Page 20 of Mystic's Sunrise

I did not cry, but my vision blurred anyway, not from sadness, no, but from the shame that sliced through me like glass, jagged and deep, cutting where no one could see.

“Look,” he said after a beat. “I’m not sayin’ you’re wrong to be cautious. I just think maybe… Mystic sees somethin’ in her.”

A scoff answered him. “Yeah. And that’s the part that worries me.”

Their voices faded, pulled away by distance, but the echo of their words remained, clinging to me like damp clothes I could not shake off.

I closed my eyes, and my breath came in sharp, uneven pulls, burning through my throat—not because of the damage left behind, but from the scream I kept buried, the one I couldn’t speak, couldn’t let out, couldn’t even whisper.

They think I am dangerous.

They do not trust me.

I placed a hand over my chest, pressing against the place where my heart beat too fast, trying to hold in the panic, the guilt, and the pieces of myself that kept slipping loose no matter how hard I tried to hold them together.

Mystic had told me I was safe here. He said the words like he believed them. But now the walls felt thinner, as if the safety they promised could fall away with a single breath.

I curled further into the blanket, turning my face from the window. The breeze that had once felt comforting now left a chill on my skin, and I wished he had left the window closed.

The voices, they would not leave my mind. I pressed my fingertips to my temple, trying to force the sound away, but it was not only what they said—it was how. The way they used “she” instead of my name, like I was not a person but a thing to be discussed.

But they did not know my name. How could they? Still, they were deciding what I was, who I might be, without knowing me at all.

A soft knock pulled me from the storm in my thoughts. The door opened before I could even try to answer—not that I could, anyway.

“Hey, honey,” came Brenda’s voice, gentle as ever.

She stepped inside carrying a towel folded over one arm and a bottle in her hand—lavender, if I trusted the way the scent wrapped around me. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her eyes looked tired, but they held a kind of kindness that didn’t demand anything from me.

“I figured you might want to freshen up a bit,” she said quietly, like she knew already how thin and fragile I felt today. “I thought maybe we could do your hair. No pressure.”

I gave a small nod, barely more than a breath of movement. But it was enough.

She didn’t come to me fast, didn’t rush or reach. Every step she took was slow, careful, like I was a bird too scared to fly and she didn’t want to spook me. She pulled the chair closer and sat behind me, her hands warm when they touched my hair, never grabbing, only present.

“You remind me of someone,” she said after a moment, her fingers moving gently through the strands. “Sweet girl I helped not too long ago. Quiet like you, though her voice worked just fine. She’d been through hell. Had eyes like a wild cat, always watchin’. Took months before she let me touch her hair.”

I stayed still, but my shoulders softened, just a little.

Brenda worked slow, humming something low and unfamiliar, a song I hadn’t heard, but would always remember. My mother used to hum that way when she sewed, always just under her breath, always that same rhythm.

A memory came soft, uninvited. I was maybe six, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her sewing machine in our apartment back in Istanbul. The smell of mint tea and laundry soap filled the air. She had her hair wrapped in a floral scarf, her hands steady as she worked, her voice humming that lullaby I only half understood but always felt.

“Dandini dandini dastana...”

It floated back like a ghost—an old Turkish lullaby, one she sang when I couldn’t sleep.

“Uyu yavrum, uyu...”

Sleep, my baby, sleep.

“Annem...” I whispered inside my heart, the word curled in silence like a secret I couldn’t speak aloud.

I let my eyes fall closed.

“There we go,” she whispered. “Let someone take care of you for once, yeah?”

A tear slid down my cheek, and I did not stop it.

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