it doesn't does it

At 8 a.m. she gets out of bed for the third and final time since getting in late last night. She walks around the untidy apartment. Grit underfoot. Dirty apartment. She sorts the laundry and washes half of the dishes, making a mental list of errands. In the shower, halfway between shampoo and leg-razoring, she screams once, then again, and a third time. Then her throat hurts, and she wonders what it sounded like, the closest she can think of is when they show women in labor on television, the low woman-howl of anguish. She thinks, gross. She sits for a half-hour in the tub with the warm water drumming weakly on her head. When it rivulets down her face and around her open mouth, being drawn in to wet the tip of her tongue and back out again in rhythm, it feels like breathing under water in a dream. She hugs her knees and water pools in the soft white cup formed by her body.