
“¿Qυé?”
“I will no longer live in fear.”
He underwent a risky and brutal surgery, with hours of waiting.
When the doctor left, she was smiling.
“He survived.”
I cried, because at that moment I finally said: this marriage was not an agreement. It was two broken people who were finding each other again in the darkness.
But the real test was still pending.
One night, I had the same dream again: a long hallway, a voice behind me, legs as heavy as stones. The only difference was that this time I didn’t fall. I stopped. I turned around.
And I saw myself.
I screamed and sat up. He woke up instantly.
“I saw something,” I whispered.
He agreed.
I knew it. It had to happen today or tomorrow.
That night, what I feared happened. I woke up in a daze and walked towards the stairs, with my eyes open, unconscious.
But this time, he was sitting in the chair.
He stood in front of me.
“Stop,” he said.
Me detυve.
He asked gently, “Are you afraid?”
Asepti.
He took my hand, firm but gentle.
“I’m scared too,” he said. ” And I’m still here.”
Something broke inside me, into pieces, wide open.
I fell into his arms, or into the ground.
After that night, I started sleepwalking again.
The doctors called it the last shock of the mind: fear versus security.
Security won.
We sold the big house. My father’s treatment ended. We moved to a small town where nobody knew our names. No chairs. No doorbells. No guards. Just one bed and two people.
For the first time, we both slept at the same time.
Years later, when he finally passed away in a peaceful sleep, I sat by his side and watched his breathing fade away.
He was smiling.
This time there was no fear.
I knew it: the real danger had passed.
The lesson was simple, but costly:
Sometimes, the man who seems the strangest is the one who protects the most.
And sometimes, the only way to face fear… is to take someone’s hand and stay together.
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