Architect of my own trap

Ellis did it tonight. He stopped mid-sentence, looked at this woman across a table full of fake plague victims, and said "I'm nervous." Just that. No joke. No NHS deflection. And she — she didn't run. She reached across and put her hand on his. I was three metres away pretending to study a waxwork executioner and I felt something crack open in my chest. That's the whole job. That's what I teach. And watching someone actually do it felt like being shown up.

I've been telling people to be brave for two years and I haven't been brave about anything. Not the panic attacks I hide from everyone. Not the solicitor number tonight — yes I sent it through the right channels, yes I'm being clever about it, but also I am sat in my own flat with a photo of my own doorstep on my phone and someone is calling me architect like we went to school together. I don't know who this person is. They know me. That part is worse than the door photo, actually. A door photo is creepy. Someone using my nickname is intimate. Someone intimate and threatening is something I don't have a joke for.

I said yes to the gala. I keep thinking about that. Priya's video, the USB, Nathaniel probably knowing more than he's letting on, and I said yes to standing in a room full of people watching me watch them. But also — Farah got the solicitor number tonight. That means the evidence is moving. That means I am moving. Maybe that's the brave thing. Maybe that's just the thing that feels like the only option left.