NOAH
The silence in the sterile, fluorescent-lit bathroom was heavy, vibrating with the unspoken.
The woman's eyes didn't just look at me; they searched me, her pupils blown wide with a jagged, crystalline terror that made my own denial feel like a childish toy I'd outgrown.
She didn't need to speak. The truth was written in the purple flowering of the bruises on her cheek and the way she flinched when the pipes in the wall groaned.
My breath hitched. The image of the "Good Alex"... the man who had bought me a suit, who had been patient on the dance floor, who had spoken of building communities... shattered like glass under a hammer.
The woman finally spoke, her voice a serrated blade of bitterness. "Even if I told you the whole story, how would you be able to help?" she asked, her gaze dropping to my shaking hands.
"Look at you. You're terrified of your own shadow. Alex is powerful. No one can touch him."
