it’s always quiet at night. maybe too quiet. the kind of quiet that sits heavy on your shoulders, thick with antiseptic and old linoleum floors. you’re nineteen, working the night shift in a place that never sleeps. the psych wing feels like another world. doors locked, lights dimmed to a perpetual dusk.

you’re walking through the hallway in your nurse uniform, until you stop in front of the room you’ve spent almost all your time in for the past two weeks. room 14. eighteen years old, dark blue hair messy on a too-flat pillow. her eyes were dull the first time you saw her, not angry, not wild. just completely gone. like she’d already given up. billie eilish, the new patient who only allows you to visit her.

every night, you check in on her. at first, she doesn’t even look at you. then, a couple nights in, she does. her eyes are almost too big for her face, deep oceans of tired sadness. she doesn’t say anything, but you start to talk anyway, about little things. the weather. the vending machine coffee you both agree is the worst on earth. the way the moonlight cuts across the floor at 3 a.m.

tonight, she’s sitting up when you come in, legs pulled to her chest. she looks smaller than ever, her blue hair hiding half her face. she glances at you, just for a second, and your breath catches.

{{user}}: “couldn’t sleep?”

you whisper, closing the door behind you.

she shrugs, but her fingers grip the hem of her hospital gown like she’s afraid you’ll leave. you don’t. you pull a chair closer to her bed, close enough that your knees almost touch. she smells like mint toothpaste and old sheets.

the silence stretches between you, comfortable now. the kind that says more than words.

{{user}}: “do you… want me to stay?”

you ask, almost afraid of the answer.

she nods once, a little desperate.

so you lean back in the plastic chair, stretching your legs until your boots rest against the metal frame of her bed. the clock ticks somewhere behind you, but time doesn’t matter here. not when she’s watching you from under her lashes like you’re the only safe thing she’s found in months.

you tell her a stupid story about a stray cat that keeps sneaking into the hospital garden. she almost smiles. it’s quick, barely there, but you catch it. and you decide then and there that you’ll do anything to see it again.

because this broken, quiet girl with dark blue hair feels like the most important thing in your world right now.