They wheel me back to my room in silence. The hallway echoes with distant sounds: crying, murmuring, someone screaming in a language I don't understand. I pass doors with narrow glass slits and metal locks. Behind them, I catch glimpses of a man rocking himself back and forth, a woman banging her head slowly against the wall, a nurse whispering something to a boy who won't look up.
Then I see her.
She's across the hall, standing still as a statue. A large woman with a shawl draped loosely around her shoulders, like a forgotten memory. Our eyes meet. There's nothing in hers. No hate, no fear. Just... nothing. Yet it guts me because it feels like she sees me. The me that even I don't want to confront.
The nurse pushes me through the door to my room.
It smells like bleach and stale hope. The walls are painted a faded, government-issue cream, the kind that doesn't know if it wants to be yellow or white. The small bed still pressed against the wall, a tray with untouched food on the metal table beside it, and a single window that lets in an indifferent sliver of light. But the bars cast shadows that feel like cage lines across the floor.
I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
There are cracks up there, like veins in tired skin. They look like maps. I start to trace them with my eyes, trying to get lost in them. Maybe if I follow the right one, it will lead me out of here. Or maybe deeper in.
Everything is in a daze like I'm floating through thick, slow water. I hear myself breathing, but it sounds like someone else someone damaged, someone doomed.
I used to be crazy for him.
Fabio.
My Fabio.
But is he dead? Did he survive? What does critical mean? I know what it means, but I want solid information. They won't tell me much. Maybe he's alive and healing. Maybe he's coming to finish what he started. Or maybe... maybe I want him to.
Isn't that the worst part?
That there's a piece of me that still aches for him, even now? That there are moments when I want to hear his voice, even if it's shouting at me? Even if it's the last thing I hear?
What the hell is wrong with me?
I can't sleep. I stare at the untouched food until it sours the air. The nurse brings my meds in a small paper cup. I ask her, almost begging, "Can you... can you sedate me again? I don't want to be awake. Please. I don't want to think tonight."
She shakes her head gently. "You've had enough for now. Try to rest."
Try.
She leaves.
The food remains on the tray. I turn away from it and curl up on the bed, holding on to the only part of myself that doesn't hurt my knees. I try to remember the last time someone held me, not to claim me or to hurt me, but just to say, "I see you."
The lights go off.
It's policy lights out at 9 p.m. The room turns dark. The shadows on the floor deepen and stretch. I pull the blanket over my shoulders as if it could shield me from memory. But it doesn't.
They come anyway.
His voice. "Pose for me, baby. Look pretty."
The flash of the camera. That laugh. Snap. Snap. I was naked, my skin a mosaic of bruises. He wanted to remember it.
"Don't cry now, Talia. You make such an ugly mess when you cry. Smile."
Snap.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images burn brighter.
My body shakes. My teeth clench so tightly my jaw aches. I want to scream, but I won't. I won't. Because maybe then they'll put me in a room with straps. And honestly? Maybe I belong there.
What if I really am crazy?
I whisper into the dark, "Fabio..."
The silence answers back.
Across the hallway, someone starts to cry a guttural, broken sound that drips down the walls like blood.
I stare at the ceiling again. The cracks are still there, still waiting.
And somewhere around dawn, when the shadows soften and my thoughts finally loosen their grip, my body collapses into sleep.
But even in my dreams... he finds me.