The Locked Camera Case

I keep telling myself this is procedure now, but the camera case is still a hiding place, and I am still the boy who wants the prize before anyone else can turn it into a story about me. I have hidden the claim plate so carefully that I check the cupboard twice after making coffee, as if the lock itself has become an accomplice. That is not clever. It is frightened.

Nia’s silence has stayed with me. I want to be angry that she kept something back, because anger is easier than admitting that her fear made sense. If she had come to me first, I might have tried to protect her, and that would have been another way of putting my own hands around evidence that should never have been in my hands. I sent the proof to Rosa because the meeting needs witnesses, but I also wanted a clean line between myself and whatever Nia knew. Clean lines are easier to draw when I am the one deciding who is standing where.

I wrote the recording plan until every angle and name looked sensible. Escape route. Access time. Camera positions. The words stopped feeling like instructions and started feeling like a rehearsal for being caught. I hate that. I have spent years talking about places that fight back, but tonight the fight is in my own head, asking whether courage is just being the one who gets to claim the find.

The flat is quiet after the rain. I put my phone beside the pillow, but I do not trust the calm yet. Somewhere in that locked case is the thing I have never declared, and I am beginning to suspect that keeping it is no longer protection. It is an answer I am avoiding.