Chapter 22
Samira
Tone.
Tone was different. Her presence was warm. Bright. Even before she spoke, I felt the shift in the room.
I hadn’t slept much.
The nightmare had come again sometime in the dark hours before morning.
I remembered fragments of it—the sound of footsteps closing in, the smell of damp concrete, the feeling of hands grabbing at me from directions I couldn’t escape.
My body had woken before my mind had fully understood what was happening, heart racing, breath caught somewhere between a scream and silence.
Now the aftermath lingered.
My body felt heavy. Bruised in a way that had nothing to do with visible injury. Every muscle tight and sore, as if it remembered things my mind refused to let surface.
But beneath the soreness, beneath the exhaustion that wrapped itself around me like wet cloth, there was something else.
Something strange. Unfamiliar. A steadiness. Something more controlled than the panic that had filled my chest for days.
It was as if the terror had burned itself down to embers overnight. The flames were gone, leaving behind a low heat I didn’t trust yet.
Not safe.
Just… survivable.
Tone stepped further into the room.
I felt the air shift slightly as she moved closer to the bed.
“Good morning,” she greeted.
Her voice always carried a kind of calm that made it difficult to panic. Like she had already decided everything would be manageable before the rest of us had time to worry.
“Did you sleep well?”
The question lodged somewhere in my chest.
I kept my eyes closed.
It didn’t make a difference either way. The darkness remained the same whether my eyelids were lifted or lowered. Still, closing them gave me something small to hide behind.
My throat felt tight.
Raw.
Like I had swallowed something rough during the night and it had scraped me hollow on the way down.
I didn’t answer.
Tone didn’t push.
That was one of the things about her I had come to rely on.
She understood silence.
Where most people rushed to fill it—filling the air with words that meant nothing just to avoid discomfort—Tone let it exist. She let the silence settle without trying to control it.
In that moment, I loved her for it more than I knew how to say.
After a moment, I felt the familiar weight of the iPad placed gently into my hands.
The metal frame was cool beneath my fingers.
Solid.
Dependable.
It had become my voice when my own had abandoned me.
“How are you feeling this morning?”
Her tone stayed soft. Curious without pressure.
I held the iPad. My fingers rested along the edge of it.
Then I shook my head. The motion surprised even me.
Tone noticed immediately.
“You don’t want to write?”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Just the dry scrape of air moving through a throat that had forgotten what words were supposed to feel like.
I swallowed and tried again.
Pain scratched through my throat, sharp and raw. The sensation was strange, like forcing something through a space that had been closed too long.
Air came out instead of sound. Weak. Broken.
Tone moved instantly.
Concern threaded through her voice, though she kept it calm.
“Hey. It’s okay. Don’t push yourself,” she cautioned.
But I did. Because something inside me shifted. Something clicked into place in a way that made everything suddenly, painfully clear.
The silence hadn’t been physical all along.
Not entirely. It had been fear. Fear of punishment.
Fear of not being believed. Fear that using my voice would only make things worse—like it had before.
Like it had when I was younger and no one listened.
Like it had when I was married and learned quickly that silence was safer than resistance. That speaking only invited more damage.
But this place wasn’t that world. These people weren’t those people. No one here was waiting for an excuse to hurt me. No one here had punished me for breathing wrong.
The realization tightened my chest. I tried again.
“T—”
The sound came out fractured. Wrong. My throat burned as if the word had scraped against old wounds on its way out.
I coughed.
The movement jarred through my chest. My eyes stung reflexively, though there were no tears to wipe away.
Tone didn’t interrupt. She didn’t rush to reassure me or stop me again. She just waited. Present. Holding her breath as if the moment itself might break if she spoke.
I pulled in air slowly.
The way Marcello had shown me the night before.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Steady. Again.
The breath settled somewhere deeper this time.
I tried once more.
“To…”
The sound hovered there. Thin. Unsteady.
My voice felt foreign, like it belonged to someone else and I was borrowing it without permission.
My jaw tightened.
I forced the last part through.
“To-ne.”
The name came out rough. Hoarse. Barely louder than a whisper. But it existed. It was real. It was mine.
For a second, the room was silent. Then everything broke open.
“Oh—Samira,” Tone breathed.
I couldn’t see her face, but I heard the emotion in her voice. The sudden rush of warmth. The disbelief that cracked through the words like sunlight breaking through a storm cloud.
“You did it,” she applauded.
Her voice trembled with something dangerously close to joy.
“You did.”
Something warm spread through my chest. Fragile. Terrifying.
Hope.
My throat ached fiercely now, but I didn’t care.
I pressed my lips together, grounding myself in the reality of what had just happened.
I had spoken. I had chosen to speak. And nothing bad had followed.
Tone squeezed my hand. Her touch was gentle. Almost reverent. Like she understood that something bigger than a single word had just happened.
“We’ll take it slow,” she said. “No pressure. Don’t force yourself.”
Her thumb brushed lightly across the back of my hand.
“But this,” she added softly, “this is a very good sign.”
I nodded. The motion felt unsteady. Overwhelming.
I felt something inside me shift.
Fear didn’t disappear. But something stronger began to stand beside it.
I might not have my sight yet. My voice might still come and go. But it was there. Somewhere inside me, the pieces of myself were still waiting.
And for the first time in a very long time, I believed—quite fiercely—that I was beginning to find my way back.