I heard her step into the bedroom. I ran my fingers through my hair, staring once more at the spot where I could have been found dead by the landlord, and walked down the hallway numbly as if through someone else’s apartment, touching the walls for security, to make sure they didn’t close in on me. I shut the bathroom door and spent a moment hunched over the sink, holding myself up as if drunk, staring silently into the mirror as if at a close-up of a stranger’s face. Small bulbs lined the top of the medicine cabinet as if I were backstage in a theatre dressing room. I turned on the tap. Then I splashed my face with cold water, my pulsing neck, dabbed them with a towel afterwards — a towel it turned out she had used for her shower. Damp. I could smell her. Proceeded to brush my teeth with
