Down at the beach the next morning, I took off my leggings and washed myself in sections under the open-air shower: first my hair and my face, then under my shirt and under my skirt. My fingernails seemed to have stopped growing and so had the hair on my legs. In a way, this made sense. Most days it felt like Manu and I were stuck in a tight loop of the present, each moment erasing the previous one. It was only at night that I could really be sure time was passing. That’s when I sifted through my growing stack of ID cards and counted the money accumulating in my bread bag – almost three hundred euros now. It was probably enough to rent a small room for myself – and for Manu if he wanted to join me – but each morning down at the beach, I thought, We’ll just do this for one more day. I didn’
