The kind of quiet that wraps around your chest and squeezes until black spots dance at the edges of your vision. Every hum of fluorescent lights, every faint beep of monitors down the hall, every squeak of nurses' shoes on linoleum—it all grates against my raw nerves like sandpaper on an open wound.

I focus on the ceiling, counting uneven grooves between each tile. Anything to block out the throbbing in my wrist and the steady drumbeat of pain at the base of my skull. The smell of antiseptic burns my nostrils, mixing with the metallic taste of blood I still can't wash from my mouth.

I don't want to be here.

Mom dragged me in at 3 AM, her grip on my arm desperate, like she could hold all our broken pieces together through sheer force of will. Credit where it's due—it's the first time she's actually brought me to the ER after one of Scott's episodes. I should probably feel grateful for that small mercy. The lie she told the nurse rolled off her tongue with practiced ease: I fell.

Might have rebroken my wrist and obtained a concussion with additional bruises. Her voice was steady, believable—you'd think she actually bought into her own bullshit.

A fucking fall. That's the story this time.

She'd managed to clean most of the blood away before we left, even changed my shirt. Anything to hide the truth. The perfect wife, the caring mother, protecting her family's reputation like it's worth more than her son's broken bones.

I wanted to scream the truth. Wanted to tell them it wasn't a fall, that she was lying to protect the monster who did this. But the words lodged in my throat like shards of glass. Because I've been lying for Scott my entire life too. Every black eye, every fractured rib, every time I went flying into a wall—I covered for him.

Football practice. A rough tackle. A stupid accident. The lies came easier than breathing.

But hearing her tell those same lies, watching her carry on this sick performance like we're both method actors in a tragedy—it makes me feel like I'm going to explode.

I sit up too fast and the room tilts sideways, pain shooting through my skull like lightning. Swallowing back nausea, I glance at Mom. She's perched in the chair by the door, arms crossed tight like she's physically holding herself together. She hasn't looked at me once since we got here.

I'm not sure what's worse—the silence stretching between us or the way she keeps pretending this is normal. Like ending up in the ER at three in the morning is just another Wednesday night in the Sullivan household.

"Nate, sit down," she says, her voice clipped. Her eyes dart toward the hallway like she's afraid someone might overhear, might see through the cracks in our carefully constructed facade. "You look like⁠⁠—"