I cried, because at that moment I finally said: this marriage wasn't an arrangement. It was two broken people finding each other again in the dark.
But the real test was still to come.
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 dazed and walked towards the stairs, my eyes open, unconscious.
But this time, he was sitting in the chair.
He stood in front of me.
"Stop," he said.
I stopped.
She asked gently, "Are you afraid?"
Asepti.
He took my hand, firmly but gently.
“I’m scared too,” she said. “And I’m still here.”
Something inside me broke, into pieces, completely ripped open.
I fell into his arms, or on the ground.
After that night, I went back to being a sleepwalker.
Doctors called it the ultimate mind shock: fear versus safety.
Safety won.
We sold the big house. My father's treatment ended. We moved to a small town where nobody knew us. There were no chairs. No doorbells. No guards. Just one bed and two people.
For the first time, we both went to sleep at the same time.
Years later, when he finally passed away peacefully in his sleep, I sat beside him 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.
