Title: I watched her
Author: kbk
Claimer: The writing is mine. The room is mine. A fair portion of her day is mine. Isn't that nice for me?

I watched her for all of that day. Teenage, or possibly early twenties; prettier than she thought, though that wouldn’t be hard; tall-ish, slimmish, blondeish, and ish-ish – that is to say, fairly average and more than average and less than average in various ways. The day started, I think, around five in the morning – I would be more precise, but I had been up all night and my watch was broken, so I was working on approximate internal clock, star positions and other such things. There was a fire alarm in the hall she was living in, so all the students filed out in their pyjamas, some with dressing gowns on, a couple carrying their duvets, some with clothes hastily pulled on, many with jackets… She had her jacket on, a thick one, appropriate for time and place, though later I found it was the one she wore in almost every circumstance because of the comfort value – she described it as, what? like a comforting arm around her shoulders. She had boots on, as well, the sturdiest footwear around – but she walked out with the laces undone, waiting until they were standing around while the firemen checked it out to bother to tie them. Her pyjamas were plain, which I’m sure she was thankful for. And her keys were slung around her neck, along with a penknife, by a thin black cord which she was in the habit of wearing continually, but at night slung on her door handle, obviously for situations like this one.

I can’t describe why I picked her out of the crowd, for as I told you, she was average, nothing special at all. I watched as she filed into the hall with her fellow students, and thought I would have to wait for hours until I saw her again. That was all I was going to wait for – to see her one more time, maybe find out where her classes were so I could accidentally-on-purpose bump into her, maybe get talking. But my eyes were drawn ten minutes later to one of the first-floor windows, where the curtains were abruptly drawn back. Most of the students had gone back to bed, if only for the warmth, but this was her window and she was already fully dressed and ready for the day. I was far enough back to see in a fair way, and I watched as she sat at her desk and half-turned to search in a drawer. It was a strain to see, so I checked in my bag and found that yes, I did have my small binoculars – despite feeling vaguely stalker-ish, it meant I could see her and I could see that she was pulling tapes out of the drawer, looking for the appropriate music for a time in the morning she had definitely not planned on seeing, as it would be two hours before her alarm clock would go off. I couldn’t read the label, but I assume she played it quietly to avoid confrontations with her more confident neighbours (and I know they were more confident because they all stood in a fire group together and they stood openly and chatted brightly while she snuggled into her jacket and spoke only to confirm her place on the list). She picked up a book and started reading, and once more the label was unreadable by me; but it was thick and too small to be a textbook and too dull of cover to be a saga pot-broiler or whatever they call it, so I figure it was a novel of the classic ilk. I was more impressed seeing her reading it like that than I would have been had it been twelve hours later and she sitting next to me on this bench, because then I would have assumed her to be a posing English lit. student, broadcasting out “look at me aren’t I special I’m reading Dickens” when she really had to do it for her course. But it wasn’t that, because then she would have been making notes, and she wasn’t. She was sitting reading for the sheer joy of it. I don’t think it was Dickens, though – she didn’t seem the type for heavy social commentary. Maybe Jane Austen, but the book was too thick for that – I’m betting Sir Walter Scott, one of his romances; probably “Ivanhoe”, though the prejudice in it always turned me off a little…

I know when her alarm went off because I saw her jump when it happened and knock her empty wine glass across the desk. She swore. Quite loudly, it looked like. Then she tumbled across the room, presumably to switch it off. She took a plastic bag next, and began to clear up the shattered glass,dropping in the big pieces first and the tiny ones after. One she took back out, large-ish, broken differently to most of the others: with a sharp edge. She touched it lightly to the back of her wrist and smiled at the tiny drop of blood. I knew then that I would stay for as long as she needed me to, keeping her safe from herself. I knew then that I would never introduce myself, because there was far too great a chance that something would happen to screw it all up, and if she got any more depressed the touch wouldn’t be so light. I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I had been holding as she put down the shard, and drew another as she picked it back up. Then she put it back down, and for a second I thought she was toying with me; but of course she didn’t know of my existence. She violently took off her watch, revealing red marks all around that had previously been hidden by the wristband. Some of them must have been rub marks from buckling it too tight in order to be sure of hiding her little secret: the other red lines. She stared at them. I stared at her staring at them. I barely noticed when she picked up the shard of glass again, but I saw the small, rueful smile that she gave before she drew it lightly across the inside of her wrist – the traditional, though wrong, place for suicide. I guess she knew it was wrong, but she did it all the same. It didn’t even break the skin over half the distance. I don’t know why she didn’t want to cut too deep: whether she didn’t want to leave a scar; whether she was scared she would go on cutting and somehow manage to kill herself, though the placement was ineffective; whether she was scared of hospitalisation; or whether she decided that in the event of losing her disguise it would be harder to explain away a fairly deep cut in that well-known place. She turned her wrist and made a cut this time, on the outside. Back on the desk went the glass. The cut welled with blood and she gently suckled on it. I wanted it too.

An hour later, she sauntered out of the building, earphones pressed in and music set playing as she crossed the street. I think she noticed me. I think she saw me cross to follow behind her and cross the next behind her again. I think she didn’t like to turn and look. I think her hand sneaking snaking into her pocket was to switch off her music so she could listen out for footsteps behind her. I didn’t want to scare her. I backed off. I followed her, though, and luckily enough she took the main road and normal shortcut instead of the other shortcut, little-used because of the seclusion and the fact that not so many people knew about it. She walked into the Physics building – I assume she had a nine-o’clock lecture – and I waited outside. For half-an-hour. Then I went inside and sat in the common area just inside the door. I saw her briefly around ten, silent part of a small group moving from one lecture theatre to another. I kept waiting, reading the papers strewn about on the tables, drinking cup after cup of coffee. She wasn’t part of the stream of students leaving the theatre an hour later, and I realised she must have a third lecture straight off – no wonder the girl was depressed. My next realisation was that they didn’t take attendances at these things, and if it was a large class (and it must be to be given in the biggest lecture theatre) I could walk in and sit down completely unnoticed. So I did.

Three rows behind her group, now diminished in size, sitting quite far into the row, soon trapped by another micro-group at the aisle, but not caring because I could see her, I could sit and watch her for a whole hour and surely nobody would notice or if they did, care, and I didn’t know what the lecture was about but I didn’t care, I would watch over her and she wouldn’t hurt with me there. I wouldn’t let the pain touch her. Never again. I don’t even know what the lecture was about, but I remember it had pretty pictures – even I can’t look at the back of someone’s head for a whole hour, and I had to make some effort to fit in. The lights went down for an animation, and I wished I was closer to my dark fascination. I wished I had had the nerve to sit right behind her. I wished I could say I would have leaned forward and stroked her hair, ever so gently; but I knew I wouldn’t have. I knew I would have sat there quietly, watching her watching the screen. But I would have been able to see more clearly the awe I am sure was on her face and running through every fibre of her body, the sensation I could almost feel even from my now too-distant seat. The lecture ended early, and she left quickly, and I was afraid I had lost her, though I didn’t think she would go anywhere other than her hall or her classes, and I knew the location of both – but I didn’t want her running off and slitting her wrists in the toilets or some other quiet corner. She should have perfume and bubbles in a cast-iron bath with a glass of wine by the side and candles all around if she were ever to do it that way. Perhaps she could have some magnificent setting, like a mountain top or a wild beach, but nothing so sordid and ordinary as that place, where the cleaners would find her next morning, or maybe the janitor at night as he went on his rounds…

I stayed in the common area and at twelve she walked quickly out of the computer room and towards the offices, where she stayed for another hour. I know it was a tutorial, because she walked out at one with another girl from her group who complained very vocally about how much she hated bloody tutorials. And she smiled and nodded and murmured her assent and asked about the apparently unclear explanation of one of the homework questions, and I realised it was the first time I had heard her voice. Luckily for me, it was low and pleasant with a slight accent that I could only place as being Celtic. And I was thankful because her friend was English and shrill and honestly painful to hear at more agitated points. My girl indicated her intention to sit and work in the common area instead of going up to the library and I was more thankful by the second. It seemed as if it had been arranged for me, that I would see as much of her in this one day as was possible. She claimed half of a nearby coffee table for her folder, occasioning another grateful nod upwards, then went to the vending machines for a can of cola and a chocolate biscuit. I mentally castigated her for buying the products of global conglomerates with a distinct lack of social conscience, but my rant turned more personal as it became clear that this was all she was going to eat for her lunch. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I reflected into my sixth cup of evil-global-conglomerate coffee with its glorious jolt of caffeine, as someone messed up enough to have a minor self-harm problem was probably messed up enough to ignore the value of proper nutrition. I, on the other hand, merely ignored the necessity for sleep and compensated by overdosing on caffeine. My lunch, though, was a healthy one, a tuna roll with salad and a yoghurt to follow. I covertly watched her work while pretending to read a broadsheet for the third time. The first two times I managed to find some interest in it, but third time unlucky. Perhaps it was just her presence drawing every ounce of my attention. By the looks of things, she wasn’t having much more luck concentrating, because as she flipped through the pages of her notes, she sighed heavily and often, and as she read the question sheet she screwed up her face in confusion, and she sorted the right tape into her personal stereo, and read the little scribbled notes on a couple of scraps of paper from her pocket, and laughed a little and added a new one before pushing them back into the back pocket of her black jeans, and did everything possible to put off actually having to work. Eventually she did whatever it was she had to do and ordered all the sheets of paper back into her folder. She stretched, unself-conscious in the cause of what must be aching, knotted shoulder muscles. She could have done with a massage. I’m good at massages.

I can just picture us of an evening. She’s been working away at her books and she’s just left them to come and see me and she’s still so tense from it all. And I sit on my sofa and she sits on the floor in front of me and we start watching some corny film while I rub her shoulders. And maybe half-way through she’s finally relaxed, so I go and get some wine and some crisps and a blanket and I tell her I would sit on the floor just to hold her but I’d rather be comfortable, and she laughs. And I’m so glad she’s happy. Then she pushes herself up onto the sofa and I sit next to her and pull her into my arms, and she leans against me with perfect trust, and we just stay that way for as long as we possibly can. And she falls asleep smiling.

She left the common room with yet another acquaintance on her way to yet another tutorial and then her day would be done so I waited again. And someone tried to talk to me but I brushed them off fairly effectively. That is to say, they left me alone quite quickly – I may have been rude or I may just have scared them. I didn’t really care. I still don’t. Whoever they were, they weren’t important, not to me, not then, not now, they don’t matter in the slightest. Right then, right now, all that mattered, all that matters, was and is her. It was hard to miss her storming out after the second tutorial, alone, watched by other sets of eyes than mine, sets belonging to her “friends” and her teachers and people with nothing better to look at. I knew. I knew what she was going to do and I knew I wouldn’t stop her. I picked my bag off the floor and I followed like night follows day, dependable and always there. I saw her take the deserted path and I saw why. Her penknife, the one hanging down to her stomach, was in her hand and the blade was out. They aren’t very sharp, those things, and it would take a little effort on her part even to break the skin. She could have taken the main road. Nobody would have said anything, if they even noticed. But she took the path and I followed, as far away as I could be while keeping her in sight. She went home. I know she had a single room and I am sure she was glad of it because it meant she could keep a shard of glass to let her blood in the same drawer as her tapes and CDs and who knew what else, and she could stand by the window as she did that afternoon, looking at the sky, watching the sunset, placing her fist to the glass as though longing to smash it through but aware that it would bring attention, too much attention, too many people asking her what she had done and why she had done and whether she would do, and swinging back hanging onto the safety rail and pulling forwards again as if she would fly through the window and crash to the pavement below but stopping herself, always stopping herself… And looking out and looking all around and looking up and looking down and looking at trees and looking at cars and looking at people and looking at me but not seeing me, never seeing me. She sat at the desk sometimes, now scribbling on a bit of paper and now ripping it up, now trying to piece it back together and now crumpling it up and putting it in the sink to not be destroyed. She tried to read but she just couldn’t, she was still too agitated from whatever had happened in the tutorial, or maybe not, maybe she was brim-full of adrenaline from the cutting, but that should have faded because the rush never lasts very long, so maybe the times she turned away and walked back in her room so I couldn’t see her that was what she was doing, she was taking the gleaming edge and running it red, but why put her watch back on when she was alone? She missed dinner but I saw her eating brown bread from a loaf she kept on her shelf, and approved of the healthy choice but hoped it was simply because she preferred the taste.

Later she left her room and left the building and once more I followed, hoping maybe she was going to a sociable place where I could listen in on her talking and maybe talk to her myself if I got drunk enough to have the nerve but not drunk enough to tell her I’d been following her – I don’t have much experience in these things, but I doubt many girls would appreciate being stalked. It wasn’t stalking. I was just looking out for her, looking after her, though I didn’t stop her doing anything and I could have, I am sure, if I’d only let her know I was there. A friend, nothing else. That is to say… I only wish her good. Only what is light should come to her because there’s enough dark there already. And that’s why… But that’s later.

She went to the beach. She went down to the beach to be alone and I have to say it’s the perfect place for it when the sun is down and the stars are out and everyone’s scared. I think it gets busy when the pubs close, people drinking and going swimming, but in the time between sundown and last orders it’s a pretty quiet place. She set down her bag and pulled out a bottle, a nearly-empty bottle of wine, and took a drink. And she cut herself again and took a drink. And she pulled out another bottle, high in caffeine, and she took a drink. I sat on the sea-wall and watched. I think she knew I was there, because she started talking out loud. She was talking to the stars.

I don’t remember what she said.

I remember watching her for maybe an hour, occasionally pausing in her rants to drink from one of the three sources, or to turn around looking for a constellation, or just until a car passed. She was entertaining to watch, standing still and speaking so quietly I could barely hear her one moment, spinning around and yelling the next. She actually howled at the crescent moon. She spoke of many things: of emotions mainly; of people I didn’t know and had never seen; of myths from long ago; of why she had no right to be so screwed-up; of how the stars shine; of why she was spending her evening alone, cold, and practically sober; and a report on her day, which I may remember some of. I think she said, “It’s not been a bad day, considering. Considering that I’ve cut more today than over the past week. And I’ll probably catch hypothermia on this beach. And I need more sleep. And it’s really been a godawful day but somehow I felt safe.” And I was sure that was me and it made me feel so much better.

Then I walked behind her all the way back to her home, and I realised I hadn’t seen mine in twenty-four hours and I ought to go there but I couldn’t leave her… But she solved my problem for me by going into her room and drawing the curtains, effectively shutting me out, and I knew it was my cue to leave. I toyed with the idea of going up to see her; in fact, I seriously considered the idea for some ten minutes but I didn’t even know which room number she was in. I didn’t even know her name. And it wouldn’t be wise and it would just be stupid and I would go up there and what would I say? “Hi there, you don’t know me but I’ve been watching you since the fire alarm and I was wondering if you’d like to go for a drink.” More likely I’d start stammering and ask if she knew where Lucy lived, and hope there wasn’t one, or at least that they weren’t friends. Though she didn’t appear to have any friends, really. I couldn’t tell any more what was right and what was wrong; and the wonderful effect of all that coffee and my natural energised state after a complete lack of sleep were both completely gone; and I wouldn’t be able to find her. So I went home. I went back to my home and back to my bed and back to my life and as I lay wakeful I began to rationalise.

She was obviously a troubled young girl who needed professional help. A relationship, which I had no doubt was what I wanted, would simply place additional stress on her and perhaps tip her over the edge. Therefore the best thing to do was leave well alone. The fact that I had been spying on her would surely freak her out and make her paranoid, worsening her mental state: therefore, again, leave well alone. I felt guilty for not helping her or at least putting her in touch with a support group but I knew the university ran one and she must know about it. And I couldn’t tell her I knew without telling her I’d been watching and so on and see above. I wished it could be otherwise, I really did, but whenever I tried to reason that attracting someone must surely bolster her self-esteem I had to argue back that it would be a temporary boost and the eventual result would be worse than before. I knew she had to fix herself. I knew I had to let her.

So I let it go. I didn’t stand outside her hall the next morning. I didn’t sit in the common area in the Physics building when I had a spare few hours. I didn’t go down to the beach in the evening. I barely looked up when I passed her in the street. I let it go in one way. Now I’m writing it down and setting it out so I can let it go for real. I can’t help her. I know that. I would only harm her. I know that too. So I have let her go and I will let her go and she will go on and she will survive and she will find a way to make herself stronger and I will not be there to see it. I won’t be watching. Never again.