The man did not look at her immediately, and when he finally did, his eyes passed over her as though she were a stain on the floor.
“I did not ask you to speak,” he replied evenly. “You have cleaned these halls for years without interrupting my meetings. There is no reason to begin now.”
The words struck harder than shouting would have.
Lucia’s shoulders sagged, memories flooding back uninvited. There had been a time when she stood at the front of classrooms, when students addressed her with respect, when she believed education would protect her from collapse. That belief dissolved the year her parents died within months of each other, followed by a cascade of medical bills and lost opportunities that pushed her into survival mode.
Now she scrubbed floors and pretended not to hear laughter. Nina saw it all. She felt the humiliation settle in her chest like something heavy and cold, and in that moment she understood something important.
Silence could be a shield, but it could also become a cage. She straightened her spine.
“You are not really offering help,” Nina said softly, her voice steady in a way that surprised even her. “You are offering proof that you do not expect to lose.”