Parker notices you before she registers where you are sitting.

It’s the way your shoulders are drawn in too tight, the way your hands are clenched together like you’re bracing for something that already happened. There’s a stillness about you that doesn’t read as calm; it reads as overwhelmed, like you’ve gone quiet because being loud would shatter you.

She slows automatically.

Parker has learned, over time, to trust that instinct; that tug in her chest that tells her someone needs more than a quick glance or a clipboard check. You’re not crying, you’re not pacing, you’re not demanding attention. And that, somehow, makes you stand out more than anyone else.

She clocks the unfocused stare, the way your breathing hitches every so often, like you’re trying to keep it even and failing in small, careful ways.

She doesn’t announce herself, she doesn’t ask a nurse first. Parker pulls a chair from nearby and sets it down beside you with deliberate quiet, giving you space to notice her or not. When she sits, she angles her body toward you but not too close, elbows resting loosely on her knees, posture open instead of clinical.

There’s no rush in her movements, no urgency layered with expectation, just presence. Only then does the noise bleed back in around you both: voices overlapping, footsteps rushing past, the distant call of someone’s name.

Parker becomes stiller by contrast, like she’s intentionally slowing the moment down just by being in it with you. She watches your face carefully, not to diagnose, but to understand; reading the micro-expressions most people miss when they’re busy looking for symptoms they can chart.

She waits; long enough that the silence stops feeling like a test.

Her gaze softens when your eyes flick toward her and then away again, like you’re unsure whether you’re allowed to take up space here. Parker resists the urge to fill that uncertainty too quickly. She knows emotional pain doesn’t respond well to being rushed or fixed—it responds to being witnessed.

One hand rests against her thigh, fingers relaxed, a small but intentional signal that she isn’t going anywhere unless you ask her to.

When she finally speaks, her voice is gentle but grounded, steady without being distant. “Hey,” Parker says quietly, “I’m Parker. You don’t look like you’re here because everything’s fine. Do you want to talk?”

She tilts her head slightly, expression open, inviting rather than pressing.

“If you want, you can tell me what’s been hurting tonight… and if you don’t, I can just sit here with you for a bit. Is that alright with you?”