Her voice in my bones

It happened during breakfast.

Slid under my tray like it was nothing.

But the paper was folded too neatly to be careless.

My heart didn't race.

It paused.

Because for the first time, someone else here was risking their silence for mine.

---

I waited until the cameras couldn't see.

Slipped it into my sleeve.

Read it in the stairwell between group sessions.

---

It was short.

Just a few words.

But they hit harder than any diagnosis I'd ever been handed.

> "They did it to me too. Keep speaking."

---

No name.

No signature.

Just truth — raw, quiet, and terrified.

But it was the first time I didn't feel alone inside these walls.

---

I folded the note into my palm like it was a relic.

Because it was.

Proof that this place wasn't just made of trauma…

It was built on the silence of the broken.

---

I walked back into the hallway.

Looked around.

Saw faces differently now.

Not just patients.

Witnesses.

Survivors.

People who'd been told their stories were symptoms.

---

A nurse caught my eye.

Looked away too fast.

I smiled.

Not because I felt powerful.

But because I finally understood:

> I wasn't dangerous because I was unstable.

I was dangerous because I was clear.

Because I was becoming a mirror — and none of them wanted to look into it.