Kishan, Heena, and the thing under my nail

The price is handwritten. Not typed. Someone sat with a pen and decided I was worth exactly that number, and then they wrote it in a neat, unhurried hand. The same hand that might write a grocery list. The same hand that might write a love letter. I keep thinking about the pen. Gel or ballpoint? Blue or black? Was the handwriting the way mine always tilted right, or upright like the English teacher at government school made us practise until our fingers bled?

Heena said stop being so brave. She said it like it was a diagnosis. I have been so busy being brave that I forgot bravery is just cowardice with better posture. I would have gone to that flat alone. I would have opened the envelope alone. I would have made the police complaint alone if they let me. And then I would have called no one because who calls when the worst has already happened? You just carry it home and photograph it in two lights.

The Lower Parel cake-cutting is tomorrow at seven. I screenshot the venue address three times. Sonam's agency. Sonam who always texts back in lowercase. Sonam who will never know that tonight I am lying here with a folder called "evidence" and a photograph of my own face on a card that someone slid under a door or handed to a man in a black helmet. Kishan is written on my palm in the photo. I don't remember writing it. I don't remember who Kishan is. But it's still there, faintly, under the ink I scrubbed off before the flat.

My wrist hurts. The phone was in my hand when I woke up. The alarm is in nine hours and the room is dark and I can still feel the weight of the envelope.