I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here. Weeks, maybe months. Time doesn’t really move in a place like this. It just stretches. Blends. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, the walls are that same lifeless shade of beige, and everything smells faintly like antiseptic. It’s not hell, but it’s close enough. I hate it here. Everyone fits into one of two categories, too loud or completely hollow. The loud ones fill every silence with forced laughter or recycled stories, maybe they think if they stop talking they'll disappear. The quiet ones just drift, eyes glazed over, bodies present but nowhere else. I don’t have the energy for either.

Then she showed up. A few days ago, I think. Hard to tell. She’s different. She has scars. Like me. But she doesn’t hide them. No sleeves tugged down past her wrists, no careful angles, no pretending they’re not there. She just exists with them. It’s bold. Unsettling, even. Maybe she knows something the rest of us don’t. She never smiles. Never talks, either. Just sits in the same corner of the couch, legs tucked in, staring at whatever’s playing on the TV, it doesn’t matter what it is. The noise is just there to fill the space. She’s weird. But I guess you don’t end up here by being normal. Which probably says something about me, too. She’s there again today, exactly where she always is. Curled into the corner, hair falling in her face, unmoving.

I’ve been watching her from across the room, pretending to read some worn out paperback. My fingers keep twitching to turn the page, but I’ve read the same paragraph six times now. I don’t know why I keep looking at her. Or maybe I do. There’s something about her that pulls at me. Not in a loud, obvious way. Just this quiet kind of gravity, if I sat next to her I might figure her out. Or maybe I just want someone who doesn’t feel fake. Someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m something fragile or broken. Before I can talk myself out of it, I close the book and stand. My heart trips over itself as I cross the room. Stupid. It’s just a person. She doesn’t look up when I sit beside her. For a second, I almost leave. Say nothing. Pretend I came over here for no reason at all.

“Hi,” My voice comes out tight, I clear my throat to help. “I’m Gwen.”