Or worse—as if they were afraid I might still fight them.
I stayed where I was.
Curled on the table.
Legs drawn in tight beneath me.
Clutching the blood-soaked sheet against my body like it could shield me from everything I had just survived.
Like it could make any of this feel less real.
Their eyes flicked over me as they drew closer.
The split lip.
The gash above my eyebrow.
The dried and fresh blood.
The torn fabric.
The gauze at my knees soaked through in deep, dark red.
And the cuts—
I felt it in the way their gazes lingered there.
In the way the younger woman’s hands trembled when she set the tray down.
The metallic clink echoed too loudly in the silence.
“Signora Orsini,” the older woman said softly.
Her voice was gentle.
“We’re here to help.”
A pause.
“Please... let us take care of you.”
The words hit differently.
Not clinical. But respectful.
Like I wasn’t just a patient.
Like I wasn’t just someone they had been ordered to treat.
The title alone unsettled me.
Signora Orsini.
It sounded too formal.
Too tied to the man who had just left this room.
Too tied to everything I didn’t understand anymore.
