I married a rich man to save my family, but on our wedding night, I didn't get what I deserved. He just sat in the dark and said:
“Go to sleep. I want to watch.” The way she said it gave me goosebumps… the next morning, I realized that this marriage revolved around money.
—Nothing's going to happen tonight. Go to sleep.
My name is Nora Hale.
That night, I sat curled up on the edge of the bed, wearing a pony dress that looked like armor, shaking so much that my teeth were chattering.
I looked at the door as if it were a septic tank about to be executed.
When the door opened, he entered slowly, his gaze distant and lost, and the chair he was carrying sent a chill down my spine. He pulled it closer, sat down, and stared at me without blinking.
—I won't. I just want to watch you sleep.
I didn't understand what that meant. Was I sick? Was I dangerous? Was it some kind of control?
But I was exhausted, and in the morning I still had to look "normal" in front of my father. I went to bed without even taking off my dress.
When I woke up, he was already gone.
The second night, the third night, everything repeated itself. The chair. The silence. The gaze. The family moved as if they had made a pact: heads down, mouths closed, no explanations.
By the fourth night, something had left me petrified. I was asleep when I felt someone beside me. Heavy breathing near my ear.
I woke with a start and there he was, so close I could smell his old cologne. He hadn't touched me yet. He was mesmerized, his gaze fixed on my eyelids as if he were suffocating me.
He shuddered as if he had been caught committing a crime and immediately backed away.
I sat down and suddenly the room got colder.
He lowered his gaze.
I didn't lie. It's just that… tonight was different.
During the day, I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked what was scaring me:
He stood right next to the window. Outside, the trees swayed in the wind.
I felt like my throat was going to cry.
SŅ respŅesta coпteпía más miedo que υe certeza.
That night I pretended to be asleep, with my eyes closed and my mind wide awake. He brought the chair. He sat on the floor next to the bed, as if he were on guard.
A long silence.
Then he admitted: “Yes.”
"Whose?"
He didn't look at me.
"It's not about you," he said. "It's about your past."
Little by little, the truth began to come to light. He told me that his first wife had died in her sleep.
The doctors said it was heart failure. But he believed something else had happened.
“She would wake up at night,” he said, “with her eyes open, but as if she wasn’t really there… as if someone else was driving her.”
I got goosebumps.
Then he confessed the worst.
He had fallen asleep once. And when he woke up…
It was already too late.
After that, she turned the house into a fortress: locked closets, doorbells, bolts on the windows. I felt like I was living in a prison built of fear.
I asked in a low voice, "Do you think I could...?"
He interrupted me immediately.
—No. But fear doesn't require logic.
Then came the first real shock.
Upa mañaпa, Ѕп sirvieпte me coпtó qυe había estado de pie eп lo alto de la escalera eп pleпa пoche, coп los ojos abiertos, siп reacción.
He had been holding on, drenched in sweat, preventing me from falling.
He looked at me and said, almost desperately:
See? I wasn't wrong.
I was afraid, afraid of myself, of what was hidden inside me. But I also discovered something new in my fear: I wasn't going to let it defeat me.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" I asked.
“Because if I fall asleep,” he said, “history repeats itself.”
One night the power went out. In the darkness, for the first time, I took her hand. She didn't let go.
