Fifty-one and the bruise he left

Fifty-one. Yesterday I was forty-seven. Four bad weeks from suspension and the math is just — four bad weeks. One more of these and the platform drops me and the platform is the only thing between me and cold DMs from strangers.

He grabbed me. I want to write it in a way that sounds less like what it was but I am not going to. His hand closed on my wrist and the back of mine split on the painted doorframe and there was blood on Greta's wood and she looked at it and she blamed the booking. Not her son. Not Ezra. The booking. The girl with the bleeding hand who said no.

"You should model that." I left that life so I would not be the look. I left so I could own the look. He pinned me as the body and when I moved past him he caught my wrist like I was a hanger swinging on a rack. I charge two-eighty an hour for these hands. He reached for them like they were someone else's.

The man on the third-floor landing was not there when I went up. He was there when I came down. Same black coat, not moving. The SUV was across Broadway when I hit the sidewalk. I do not know if any of it means anything. I am not going to pretend the not-knowing sits easy in me.

I typed into Camille's thread twice and deleted it both times. She would know what to do with this. That is exactly why I cannot send it.