My ex-girlfriend's fears

My ex-girlfriend was constantly going crazy. Sometimes she'd see another shadow next to hers from the nightlight, sometimes she'd hear someone turning on the water in the dark bathroom at night, even though her mother always had the light on, sometimes her watch would stop ticking. At first, I was alarmed, but after having tea with her mother, I learned that she had experienced psychological trauma as a child—she'd been bitten by a dog in a barn in the village, and ever since then, she'd had a thing for such things. I stopped being afraid after that, but I responded to her complaints with understanding, pretending to believe these "glitches" were real. Then her mother went away to Samara for two weeks, and she started staying with me because she was terrified of being alone in the apartment.

 For two days, everything went like clockwork—movies, kisses, sex, drinking... On the third day, we ended up staying at her apartment and decided to spend the night there (I'd like to point out that while we were staying at my place, she was calm and didn't see anything strange). So, we watched some comedy with Ashton Kutcher, drank tea, and went to the bedroom. When it got dark, we turned on the light (we weren't sleepy yet) and started chatting about all sorts of nonsense like her friends and school. Then I needed to go to the bathroom. After going to the bathroom, I went to the kitchen to pour myself more tea. And there I was, pouring tea—and suddenly she started screaming! I dropped the teapot in surprise and ran to her.

 She was sitting on the bed with her eyes closed, her mascara smeared across her face—I still can't understand how she managed to burst into tears so hard in such a short moment; only about four seconds had passed between her scream and my arrival. But still, she was tear-stained, her knees pressed together and shaking. I asked her what was wrong. She shook her head and turned away, then mumbled that everything was fine. I asked if she'd seen anything again. She said no, she just felt a sudden twinge in her stomach. I calmed down, hugged her, and then, when I looked at her face, I got scared: the blood vessels in her eyes seemed to be swollen and very red. I rushed to the first aid kit, gave her either Maxigan or another painkiller, and poured her some more tea. We seemed to calm down.

But when we went to bed, the worst part began. She seemed to fall asleep, but I couldn't—the tea was strong. I'm lying there, tossing and turning, and suddenly I hear something scraping at the window. I want to turn over, but my girlfriend, who I thought was asleep, tells me very seriously, "Don't turn around." I laughed nervously and tried to turn around again, but she grabbed me and told me again not to turn around. I froze and obeyed. The scraping sound continued intermittently for a few more times, and she was breathing very deeply. Then everything went quiet. Before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep.

The next morning, it all seemed so stupid that I laughed at myself, but I still decided that we would spend the night at my place. The next night, back at my place, my girlfriend, who was usually a cheerful and talkative girl, spent half the evening acting mysterious. Then she came up and stroked my living room window with her hand. I barely noticed, but when she did it a second time and said something, I felt a little creepy.

 When we went to bed (and we ended up in the living room, because I had a pull-out sofa there), I heard that scratching sound on the glass again—even though I live on the fourth floor and there were no trees by the window. I wanted to get up and see what was going on (the curtains were drawn across the window). I even tried to do so, but my girlfriend held me by the waist, keeping me from getting up, and whispered pitifully that she'd asked for something. I held it until the last moment, but finally got up, turned on the light, and pulled back the curtains. There was nothing in the window because the light was on in the room. The scratching stopped instantly.

After that, I was truly scared to spend the night with this girl. I didn't know what to do. In the morning, I called a friend, who came to the rescue—we spent three days in a row drinking at my place. The girl wasn't happy, but my friend said he didn't seem to have anywhere to stay. So, we drank for three days, and on the fourth day, the girl went to spend the night at a friend's house and disappeared for the rest of the second week. I couldn't even get through to her—the number was unavailable.

Then we went out with this girl a couple of times, and she herself suggested breaking up. How relieved I was then!

I still rarely think about it, but when I do, it's scary, even though nothing like that ever happened to me or my girlfriends again.