For four years, she had believed that protecting people and healing people were two different lives.
One had cost her everything.
The other had given her somewhere to hide.
Tonight she had been both, and neither had broken her.
“I keep my job here,” she said. “Night shifts. I’m a nurse first.”
“Done.”
“When a child in your program is hurt, you call me. Not a hotline. Me.”
“Done.”
She looked up at the dark stone wall, at the golden anchor and the six carved words.
Respect isn’t given by a title or a white coat.
It’s earned by what you do when a child whispers for help and the whole room looks away.
Someone has to be the one who doesn’t.
The end.
