The silence after the stent

It’s 6:30 a.m. and I’m not sleeping. The kind of quiet that settles when the heart finally stops fighting—just for a second—and you realize you’ve been holding your breath too. I keep thinking about the woman in room 4, the one who said thank you without looking up. Not to me, but to the air between us. That hush isn’t peace. It’s something older. Something waiting to be named.