The Grip I Keep Replaying

I keep ranking Robert Hargrove’s words by how much they hurt. The insult about my race was ugly, but the part about his daughter in the hospital was worse because it sounded true. I wanted him to be wrong. I wanted him to be only the rich man who had already threatened me. Instead, he used my own fear against me and called my work something the system owed me.

~~Maybe that is what it is.~~

I hate that I noticed his fear before I noticed my own. I was sitting there collecting the most useful sentence he gave me while his hand was still around my arm. That made me feel competent and dirty at the same time. I can survive being insulted. I cannot stand being underestimated by someone who has more immediate power than I do.

The coffee spill bothered me most. It was such an ordinary thing—my coffee, my car, my quiet before work began—and I lost control of the cup at exactly the moment control mattered. I left the mess there because cleaning it would have felt too much like obeying him. I wanted one small consequence I chose.

When I got home, I checked the locks twice and still did not feel safe. That embarrassed me. People pay me to make dangerous rooms ordinary again, and here I was treating every sound like the beginning of something I had mishandled. The mark around my wrist was already fading. I keep touching it as if the bruise can explain what I should have done.