She stopped sleeping in long stretches.
Instead, she slept in short, shallow pieces, like her body was afraid to fully shut down. Ten minutes. Twenty. An hour at most. When she woke, it was sudden, violent. Her eyes snapping open, breath tearing into her lungs like she'd been underwater.
Sometimes she woke holding herself.
Sometimes she woke holding nothing, arms wrapped tight around empty space, fingers digging into her own sides hard enough to leave marks.
The marks lasted longer than they should have.
Finger-shaped bruises bloomed slowly, darkening over days instead of hours. When I pressed them lightly, they didn't ache. They felt numb. Like dead zones the rest of her body had given up on.
"They look worse," she said once, studying herself in the mirror.
"You keep checking," I replied. "That makes it feel worse."
She lowered her hand immediately.
Her appetite disappeared, then came back wrong.
She would forget to eat all day, then suddenly consume too much too fast, chewing mechanically, barely swallowing before reaching for the next bite. Afterwards, she would sit very still, eyes unfocused, hand resting on her stomach like she was monitoring a reaction.
"It feels crowded," she whispered one evening.
"Food does that," I said.
"No," she said quietly. "This is different. It feels like I'm eating into something else's space."
That night, she vomited.
Not violently. Carefully. Controlled. Like she didn't want to disturb whatever was inside her. When she leaned over the toilet, her back arched unnaturally, spine pushing outward in a smooth curve that didn't look like strain. It looked intentional.
I watched from the doorway.
Her reflection in the mirror above the sink looked delayed. When she moved, it took a fraction of a second longer to follow. Not enough to be obvious. Enough to be wrong.
She wiped her mouth and stared at herself.
"Do I look… off?" she asked.
Her pupils were uneven now. One slightly more dilated than the other.
"You're pale," I said. "You should lie down."
She obeyed.
A few days later, she stopped recognizing hunger cues entirely. She ate because I reminded her. Drank water because I placed the glass in her hand. Took showers because I turned the tap on.
Her body complied even when her mind hesitated.
One afternoon, she tried to button a shirt and couldn't.
Not because her hands failed this time. Because her torso didn't align the way it used to. The buttons pulled diagonally, fabric straining across her ribs like they'd shifted just enough to make old measurements useless.
"This used to fit," she said, tugging uselessly.
"Clothes shrink," I said.
She stared at her reflection again. Longer this time. Her head tilted, studying the angle of her neck, the way her shoulders sloped forward now, subtly protective, like something beneath them needed guarding.
"Does my chest look… wider?" she asked.
I stepped behind her. Placed my hands gently on her shoulders.
"You're slouching," I said. "Stand up straight."
She tried.
Something resisted.
Her spine straightened halfway, then stopped, trembling faintly, like it had reached a limit that wasn't there before. She exhaled sharply, breath shaking.
"It won't," she said.
I applied light pressure to her shoulders. Guiding. Correcting.
There was a soft sound beneath my palms. Not a crack. More like a wet adjustment. A slow internal slide.
She cried out, short and broken.
"There," I said calmly. "See? You just needed help."
Her posture held, but it looked forced. Like a mannequin posed against its will.
Later that night, she asked me something she hadn't asked before.
"Do you ever feel like you take up more space than you're allowed?"
I looked at her. Curled on the bed. Knees drawn up. Arms wrapped tight. Trying to contain herself.
"Only when you resist," I said.
She nodded, eyes glassy with exhaustion.
Under the skin of her abdomen, something moved again. Slower now. More confident. Like it had learned the shape of its container.
She pressed her palm there instinctively.
"It's not me," she whispered. "I know that now."
I covered her hand with mine.
"Bodies adapt," I said. "Minds panic. That's the difference."
Her fingers relaxed under my touch.
By morning, she couldn't remember saying it.
But her body did.