When we finally played back the footage, the story I’d written in my head shattered in seconds. There was no stalker, no careful saboteur—just a neighbor’s kid, pausing in passing to push pebbles and twigs into a lock that meant nothing to them. My dread met the mundane, and in that collision I felt both foolish and profoundly relieved, like stepping out of a storm that never truly existed.
What lingered wasn’t embarrassment, but the quiet power of my brother’s approach: observe, then decide. His calm curiosity became a counterweight to my spiraling thoughts. I began to see that safety isn’t built only from hardware and deadbolts, but from how we interpret the unknown. Fear loves empty spaces; it rushes to fill every unanswered question. Choosing patience over panic didn’t just fix a door—it rewired the room in my mind where danger used to live.
