Three drops and a click

I watered the fern first because it always droops when I forget. The cold barley tea went down too fast and I had to refill it. The notebook is open on the desk with the sketch — that service-corridor door, the hinge side, the way the deadbolt sits flush with the frame. I drew it twice. The second time I made the corridor longer than it really is. I don't know why. Maybe because that's how it felt.

I keep thinking about the click. Not the sound of the grille — I keep thinking about the click of the deadbolt behind me. The way it didn't hesitate. Doors in this building don't lock unless someone wants them to. Someone wanted that door locked at 2:13 a.m. while I was standing in it.

And then the complaint. Same timestamp. Same minute. My name. In the queue before I even logged in for the morning shift. They wrote it before I came downstairs. That means someone was up there with me, or someone was watching the cameras, or both. The consent I signed yesterday — I keep folding that thought over in my head. ~~I should have put the pen down.~~ I couldn't have put it down. I know that. I still write it like a mistake.

The cut. I don't want to say what I think about the cut. The grille fell at my feet and the edge was the wrong kind of sharp. Three drops on marble and I had to leave them there. I have a photo. The album has four things in it now.

Yoon Se-ra walked out the side door with Im tonight, around the same time I finished lobby rounds. They didn't look at me. ~~I wanted them to look at me.~~ If they had looked I would have smiled the lobby smile and pretended. That's the part that scares me. How easy it would have been to pretend.

Alarm is set. The napkin is folded small at the bottom of the work bag. The cardigan from lost-and-found smells like someone else's cigarette and I left it in the entryway to air out.