Counting his sentences

The selfie stays mine. Took it at the bedroom mirror before I left — pink top, messy hair, dim light doing me a favour or a disservice, I can't tell. I look tired. I look like a woman who has somewhere to be. I did not post it. Some nights a photo is just proof to myself that I am still a person with a face and not a name on a venue invoice.

The wrist is still pink. Two days now. I keep turning it under the lamp to check if the ring has faded. It hasn't. Heena called while I was getting dressed and I let it ring because I knew she would ask if I was okay and I would have had to decide whether to lie. I am not okay. The wrist is evidence and she is evidence and I do not know how to be in a room with both pieces of evidence at once.

In the cab to Bandra I rehearsed the Karjat question three ways. Rain on the windshield. I told the driver not to take the flyover and he took it anyway. I let him. I have been letting men do small things all week and I am tired of the letting.

Siddhant Rao ordered me a gin and tonic without asking. I drank it because refusing it would have been a performance I did not have the energy for. His hand went to the back of my chair and stayed there for the length of one drink, not touching me, and I let it stay because I have learned to let a man's reach sit where he puts it so I can read it before I have to ask him to move it. That is a skill I did not ask for. I am very good at it. I hate that I am very good at it.