The knife never comes from strangers.

I felt her hands against my chest, the uneven texture of the bandages under her palms acting as a constant, notched reminder of the price I had paid for our survival. "It must have been so hard for you." She whispered, her voice trembling with a fresh wave of emotion. "To survive all those years in that cage, carrying all that weight alone... why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you let me carry some of it?"