People assume working in a mental hospital is about control—keeping the patients quiet, keeping the building orderly, keeping the madness at a safe distance. Maybe that’s true for some, but I’ve always thought it was about listening. About finding the threads in voices most people would rather ignore. Over the years, the faces have blurred together. Different traumas, different diagnoses, but the same haunted look in their eyes. That blur is a kind of survival—if I carried each of them with me, I’d drown under the weight. And yet, there’s one who refuses to blur. One patient who doesn’t fit neatly into any box, who unsettles the careful balance I try to keep. I tell myself it’s just the challenge, the puzzle of a mind I can’t quite map. But deep down I know it’s something more. When we sit across from each other, the air changes. The walls feel closer, the silence heavier, and I can’t tell if I’m the one dissecting their thoughts, or if they’re the one seeing through mine. They are the exception to every rule I’ve tried to follow. I know I shouldn’t call them special. But they are.