I'll Be Watching You

Life. Even when you didn’t want it to, it happened. Life took my and my sister’s mom away. It gave you solar eclipses at three or four in the morning on a school night, things that happened once in a lifetime that you had to miss in order to get more beauty sleep for the day ahead(not to add in the fact that this would’ve been more perfect if it happened in the summer season, where I stay up every night to God knows when and I could’ve actually witnessed it). To continue with that, life doesn’t always make things perfect. It made my dad an alcoholic just on the eve of my leaving for college, it made my grandmother leave us not too long after our grandfather did(though while he died, she ran off to Italy for some ‘last adventure’ or whatever the hell she called her sudden spontaneous urge of wanting to go there), it gave my aunt cancer right before she found out she was having a baby, which lead her to have to decide between her life or the baby’s; chemotherapy being a dangerous risk for the unborn child. She ended up choosing the baby over her own life... I guess I should be more thankful, though, seeing as that baby turned out to be my ‘sister’, Tess. My mom took her after my aunt died for her, not too long after I turned seven. I’ve considered her my sister ever since, seeing as mom looked at her and considered her as her other daughter.

That’s actually one of the sad parts to this story. My sister not only lost one mom, but two. Even if she doesn’t remember the first one, it still happened and she still knows the story with that.

My first memory with my mom had to have been when I was three. Some people think this is impossible to remember, maybe remembering back to when they were five, but I remember seeing somewhere once it’s only before the age of two you don’t have memories. So I believe my memory was all the more real, though I knew for a fact it was after asking my mom about it when she was still alive. My first memory of ever being alive was when I saw Halley’s comet.

It was last seen by all of the earth in 1986. This was three years before my sister was born, and even if she had only been a baby then, I would’ve wished she could’ve been there to witness it too. Because then she could say she was at least there with us to see it, even if she didn’t totally remember it. Because Halley’s Comet is something to witness.

It was that day that I made a wish on life that I would never forget. Only being three at the time, it wasn’t that serious at the time, and hell... even now, I may even just be thinking I wished this. I don’t remember all of the exact details from that day. But I remember Halley’s Comet being there.

Anyway, my wish was that I hoped one day I would be important to somebody. Anyone. My mom had my dad, and it didn’t necessarily have to be in that same romantic way, but... I wanted to be loved by someone. I wanted to be important in someone’s life in ways that if I were ever gone, they would definitely miss me.

It turned out I got my wish. It wasn’t until, well, after what happened to me that I realized it was my sister Tess.

And what happened to me, you must be asking right about now? Well, that was where life again, sadly, happened.



It was 2012... Christmas that year to be more exact. Horrible already, I know. I mean, what happens around that time of year besides celebration of that holiday? Sometimes I question life’s motives with that myself.

I was on my way to my sister’s house, and nearly flew off the road with how icy they were at this time of year. Oh what, you thought I was going to die in some fatal car accident, did you? Well, try again. I actually survived the road. Sadly, I kind of wish what had happened had been that more predictable.

Anyway, my sister was in charge of hosting the Christmas Eve party this year. So I was on the way to her house in the middle of goddamn nowhere just to be with her and our dysfunctional family. Besides me and Tess, there would be Dad, which I would be really surprised if he was still half sober by the time I got there, my aunt Myrna(who acted like she was one of those real-life Wiccan, so that just says crazy in itself not the mention the bitchy-ass name my grandmother gave her, which I personally wouldn’t be surprised if that gave her half of her craziness), her two kids(who were my age and Tess’s age, oddly enough; the one my age being just as nuts as his mother, the other being quite a catch to the ladies, apparently. That being everyone else’s opinion besides my own, because it’s been years since I’ve talked to him casually enough to find that out), my uncle Donald(Ronald McDonald I’ve always called him, being the only child of Grandma’s and before he had his son, the only person in our family to have red hair), his son Luke(probably who I’d give the medal to besides me or my sister as being one of the sanest in the family), Donald’s wife Karen(who fit right in, I realized, right after I met her), and... Theo. Theo is my sister’s husband, who she married at the tender age of twenty. I tried to talk some sense into her, telling her she could wait a little while, and still be with him and not have to be married until they were at least 25, but she refused, claiming her undying love for him. She’s 22 at the time of the Christmas party. So I’ll let you know they at least lasted that long.

As for me, I’m 29 and haven’t seen a steady guy in a few months. The few relationships I have had only lasted a year, tops... having not found the one quite yet.

Though why am I telling you the details of my pathetic life? I should just go on with it; I’m sure you’re dying to know how I... died. Terrible phrasing there, I apologize.

Anyway, so I made it to the Christmas party and avoided my relatives as much as possible, all of them asking the same thing: ‘When are you going to settle down?’... ‘Are you seeing anyone?’... ‘Can you drive me home after this?’(My dad, with that one)... ‘Have you thought about having kids?’... and so many other ones along those lines. I’d be lying if I said some of their questions were as straightforward and easy to answer as some of those were, my dad’s aside.

But after being hit with all of those questions I couldn’t manage to avoid, well... that was when I met him.

Robert Kerns. Thirty-something fellow, close childhood friend of Theo’s. Tess invited him over, having felt sorry for him after Theo told her Robert’s story, which I myself kind of found sad at the time: only child, mother and father died in an unexpected hostage situation when he was nine, had one aunt that took him in... but died not too long after he turned eighteen. From cancer... that damn disease; it also took my aunt, Tess’s biological mother.

Anyway, back to the party... Robert was, well, over-all lonely during the holidays, so... Tess decided to invite him to the party. He at least knew Theo, so he wouldn’t be totally estranged. And with my family, he wasn’t for long either... their hospitality was hidden in the core of their strangeness.

There was something about Robert that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Though at the time, I ignored that and made the mistake of thinking he was a catch, because that... led to us having a relationship together. A romantic relationship.

Things with Robert went fine at first, but after a few months of being with him, he began to let his crazy leak out. I wasn’t one for abusive relationships, hated them actually, and when he ‘accidently’ hit me that one time when he turned around and ‘did not see me’... I almost dropped what we had right there. But for some reason, I didn’t. For one small reason... and that was because an inkling in me told me it was an accident. ‘He didn’t mean it’, a small thought at the back of my head told me, ‘Why throw something as good as this away?’ Because before that happened, things were going well. This was the first thing that was off about him.

So I pushed it away. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back on it, I know that was the first troubling sign that I was becoming one of those girls. One of those girls that let it happen.

And sadly, things slowly escalated from there. It started with small things... mental abuse, only twice did he take it physical in those first stages. Though it wasn’t before long that it started getting more severe.

I had a black and blue eye going into work one day. I managed to cover a majority of it with make-up, but you could still tell it was there and people definitely noticed. My coworker, Stacy, is the only person that said something to me. Or well, to my face.

“Oh my God, what happened?” she asked me. I told I opened the medicine cabinet too quickly and couldn’t dodge it in time. She laughed at the stupidity of the situation. “Nice. Well, I’d put some ice on that... it looks like it hurts.” She wasn’t wrong there. It did.

By summer, I had so many bruises on me that I couldn’t go swimming with Tess at the public pool; what I had, a bikini couldn’t cover up. Much less make-up... if I went swimming or rubbed sun screen or tanning oil on me, it would come right off. So I told her that it was too hot every time she asked me or that I couldn’t that day. I always made something up.

It was what happened in September that made everything take a turn for the worst.

“Are you cheating on me?” Robert came home asking me one day. We had moved in together; not so much that I wanted to, but he did. “Who was that guy you were with last night?”

“I... went to the movies with a coworker,” I said hesitantly, wondering how he knew who I had been with, much less, know that I was really with someone. “I told you I was going to the movies.”

“Well, yeah, but not with a guy,” he said, smacking me hard across the face. I turned back to him.

“Who told you?” I asked, but the look on his face said it all. “Were you watching me? Did you follow me?”

“I had to. I didn’t know what to do. I had to, Gwen, considering who your sister is. I can’t trust you,” he explained.

“Tess? Tess is the most trustworthy person I know,” I said. “What does she have to do with me? Even if she was a liar, that wouldn’t mean I’m the same way.”

“She hides things from Theo, I know it!” he yelled at me. I shook my head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t ever insult my sister again,” I spoke firmly, hoping he’d get the point. He punched me in the face and I was thrown back. Great. Yet another face bruise to cover up.

“You’re such a slut,” he said to me, tripping me and knocking me to the ground before starting to kick me. “You’re nothing; I deserve way better than you.”

I believed every word he said, hit after hit. Eventually, he stopped, and left the apartment. I couldn’t stand up, so I crawled over to the phone and called Tess.

“I need... help,” I told her. “Can you please come over? I think I need to go to the hospital.”

When she got to the apartment, she cried out. Screaming about blood being everywhere, and called 9-1-1.

At the hospital, after I woke up, Tess was by my bedside. She was crying.

“Please, Gwen. You have to end it. I can’t lose you too,” she sobbed. “I’ve already lost so many important people in my life. I can’t lose you too.”

I tried my best to smile and reassure her, but she wasn’t having it.

“I called the police, and they’re looking for Robert,” she said. My eyes widened.

“What, why? No!” I screamed at her. “Call them back! Tell them that I fell down the stairs or something... they can’t arrest him. I love him! And he’ll be so angry with me if he finds out! You can’t let that happen.”

She just looked at me. “What happened to you?”

“Tess, please,” I begged. She shook her head and didn’t say anything else to me, probably afraid of how I would react.

I was in the hospital for two days before they released me, when I was finally healed enough. The police had yet to find Robert; he had disappeared.

Tess made me stay with her for a month before letting me head back to the apartment. Police had given up by then with finding him. Turns out, that was the wrong choice.

“Gwen,” Robert said to me, a week after I had moved back into the apartment. “Long time, no see. Though I was on the run for a little while there.”

“Robert,” I started, but before I could get any farther, he pulled a gun out.

“This is for what you’ve put me through. And what you deserve,” he told me, before pulling the trigger. I looked down, and a pool of blood was starting to form at my feet, from where he shot me in the stomach. It wasn’t long after before I collapsed. He had a silencer, so no one heard the gunshot. It took until the next day before someone found me, and that person happened to be Tess. I really wished it hadn’t been.



“Hang in there, Gwen,” I could hear Tess saying to me. “Please, hang in there.”

“I... can’t,” I managed to get out, raspy, sounding so unlike me I wasn’t sure if it was even me that had said the words.

“Please,” Tess cried. “God, don’t take her away from me. She’s the only real family I have left.”

“I have to go, Tess,” I said to her, knowing I couldn’t hold on much longer. I finally found the last bit of strength to open my eyes and look at her.

“No...” she trailed off, crying hysterically.

“Shh...” I hushed her, as she grabbed my hand. “Everything is going to be okay, I promise.”

“No, it won’t, Gwen,” she argued. “Not without you here. I won’t have anyone.”

“You have Theo,” I told her, in pain. “You have the rest of our crazy family.” I managed to smile at that.

“But I won’t have you,” she said to me. I sighed.

“Do you remember when I told you what my first memory was?” I asked her, diverting the subject. She shook her head. “C’mon, now.”

“Halley’s Comet?” she questioned. I nodded. “What about it?”

“I think I remember it because I wished for something, Tess,” I said to her. “And that wish ended up changing my life.”

“What did you wish for?” she asked, wiping her eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding my hand.

“I wished... for you,” I said to her. “I wished that one day I would be important to someone. And that person ended up being you. I think God put us in our situation... so that you and I could be, as close as we are now.”

“Gwen,” she said, tearing up even more. But I couldn’t hold on any longer, and she noticed that I was slipping away too. “Gwen!”

“Just know that I’ll be watching you, from wherever I am,” I said to her. “I’ll always be there.” After that, I let go.



You see, life is never fair. It wasn’t fair in the fact that I fell for someone no one ever should have. It wasn’t fair when it ended Tess’s marriage to Theo three years after I died. It wasn’t fair in the fact that I had to leave Tess all alone when she needed her sister the most.

But then again, I suppose life was fair in some ways. It gave me sister a second chance at love; meeting Eric five years after her divorce from Theo. And that marriage gave her two kids; two daughters, that I’m sure would be just like us growing up. I still have yet to witness that though. And it will give my sister her own wish, in 2061. And she told me multiple times in prayer what exactly it is she’s going to wish for.

“I’m going to be reunited with you, Gwen. Whether you like it or not,” she laughed. “And that’s how it’s going to be. I miss you.”

I missed her, too. And I knew one day, we would be reunited. I just had a feeling.

Every breath you take,
Every move you make,
Every bond you break,
Every step you take,
I'll be watching you...