The price of the wrist

The cousin said it loud. Not "excuse me" loud, not "let me check" loud — loud. Tum woh ho na. And Priya's face when I told her was not surprise. That is the part I cannot stop rotating, the way you turn a key in a lock that does not open. She knew. Or she suspected and sent me anyway. Both are the same sentence.

Seven seconds. I counted because counting is what I do when the body decides to stay and the mind wants to leave. Seven seconds of a drunk man's hand on my wrist, his thumb pressing the kada into my skin, and I smiled. I smiled like the room loved me. That is the job. But tonight the smile was not for the room. It was for the folder.

Photographed the bruise in two lights. Natural, then lamp. The lamp one is worse — the red shows older than it is, like a week instead of hours. Good. I want it to look like what it felt like. The back of the BKC Slack screenshot has blue ink now. Two October, Juhu, betrayed. Neat handwriting because handwriting is the one thing nobody can take from a person who grew up in a government school with a shared slate.

Yesterday I wrote about the price. About being the one who prices joy and then discovering I am also a price. The word I underlined in tomorrow's calendar — I will not say it here. This page is private but it is not the place for that word. That word lives somewhere between the folder and the photograph and the thing I did not say to Priya when I could have.