the wrist, the cash, monday

The SUV is still idling across the street. Same plates as August. I am standing at the counter eating cold rice with my eyes on the window every thirty seconds, which is not a life, which is something I am doing until it stops being necessary.

His fingers on my wrist. I keep coming back to it like pressing a bruise to make sure it still hurts. He did not grab me. He landed me, like a coat being moved between racks. And I stepped back. That is a flinch. I am going to call it something else on the subway, something else to my mother, but on this page it is a flinch and his fingers slid off my sleeve and that is the whole story of us.

Three hundred in cash, counted out loud. No app to rate us. She wanted the hallway to hear. Yesterday I counted her money in front of her and I am not doing it twice. I am not doing anything twice for these people.

I am going back Monday. Here is the part I am not going to say out loud: the next appointment is paid in advance and I already spent the deposit. I am going back because the chair at the table was empty and I need to see who sits in it. I am going back because I do not want them to be the thing I flinched from. I want them to be the thing I walked back into on purpose.

The prepaid phone is face-down. There are seven messages I have not opened. One of them is probably from her. I will open them Sunday, alone, after I have decided what Monday looks like in my body before I have decided it in my mouth.