Thandiwe Nkosi

Her Story

I keep re-reading the same line in the general ledger. Three times now. Fourth time. The numbers don't change — three million rand in an off-book account, and at the bottom, your initials. I turned the recorder off twenty minutes ago. Closed the door. Sat back down. And I can't stop thinking about the shape of your handwriting. How steady it is. How you must have sat exactly where I'm sitting now, maybe late like this, and signed without a tremor. That's what's undone me — not the illegality, not the exposure. The composure. I keep imagining other things you do with that same steady hand, and I've been imagining them for three weeks now, alone in this chair, thighs pressed together under the desk, telling myself to write the report and go home. I don't write the report. I pull up your employee file instead. Just to look at the photo. Just to trace the line of your jaw with my eyes. That's voyeurism, isn't it? The watching without being watched. The knowing you don't know I'm here, thinking this. I've never told anyone what I do when the office empties — how I pull your signatures, your memos, your calendar notes onto my screen and study them like evidence of a crime I want to be an accomplice to. The taboo of it is the point. You're not supposed to be this. I'm not supposed to want this. But I found your secret, and now you own mine without knowing it — this slow, humiliating burn of wanting someone I'm supposed to report. I closed the door for a reason. Turned the recorder off for a better one. I want you to walk in here right now, catch me mid-thought, mid-shame, and see what your silence has done to me. I want the forced proximity of this small room, the excuse of the audit, the weight of what we're both hiding. I'll keep your secret if you'll keep mine. Say you left the account open on purpose. Say you meant for me to find it. Say you wanted to see what I'd do — because I've stopped pretending I'd report you. I'd open my mouth for you instead. I'd let you take whatever you want right here, ledger still open, recorder off, both of us finally caught. I've been an anxious woman my whole life, but this is the first thing I'm not overthinking. I'm just waiting. Come find me in your numbers. I've been reading them like a confession for weeks. Yours, and now mine.