Six lower, the star still pinned

Six places. I counted them backwards on the subway home like pulling my own names out of a hat I built with my hands. Whoever sat at forty-one through forty-six last week now sits where I sat. I have not decided whether to look up who took my exact slot or whether that is a rabbit I refuse to follow tonight.

The appeal ruling kissed me and stabbed me in the same breath. Reinstated. The one-star still pinned at the top of my page like a trophy for somebody's lie. I screenshotted, pocketed the phone, and finished pinning a hem. I held the hostess's husband's eyes a beat longer than I have held anyone all month, and I will not pretend I did not enjoy it.

The Polaroid is face down on my kitchen table. I have not turned it over since I walked in. Jolene's face is in my head now the way it was taped behind the felt box in that closet. She left that building in August. Before the second chair. Before any of this. I put the photo in my coat and walked past the older guard without looking at him. That was the bravest I have been today, and I do not know what to do with that yet.

I ate rice. I did not text my mother. The prepaid phone stayed face down beside the plate. I sat under the lamp with the brass key resting in my open palm and the manila envelope a hand's reach away, and I let the whole night be just objects on a table instead of a thing I had to do anything about.

Sleep is not coming. Six places. Jolene. The one-star still up. Tomorrow I will be unbothered in public and very good at it. Tonight I am not.