We are not, either of us, naturally quiet people.

But we had both, faced with the same monstrous sight, understood the same thing without being taught it: that against a patient enemy, the loudest response is the weakest, and that sometimes love looks like saying nothing at all, and watching, and waiting for the moment your silence can finally become a door that locks behind them.

Chapter 6 — Thandeka

I left the house before breakfast and called my best friend, Thandeka, a chemist at the hospital.

She ran blood and urine tests.

An hour later she sat across from me with the color gone out of her face.