I haven’t talked to her in eight years. What do you say to someone after they tell you they don’t even know you anymore? I think it’s good-bye. We never said good-bye, but we let go.

I see her occasionally. Images only. Her sister and I are Facebook friends, so she shows up in family celebration photos. Untagged. I was looking at one the other day and caught the side of a face, a swatch of her dark hair, a hand holding a camera. I studied the hand. No, not her.

Her fingers would be chewed – the nails, the cuticles. She gnawed them until they bled. I never understood how she could stand to do that to the skin, the very delicate skin on top of the finger, right below the nail. At any given time, at least three of her fingers would be wrapped in bandages. She tried quitting. Tried smoking instead. Didn’t work. Always went back to the fingers.

I’m always excited to catch glimpses of her, to see what she looks like now, what sort of woman she became on the surface. But, I know this photo isn’t of her because I know her, always have.

I wonder if she wonders who I am now. I wonder if she wonders if I still claw my skin. I wonder if she ever noticed that I did.