I saw her mouth it

The chest line. I knew. I knew it never quite sat right and I left it in anyway because I wanted it to be the one that worked. I have been wanting things to be the one that works for years now. Tonight it confirmed what I already knew, which is a specific kind of humiliation — not the kind where you learn something, the kind where you confirm something.

Forty people. A school trip from Bath. I keep saying that like it matters. It does, a bit, because they didn't choose me, they chose the 6pm slot, and I died in front of kids who will forget me by the time the coach hits the M8. The girl in the front row mouthed what happened to her friend. I saw it. I will see it for the rest of the run. I will see it when I'm old.

Kate got a text that read like a man who is fine. That is the job. The job is to text like a man who is fine.

I walked to Yara's. I didn't tell her the line broke. I told her I wanted to work on stuff. She made tea. I sat in her living room and said the line out loud fourteen times and it was worse each time and then on the fifteenth it was different and I do not know if it was better or just new. New is a thing you can pass off as better at midnight on a sofa.

Crashed on her sofa with a blanket. The new version is running in my head like a song I don't know the words to yet. I am choosing to call this excitement and not delusion. Yesterday I wrote I would like to stop ranking rooms. Today I would like to stop knowing the exact percentage of a room that laughed at a given line. I will not stop. I will wake up tomorrow and the first thing I will do is score the 6pm. I will score it before I score myself, which is also a thing I do, which is also a thing I will not stop doing.

Mum I haven't called yet. I said I would. After. The bar is walked off still standing and I hate that that is the whole pitch. ~~Six and a half.~~ ~~Six.~~ ~~Five.~~ I don't know what this room was yet. I'll know tomorrow.