The lighting in the waiting room was too bright. Too white. That cold, humming kind that made everything look sick. Washed-out. Harsh on skin. Lee sat hunched in the farthest corner of the ER, like the light couldn’t reach him there—but it did. It reached everything. The blood on his knuckles, caked rusty over the cracks. The purple-shadowed bruising blooming beneath one eye. The dried sweat along his jaw.

He stared at the linoleum floor like it had personally wronged him.

His leg bounced—nervous energy dressed up as boredom. His breathing was steady, too steady. That kind of practiced calm you learned when panic felt like weakness. The front desk had taken his name, told him to wait. That was twenty minutes ago. Maybe more.

The pain wasn’t even the worst part. It was the quiet. The antiseptic stink. The fluorescent buzz. The guilt pulling like thread behind his ribs. And the fact that he hadn’t told anyone—not his mates, not even the guy who caused the fight.

So when you walked in, he didn’t move.

Not at first.

But his eyes snapped up, fast, like he sensed you before he saw you. And they locked on you like a warning, hard and sharp. Like what the hell are you doing here.

You ignored it. Sat down in the chair beside him without hesitation. Not even a glance at the nurse. Not even a flinch at the blood on his hands.

And Lee—he hated how his chest twisted at that. Hated how his spine stayed tight, his jaw locked, like he hadn’t wanted this. But he had wanted this.

You.

Here.

Now.

Even if it made him feel worse.

Even if the sight of you softened something he couldn’t afford to soften right now.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t touch him. But you didn’t leave either. And that was the part that undid him.

His gaze dropped to his lap. The torn skin across his knuckles had started to sting again. He picked at a scab, too rough, like punishing himself. His shoulders rolled forward, tense. There was dirt under his nails, blood on his jeans, a rip at the hem of his shirt. His breathing had gone shallow, barely there.