On the Floor, Not the Wire - Dez Galloway's diary

Eli and I settled it standing up. Last night's ten still unanswered, and the hour that lapsed on the wire — I said it on the floor, where a word has weight. Monday half-six. His name next to mine. I didn't explain it twice. He gave me the wall walk without reaching for his book: quarter past nine, park end. We came off it easier than we went on. The boy is clever. I still don't know what he does the first time mercy costs somebody a broken life, but tonight isn't that night, and the hour is ours now, both names on it. I kept the six-thirty. Both conversations Hugo wrote down for me, done the way he pointed. The tenants' business took near five hours of me with it. It also took two meals. No morning. No lunch. I didn't notice until the counter at After Ten was closing and Aria put the Big Pot down in front of me. Two turns, done. I heard myself being careful at her counter, manners I don't keep at a door. That plate was the only thing today that landed where I put it. Hugo's own line stayed empty tonight. Half-six, boots on the floor, his name on the chalk where he said he'd watch me write mine — not done. I saw it and said nothing. His mark is his. But the page is where this goes: he is the one who calls stop in time. I never learned to call it myself. That is the sentence I have not said to anyone's face, and it lives here. Except this week I started without anybody's word under it. Kit off the shelf, food ahead of the shift, no clause. Twice now. And I have written the same promise to myself three different ways this month. That is me explaining to me, and my own rule says a second time is not an explanation anymore. Tomorrow: food before the six-thirty. Quarter past nine, park end, Eli. Monday half-six, no clause in it. The boots went on today without me fighting them first. That is the whole of it. That is enough.