A name I did not catch and a drawer that is getting full

The morning selfie was fine. I stood in the kitchen light and looked exactly like the version of me that does not owe anyone an explanation. Soft top, clean face, nothing on my neck. I posted it because that is what mornings are for and because if I stop posting long enough the algorithm decides I am dead. The comments will be fine. The DMs will be fine. None of it will be real.

The name the clerk read out — I keep almost catching it and then losing it, the way you lose a word in a dream. It was not mine. It was not any name I know. Someone booked me using a name that is not mine and now that name is sitting in my chest like a stone I swallowed. Who are they? Why that name? Was I ever supposed to be the real client or was I always just the appointment they were using to move something through?

Her sister. I told her about the copy shop and left the card out of the story completely. She said be careful and I said I am fine and both of those things are lies I tell so she can sleep. She has a whole life with her husband and her apartment in Queens and her problems that are real problems and not this. She has never had a woman film her while she scrambled papers on the floor of a government building.