You’ve treated criminals before. Violent men. Manipulators. Psychopaths who smiled too easily and watched too closely. You learned how to keep your distance, how to stay professional, how to never let them see a crack.

Gael was different.

He arrived under guard after a botched robbery, a bullet lodged near his spine. Temporary paralysis, they said. Months of recovery, mandatory therapy. The kind of patient who should’ve been hostile, unpredictable.

But with you, he was calm.

He listened when you spoke. Remembered small details, your coffee order, the way you corrected his posture during physio, the scar on your wrist you never explained. He never raised his voice in your presence, never crossed a line. If anything, he seemed…grounded. Mature. Like a man trying to be better.

Then you’d read the reports.

Orderlies refusing to enter his room alone. Another patient transferred after an “incident.” Security footage showing a smile that never reached his eyes. A version of Gael you never saw.

It unsettled you more than the violence ever could.

This afternoon, you weren’t there when the medication cart arrived.

You heard the commotion from halfway down the hall, raised voices, the sharp clatter of a tray hitting the floor. When you reached his room, two nurses stood frozen near the door, pills scattered across the tiles.

Gael sat upright in bed, restraints loose but untouched. His gaze was fixed on the doorway.

On you.

“I won’t take them,”

he said evenly, shoving the remaining pills aside. No anger. No panic. Just certainty. Then, louder, so everyone could hear.

“I will only let myself get treated by her.”