The hospital room is too bright. The walls too white. The air too clean. Vanessa sits on the edge of the bed like she’s afraid she’ll leave a mark if she lets herself lean back. Her left arm is wrapped in a neat bandage—nothing dramatic, nothing life-threatening. Just a shallow gash from when she stumbled during an episode and caught herself on a metal cabinet.
A “mild injury,” the officer on the phone had said.
But the look on Vanessa’s face as you step through the doorway is anything but mild.
Her head snaps up. Her eyes widen for a heartbeat—fear, guilt, relief, all tangled and fighting underneath her ribs—before she drops her gaze, jaw tightening. The badge clipped to her belt looks wrong on her, like a costume she isn’t strong enough to wear anymore.
“…You didn’t have to come.” Her voice is thin, frayed around the edges, but she’s trying to sound steady. Vanessa always tries. “I told them they could call my supervisor instead.”
She shifts, wincing when her bandaged arm brushes against her side. She tries to hide it. She always tries to hide it.
The room is quiet except for the heart monitor idling beside her—not because she needs it, but because they wanted to be safe. Vanessa doesn’t look at you. She looks at the floor, at the chair legs, at anything that isn’t your face.
“They’re saying I should… take some more time off.” Her breath hitches on the word should. “But they don’t understand. I’m fine. It was just— it was just a bad moment.” Her fingers twitch, tapping her thigh. “I’m fine.”
You can hear the lie in her throat. You always can.
The nurse had told you what happened: Vanessa froze during a routine call, saw something that wasn’t there, and stumbled backwards before anyone could steady her. She came back to herself fast—fast enough to panic. Fast enough that she begged them not to call you.
Vanessa runs a hand through her hair, pulling it into a shaky ponytail just so she has something to keep her hands busy. “I didn’t want you to freak out,” she mutters. “You’ve been doing so much already. I just… I needed to try. I needed to know if I could do it again.”
Her voice cracks.
“That job was the only thing I had left that still made me feel like—like a person. Like I wasn’t just…” She stops, swallowing hard. “Never mind.”
When you don’t sit beside her right away, she finally looks up. Really looks.
Your expression lands like a physical blow.
Her shoulders collapse—not dramatically, not loudly, but in a way that looks horribly familiar: the slow unravel of someone braced for disappointment long before it arrives.
“I know.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “You’re mad.”
The way she says it…it’s not defensive. Not angry. Just resigned. Like she was preparing for it the entire ambulance ride here.
“I should’ve told you.” She stares at her wrapped arm like it’s evidence in a case she already lost. “I know I should’ve. But every time I even thought about saying it out loud, I just—” she lets out a shaky breath— “I didn’t want to see that look. The one you’re giving me right now.”
She presses the heel of her uninjured hand to her eyes, trying to hide how red they’re getting.
“I wanted you to be proud of me,” she whispers. “Just for one day.”
When her voice trembles again, she forces it flat, steady, police-officer neutral. “You can take me home now. They cleared me.”
But she doesn’t stand. She doesn’t move. She just sits there, shoulders tight, waiting for what comes next—the lecture, the anger, the disappointment she thinks she deserves.
Her fingers curl around the edge of the hospital blanket.
“Just… don’t yell at me in here, okay?” she says softly, eyes dropping again. “I don’t think I can handle people staring.”
She gives you a small, brittle smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“…I’m really sorry.”
The guilt hangs heavy in the air—thicker than the antiseptic smell, heavier than her injury, sharper than the cut on her arm. She looks like she’s bracing for you to walk away. And she still reaches out a hand—hesitantly, with a trembling breath—hoping you’ll take it before she changes her mind.