Going Barefoot - Anne Freeman

She closed her eyes and turned her face into the spray of water, her hands gently massaging the soap off of her face. Turning around to let the shower rinse the last of the conditioner from her hair, she leaned down to run her hands up and down her legs, making sure she didn’t miss a patch while she was shaving. They were smooth, save for a scab here or there from the picking of a couple of nights ago – or had it been a couple of mornings ago? There were no lines between days anymore. The most recent delineation came when she recently awoke from a sleep. She had slept sixteen hours. He had slept, too, even longer – twenty-four, twenty-seven hours? Enough that after he had passed out on the couch, she had pried his pipe out of his fingers, and smoked the rest. She was careful to leave a little left in the pipe so he would think he smoked it down and passed out. He had been doing this so long that sometimes he just passed out when his heart got going too fast. He would close his eyes, and slump down in the couch. When she saw it coming, she knew it would not be long before several hours of blissful alone time lay ahead, where she could sit on her beanbag in the corner of the living room, away from him, to watch a few movies and write lists in her notebook, lists of things to do. Except sometimes when she was writing, she mindlessly caressed her legs or face, only to feel a bump. Then the list would stop and she would have to pick.