The row of exposed floodlights above the vanity is not helping me concentrate. When you drink for too long you begin to have random spots of light flash in your periphery. She tells me she had passed her shot and she's been spotting. I ask her how long, neglecting the bloody pads I’ve been trashing with the cat shit for a week now.

“A couple months.” She looks up at me in the doorway watching her on the toilet. What she means is, “I was only on it for a couple months. I didn’t go back after I read that study.” She showed it to me she says, the one about the loss of bone marrow. She looks down and her eyelids tighten. She says it’s better she’s bleeding.

The inconsistent splashing of liquid versus liquid sounds like someone is brewing coffee. I kneel down on the tile next to her. She leans forward and hugs me. Something hits my chin. She laughs and hands me a tissue and apologizes for not thinking of keeping her legs closed. I tell her it’s ok.

It’s different when your masculinity isn't entirely physical. What’s different is your girlfriend says nice tits when you say nice tits. She rubs her hand over my face and asks me what I did today and I feel proud I haven't shaved for three months. It’s good you both want to be with women.

I say I went to visit my parents today. My dad was cleaning his guns. I tell her I grabbed one and stuck it as far in my mouth as I could, then told him to shut off the stereo. “You know, he listens to country music sometimes.” Dad handed me the pistol in his left hand and lowered the one in my mouth with his right.

“This is the one with the snap caps,” he said. I never checked the chamber. “That one is for your mother.” I tell her mom laughed over the dishes in the next room. An unloaded gun is a useless gun, mom said.

I shrug. Nothing really I say.

“I will never understand them,” she says. “Let’s go to bed.” She tells me to get out so she can, you know.

Only because people like to look I say. The act is not as bad as the cleaning.

She shuts the door behind me.

When she comes out of the bathroom we go to bed. What I mean is we lay in the dark and talk for hours. I fall asleep mid-sentence, leaving her to hours of sleeplessness because she didn’t get to say what she was so astutely avoiding.

―

Our bedroom window faces east. Every morning I wake up to the sun in my eyes. I move my arm under the sheets. Empty. I get up. Hallway, empty. Bathroom, empty. Kitchen, empty. Living room, empty. Work, I think.

I walk back to the bedroom and stand in front of the window. I try to keep my eyes open.

The only truth I know is that there is nothing like the air after it rains in San Francisco. On these mornings, just after a shower, smoke sticks to you like the rancid-milk taste on the back of your tongue, like when she'll detail lack of love, or this note on the fridge that reads:

This could very well be the end of something.

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