As I sat on my couch, without giving a care in the world, I soon came to realise that I was what people would say “zoned out”. But, usually, if you realised you were “zoned out” then wouldn’t you “zone back in”? Isn’t that how it works?

I can’t see how this is normal. I’m staring at my TV, but it’s blurry and I can’t hear anything. I don’t remember what I’ve been thinking about for this short amount of time. I’ve been thinking about everything and nothing for who knows how long.

Is it supposed to be this quiet? I mean, I can hear things, but at the same time I can’t. It feels like my ears are blocked by water when they’re not.

For some reason, I felt tired, extremely tired. My eyelids got heavier and I was about to fall asleep. But the sound of glass shattering made me jump up and it immediately made my heart race. My vision wasn’t blurry anymore and my ears didn’t feel blocked by water, everything is back to normal.

When my breathing started to slow down and my heartbeat returned to a normal rate, I turned to my right and saw Claire, passed out on my couch.

My phone was next to me, and after turning it on I checked the time. It’s already one in the morning. How the hell?

It’s been a few hours, I remember that Claire got pretty drunk and passed out, she’s had way too many beers, I think I stopped after drinking half of my second one since I was starting to get tipsy. I got up and after slightly stumbling a bit, I went to the sink, got a glass and drank some water. After that I sat around for some time until I sobered up a bit more.

When I was feeling better, my attention diverted back to Claire.

I don’t want to leave her passed out on my couch, but moving her to my bed would be a struggle considering the fact that I have close to no strength at all in my arms. Even if I carry her on my back, there’s no guarantee that I won’t drop her, and I’m pretty sure that no matter what I do she’s not going to wake up, let alone even open her eyes.

After five minutes of what seems to be procrastinating, I finally gave in and decided to do this drastic job.

Getting her off the couch and onto my back drained almost all of my energy. I managed to get to my bedroom door and turn on the light. Thankfully, I got her onto my bed.

I stopped for a second, I don’t remember that much from when I zoned out, but did she always have tear stains? I wasn’t really looking at her face much.

I sat on the side of the bed next to her. This isn’t pity, but I really want to help her. I’ve had this thought way too many times, so why am I not doing anything? What can I do?

When I was about to get up again to leave, I noticed something on her wrists that her sleeve was covering. I didn’t want to do something that wasn’t any of my business, but I moved the sleeve out of the way. Only to see marks and bruises on her wrists, that looked fairly new. Too new. This is definitely from today, since the marks only look like it started bruising not too long ago. 

Is this from him? But she said she didn’t get hurt? Was she lying? Well.. she did take a pause before completing that sentence.

I decided to let it go. If she didn’t want to tell me, then she didn’t want to tell me. I shouldn’t interfere.

I just hope that she doesn’t get hurt more than this.

Getting up from the bed, I went back to the doorframe and looked back for just a second. Before breathing a short sigh, and turning off the light.