I watch her slender arms disappearing into the bowl of the sink, pale and limber fingers numbly reaching toward the water facet. She’s wearing a blank and dreamy expression, like she isn’t really aware of where she is or what she’s doing and she doesn’t care, either.

Somehow even the banal acts of turning on the water stir some kind of worry inside me, like the simple gesture of turning a handle is the act of pulling the trigger on a gun. She reaches for her toothbrush. She always had this kind of obsession with cleanliness. She brushes her teeth after everything she eats, even a breath mint.

This morning, I was lying awake staring at the pale sunlight flowing in through the gaps in our curtains, breeze floating in through the open window. And suddenly she stood up without a glance at me, makes her way to the bathroom. The noise alerts me, so I turn my head to watch her retreating back and I ask where she’s going.

She tells me her mouth feels sour and filthy like she’s been drinking too much and her head feels like it, too.

So I follow her. Leaning against the doorframe, watching as she begins her weird morning rituals with that disquieting stoicism.

Her arms are bruised, dark green and blue welts all along the underside of her arms. I shudder, remembering a night so long ago when she’d called me around 1 am. She hung up on me. I went to her house to find her sitting on the doorstep, streams of blood running down her arms from the palms of her hands, which she was resting her head on. There was blood on her chin, too, and some on her lips, and some in her hair, and it was really revolting but emotionally moving as well.

She didn’t even seem to notice me. Just staring at the sky while the blood began to dry, running down to her elbows to stain the cutoff jeans she’s wearing.

I never really knew what happened.

Impulsively, I pushed myself off the doorframe and took a couple of steps toward her, wrapping my arms around her waist, running my hands along her stomach beneath the white camisole she was wearing. I kissed the back of her neck gently, and then I left.

She always wanted fresh fruit after this.