The SUV was back

The SUV was back. Ten days since the last time I saw it and I had let myself start believing I'd invented the whole thing, or that he'd moved on the way men in black coats are supposed to move on. He didn't cross over this time. He stepped out onto the drive like he meant to intercept us and I pulled Robin into the ice cream line so fast my wrist ached afterward. I didn't look back. I knew exactly where the car was without looking.

Robin bought me a pretzel and a hot chocolate from a cart and said it was for the girl I was at fourteen. I didn't ask her how she knew what that girl wanted. She just did. I think she meant the girl before I figured out my face was a service I could sell. The one who would have cried a little at a paper cup of cocoa on a Park Slope sidewalk. That girl is not gone. She's just expensive to visit.

A white woman with two Labradoodles told me to smile. Sweetie. It's a nice day. Robin's face went flat — the way it does when she's deciding whether to speak or just let me eat it. I let her not speak. I drank the chocolate in three swallows and let the insult sit in my chest like a stone. I am so tired of strangers grading my face while they enjoy the weather.

I did not call Camille. I came home and changed and cooked pasta in the brown camisole and put the phone face down on the counter and did not call. The moment I tell her what I saw at the boathouse it becomes a thing, and I am not ready for a thing. I am saving it for later the way you save a bill you can't pay yet.

The phone rang twice while I was in my slip, layering serums. I let it ring. I do not want anyone's voice tonight. I want to be alone on this page and rank who I am without an audience.