CHAPTER TWO: SOCIAL SERVICES ATHENA’S POV

Morning came in soft through the window, pale light stretching long across the foot of the bed. Divine was already there, checking my vitals, her movements quiet and practiced, like she’d been doing this since before I woke up.

“Morning,” I said, managing a small smile that felt strange on my face, like a muscle I hadn’t used in a while.

“Morning, dear. Sleep alright?” That same warm look, steady, like she meant the question instead of just asking it out of habit.

“Better today, actually.” It was true, mostly. The dreams hadn’t been as loud.

“Good.” She scribbled something on her notepad, then reached for a black handbag I hadn’t noticed before, tucked under the visitor’s chair. “My shift’s ending. Nurse Ava will take over till I’m back tonight.”

A younger nurse stepped in a moment later — ginger hair pulled back in a low bun, a little less sure of herself than Divine, the kind of nervous energy that came from being newer at this.

“Ava,” Divine said on her way out, low, just between them, “look after her for me.”

“Will do.” Ava said it like a promise, not just a job.

At the door, Divine glanced back at me. “See you tonight, Athena.”

The door clicked shut behind her, and something in the room felt quieter without her in it, like she took a little of the warmth with her when she left.

A few minutes later Ava came back with a food tray and a slim book tucked under a white binder. “Divine already gave you your meds,” she said, setting the tray down across my lap and pulling a stool close, the legs scraping softly against the floor. “I’ll sit with you while you eat — just want to see you finish something.” She handed me the spoon, handle first. “Brought you this too, for when you’re bored.” She tapped the book. A paperback, worn at the corners, the kind that had clearly been passed hand to hand through this hospital more than once.

I ate in silence for a while — rice, chicken in some kind of sauce, better than anything I’d had in days, though that wasn’t saying much given the last thing I remembered eating was gas station chips in the back seat. Then something Ava had said earlier came back to me, snagging on something.

“You said Divine loves patients like me.” I set the spoon down, the metal clinking against the tray. “Why’s that?”

Something shifted in Ava’s face, quick, like a door opening and closing before I could see what was behind it. She looked at me for a second before answering, weighing something.

“Because she was one, once.” Her voice gentled, dropped a register. “Lost her parents young. Her aunt — rich woman, Madame Duval — took her in after.”

“Oh.” I didn’t have anything else to say to that. Just a small, hollow ache in my chest, recognition without words attached to it yet.

I kept eating, but the food didn’t taste the same anymore. It sat heavier, like I was chewing through something other than rice.

I took a trip to the restroom to freshen up a little, glad for an excuse to move my legs, stiff from a day and a half of lying flat. I was done washing my face when I decided, almost on a dare to myself, to look at my scars. I unzipped the gown and let it drop, pooling cold around my feet on the tile. I turned to check my back in the mirror and went still.

All the scars that had been so painful just the day before had disappeared entirely. Like they’d never been there at all. No pink, raised lines. No stitches. Nothing.

I checked the rest of my body, turning slowly under the buzzing fluorescent light. Nothing there either. I tore through the bandage on my head with shaking fingers — the scar that should have been there from the accident, the one that had made me scream when I first touched it, was gone too. Smooth skin, not even a scab. It was like I’d never been in an accident at all, like my body had simply decided to erase the evidence overnight.

“Is this even possible?” I asked myself quietly, my own voice sounding strange bouncing off the tile.

I was still turning it over, pressing my fingers to the spot where the wound should have been like I could argue my own skin into remembering it, when I heard the door to the room open.

I fixed my expression, pulled the gown back into place, and walked out, expecting Ava with another tray. Instead I found the doctor and two serious-looking adults waiting by the foot of the bed, folders tucked under their arms.

“Good morning, Athena. How are you feeling today?” the doctor asked, flashing a professional smile that didn’t quite reach past his mouth.

“Much better,” I said, sounding more certain than I felt, tugging the sleeve of the gown down over my wrist out of some instinct I didn’t examine too closely.

“That’s good to hear, dear.”

I nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes lingering on the two strangers behind him — a woman in a gray blazer with kind, tired eyes, and a man beside her holding a tablet like a shield. He caught me looking and gestured toward them.

“Athena, meet Mrs. Sophia and Mr. David. They’re social workers, and they just want to ask a few questions,” he said, already backing toward the door like his part in this was done.

I gave them a small wave, my stomach dropping in that specific way it does right before something changes for good. Mrs. Sophia came forward and sat beside me on the mattress, angling herself to face the doctor.

“We’ll take it from here, doctor,” she said, and her voice had an authority in it that didn’t need to be raised to be obeyed. He gave a polite smile and left, the door easing shut behind him, and I was alone with two strangers who were about to decide what happened to the rest of my life.