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Her head turns back toward me as the fog covers most of her face and body, and my eyes catch the tattoo. A scar runs across her upper back. Someone has turned it into a line, a thread that twists along her skin. A bird perches on it, a nightingale, but one wing is broken, feathers missing, and its beak is closed.

“Do you know Philomela?”

“No,” I say.

“She's…” she adds softly. “A woman whose voice was taken from her for being a woman.”

I've never heard this story before, but the tone, the way she tells it, gives me something to latch onto. “That’s a nightingale?” I ask, curious.

“A punishment for enduring,” she replies, her voice slightly hesitant, “Some men think that silence erases it, but she found another way to speak.”

I looked away, but the tattoo appeared again for a moment, rippled by the water and the curve of her back. My fingers itched to touch it, trace the lines of it, to understand. But I didn’t. Some things weren’t mine to ask for.

I wanted to ask, to know who I should kill for doing this. Instead, I simply breathed and waited.

“I’ll leave you some clothes here,” I said, going to my room and taking some clothes with me, then placed the t-shirt and sweatpants on the edge of the sink. “You can change when you’re done.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

I went out and closed the door behind me, letting the steam and the sound of the water mask my thoughts, which revolved around that tattoo and that vulnerable soul I wasn’t allowed to touch.

When she returned, wrapped in my oversized clothes, I looked away slightly, but the sight was fascinating. She floats in this fabric, her long and raven hair wet and sticking to her neck.

“Sit down,” I say, gesturing toward the sofa.

She obeys without a word, as I approach with the kit, and I feel that tension again. The stitches are quick, the bandage tight but gentle, I don’t want to scare her away.

I don’t want to hurt her.

So I focus on the wound, on its trembling, on what it allows me to see without words.

“Does it hurt?” I ask softly.

“Not really,” she says, and yet her slight flinch at each stitch betrays her.

“I need to clean a little more,” I warn.

“It’s okay…"

“You want to talk about this?” I venture, my hands continuing to work.

“I didn’t tell you how Philomela’s story went,” she says, a faint perceptible smile on her lips.

“What happened to her?”

“Her sister avenged her, she did horrible things to her son to punish her husband who abused Philomela.”

“How did he react?” I reply, focused on the movements.

“He chased them like his sin was erased the moment she got angry about it.”

“He’s a bastard,” I spit out.

She laughs softly, and my stomach flips at the sound. I like it. I like it a lot. “I’m a big sister too, and I’d do anything for my little brother,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

I raise a hand, ready to touch her arm, then stop myself. I can't cross that line. All I can do is continue the treatment with precision, my cold hands on her cold skin.

When I finish, I check the bandage's pressure one last time. “It's all done.”