Not yet

I stood at the police station like a person who was going to go in.

Fifteen minutes. The sky notebook was in my bag the whole time. I could feel the spine through the canvas. A woman with a stroller went in and came out holding a form. A man in a suit went in and came out lighter. People move through that glass door like it's nothing. Like the inside is just a room with chairs and a help desk.

I did not go in. I crossed the street to the cafe with the green awning and ordered an iced americano I did not drink.

I called Bae from a corner table with my back to the window so she couldn't see me if she was outside. She wasn't. My voice did the hotel voice. Professional. Brief. She asked what I had. I said a notebook. She said bring it. I said not yet. She said okay.

I wrote her name in the back of the soft blue pages under a heading I didn't plan. Not yet. Not her. Not the pages. Not the last sentence I wrote in June. Not the paper the hotel GM put in front of me a month ago with instructions on how to disappear.

Bae is the first person outside my own four walls who has been offered these pages. I didn't choose to offer. I was too tired to pretend I had nothing.

The GM told me to be quiet for six months. One month down. I am being so quiet. The quiet is the loudest thing I have ever done in my life.

Three posts today. That is my entire loud.

I noticed the clock: 9:14, 3:14, 9:14. Same minute three times. I think my body is choosing something my brain won't say.

The plants on the windowsill grew a new leaf. I did not deserve that today. They don't know what happened at work.