She starts the shower for me and sticks her hand in to make sure the temperature is right. She nods to herself. She’s going to take care of me.

I stand in disbelief for a moment and then start to unbutton my shirt. The flannel is damp at my shoulders.

She glances down at the ground at my shoes. I follow her gaze. They appear clean. No blood that I can tell. “That’s good, I think. You can hop in, and I’ll deal with your clothes.”

I strip down, watching her watch me and it’s eerie how I’m able to compare between then and now. When I was just a kid and had to do the same.

The memories haunt me and I try to push them away, but they scream at me to remember. How could I forget? What’s her name?

She has my bloody clothes in a little bundle in her arms. I wonder if she’s pretending to be okay.

She looks into my eyes and offers me a thin smile as steam from the shower flows into the room.

“Get in,” she says gently. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”

She leaves the bathroom for a few minutes, and then the door opens. I can hear her rummaging around in my medicine cabinet.

Water sluices down over my hair and my body, tinged red. It flows down the drain. The blood is disappearing before my eyes. Once it’s all gone, I hope it’s like it never existed.

“Do you have any cuts?” she asks from outside the curtain. I shake some water out of my ears and add shampoo. “Should I get some Neosporin? It doesn’t look like you have any in here, but I think that place on the corner is open all night. I bet they’d have some.”

“No,” I answer, my throat tight with emotion. “I’m okay.”

The water stings my knuckles, but that’s it. The sore muscles I have could be from work today. My memories of that are fuzzy, but it was probably like any other day. None of this seems like something to worry about.

Except the blood. That obviously wasn’t mine. Is she still going to be this calm when she comes to the same realization?

Thump, thump. My heart pounds.

“Let me help you.” She leans in through the shower curtain and takes my hands in hers. She has a washcloth and runs it gently over all the spots that might be sore, concentrating hard. “I’m sorry if this hurts,” she murmurs. “I know how much they hurt your hands.”

She looks down at my body and doesn’t say anything. She simply continues to wash me down.

I murmur an answer, “They’re okay.”

“They might be okay now, but I don’t want to cause you any more pain.”