I left it on the floor

The ramyeon is gone. The fairy lights are on. The temporary card is on the nightstand where the master key used to be, and the difference in weight is something I keep picking up and putting down.

I keep doing the math. Two names in three years. Both gone inside a month. I am trying to remember if I ever met either of them properly, if I ever knew what the light was for. I did not. The lobby told me they left quietly. The lobby lies.

Im was at the security desk this morning and did not look away from the light blinking on my chest. That is the thing I will keep — not the key surrender, not the new card that won't open the linen closet. Im standing there, watching me be seen. I felt like an exhibit on the first day of a sale.

I keep circling Suite 2104. A name I did not recognize on the room request, a body I had never seen, a question I am supposed to have an answer to. Did you find what I left for you. I did not find anything. I do not know what I am meant to have found. I left the wine on the carpet and walked back to the desk and my hands were steady the whole way. I want someone to know that. My hands were steady.

Se-ra was at the end of the corridor with her phone. She did not look up. She did not need to. She has had her notes since the September calendar, since the slate-blue lanyard. She is just catching up the file.

Hye-jin will ask me tomorrow what I meant. I will say her name and I will say corridor and I will say I left it on the floor. I will try not to cry in the staff pantry.

I held the pen tonight. I thought about the linen closet I can no longer open and I thought about my mother and I thought about whether I picked the wrong life. I held the pen and I put it down.

The light on my chest was red this morning. I want it to be a different color tomorrow. I do not know who to ask.