Paranoia is defined as an unrealistic lack of trust or feeling of being persecuted. Back in high school, you might have walked into the cafeteria and suspected everyone was gossiping about your poor fashion sense of goofy looking hair. 

I realized much later that 99% of the kids probably weren’t even aware I’d entered the room! Teenagers tend to concentrate on themselves rather than their peers.

Since the murder of Mr. C, I’ve flashed back to that sensation of being the focus of curious or hostile eyes. Being in the open makes the back of my neck itch. Is someone spying on me? Are the neighbors wondering why I was the one who found his body?

LizzyBet only intensifies that feeling because because sometimes she whips around and peers at the empty path behind us. That starts me looking over my shoulder and fancying I just missed seeing someone slip into the shadow of the trees or behind a building.

My response to the eerie, hairs standing up on the nape of your neck feeling is to tell myself not to get spooked by a dog’s actions. After all, with her supersonic hearing and sense of smell, she probably detected a rabbit or a duck in the underbrush.

It didn’t occur to me until later  that I wasn’t being paranoid–someone was out to get me.