I WAS IN TWO PLACES. Half of me sitting up in my bed in St. Mike’s Hospital, early March, waiting for something other than the certainty of my breath and the sound of footsteps outside my door to break the vacuum. Half of me was stuck in January.

The nurse was due; it was seven p.m. I tried to focus on whatever routines were available to me, whatever I could look forward to, as opposed to being whisked into the past. Her green eyes tracking me, wary when we exchanged glances. Being observed wasn’t comforting, especially when it was just the two of us. I remember her dark, short hair, and her tenuous manner, as if figuring out what it was she was supposed to being doing.

Anyone could see what I’d done to myself. It was naive to wish otherwise, though I continued to do so. She’d been pleasant and attended to me efficiently. Sometimes I’d think I was alone, but she would be in the room, snatching glances at me in the mirror.

I’d arrived on a stretcher smeared with blood, unconscious, oblivious to the voices of people shouting out the details of what I’d done. I couldn’t help thinking of the mess waiting for me when I’d get home, and I kicked myself for not being lucid through it all, as if I’d missed out on a good story to tell.