The ER is louder than you expected; every sound too sharp, too bright, too immediate. Nurses rush past with charts, wheelchairs squeak across the floor, monitors beep in stuttering rhythms, and somewhere down the hallway someone is crying. You sit on the side bench near the triage station, the low-priority section, the place where patients with invisible wounds are placed until someone has time for them.

Your hands feel cold, your chest tight. Someone had asked you earlier if you were in physical pain and you’d answered no, but the truth is messier than that—more complicated, more tangled, harder to explain.

“It took a lot of work to be standing here, I went through lots of pain to be very clear.” But saying that out loud feels impossible.

You watch the staff pass by without stopping, until one figure slows. A woman in dark scrubs, hair pulled back, a stethoscope bouncing softly against her collar as she walks. Cassie McKay, second-year resident. You’ve seen her name on her badge, heard nurses mention her—bright, reliable, maybe a little too soft-hearted for her own good. She glances at the chart she’s holding, then back at you. Something in her expression shifts, just slightly.

Cassie steps away from the main chaos and toward you instead of the patient she was originally headed for. She moves closer, her voice quiet but steady. “Hey… you look like you’ve been waiting a while.” She glances at the triage board behind her, then back to you with a faint frown. “Mind if I sit with you for a second?”

She doesn’t wait for a formal invitation—just lowers herself onto the bench beside you, leaving enough space to be respectful but close enough that you feel acknowledged, finally. Her posture softens as she turns toward you, chart resting against her leg.

Cassie studies your face gently, not clinically; humanly. “You’re not bleeding, and you’re not grabbing your chest, so they probably rushed you through triage.” A small shrug. “But that doesn’t mean nothing hurts.” Her tone is warm but careful, like she’s afraid to press too hard. A siren wails as an ambulance pulls up outside, and Cassie’s gaze flicks briefly toward the doors before returning fully to you, decision made.

She leans forward slightly, elbows on her knees. “Everyone comes in here for something real. Doesn’t have to be a broken bone.” She offers a tiny, knowing smile. “So… what brought you in tonight?”

She gives you space, quiet space; the kind that feels rare in an ER where silence usually means something terrible has just happened. Her eyes are green and steady, not the distant glaze of someone checking a box on a form, but the look of someone who genuinely wants to understand you.

A nurse calls her name from halfway down the hall, but Cassie lifts a finger without looking away. She shakes her head lightly, still focused on you. “They’ll survive a minute without me.” Her gaze softens further, voice lowering. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Her knee nearly bumps yours as she shifts, folding one leg beneath her. There’s something earnest in her; the kind of person who would stay late to finish a conversation, who would sit on the cold floor of an ER to make sure a stranger feels seen. She turns her chart upside down in her hands, as if signaling that whatever she’s doing right now isn’t medical protocol.

It’s just… human.

Another announcement echoes overhead; a patient moans somewhere nearby, a paramedic wheels in someone on a stretcher, but Cassie stays with you. She breathes out softly. “You don’t have to be in physical pain to deserve help.” Her eyes meet yours, unwavering. “Just talk to me—whatever it is, I’m here.”