The silent house nags at me, magnifying what can be heard—the slow leak of the faucet I can’t fix, the whining of a stomach digesting cheap food—but I keep it bone quiet at night now because it assures me that no other human is in here with me. The rattle of my own lungs is so audible I am sure there are no other beating hearts.
Still I startle at the wind, verify locked doors, overinspect dark corners and closets I know are empty. I am not being chased by him any longer, i dont think—it’s been years since the last contact—and my exes have learned to stay away in the same manner by which my friends have learned to call first and expect little.
What I am being stalked by now is my own fear, the murmuring of my terrors inside my veins. What haunts me now is not a spirit, not even a memory, but a possibility: I have had enough near misses, surely my death has figured me out. How many lives am I granted? How many escapes, how many guardians, how many serendipitues? Behind my bedroom door a car crash, in the attic an active shooter, in the back of my closet an intruder. Under my bed, the long, slow arc of cancer; in my bed, the hush and hurry of overdose.
At best I am an uneasy sleeper, and more likely than not to get up when my brain prompts me at 3am to listen more closely for a second heartbeat. Walking through the dark house in the middle of the night each night, throwing open doors and cabinets, standing motionless in the dining room to be sure I haven’t heard footsteps in the basement. Barefoot, fearful, the pressure of my mounting luck bearing down between my shoulder blades. How much longer can I go unharmed, when there is so much harm to encounter in the world? This streak has been too long, I am preparing for its end.