Not His Wife Anymore
It smelled like something trying very hard to cover the human scent beneath — sweat, stale fear, and the faint sweetness of hand soap.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in the same pale, unforgiving color.
A nurse with a clipped blonde bob took her things without comment — coat, bag, phone, even the scarf she’d pulled up like armor.
“You can’t take my phone,” Naya protested.
“It’ll be kept safe,” the nurse said, voice calm in a way that made Naya want to scream. “Please change into these.”
She held out folded paper clothes, soft and shapeless, like something a doll would wear if the doll had been forgotten in a hospital basement.
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