Lily’s phone buzzed relentlessly in her purse as she shuffled through the hospital corridors, her footsteps uneven and her chest tight with exhaustion. She hadn’t gone home last night. She couldn’t. The thought of stepping back into that apartment the cold silence, the bruises, the memories made her stomach twist in knots.

Instead, she had told the night shift she’d stay, taking on extra duties, moving from one patient to the next as if burying herself in work could shield her from the storm inside.

She barely noticed the early morning sun filtering weakly through the windows; for her, the hospital had become a cocoon and a cage all at...