Below

The room does not feel unfamiliar. That is the danger. Every surface carries the memory of a previous descent, every bruise another repetition mistaken for instinct. Whether the violence arrives through someone else or through her own hand, she recognizes the route. Rock bottom has become a place she knows how to inhabit.

Patterns survive because they offer the comfort of prediction. Pain arrives on schedule, and certainty begins to resemble safety. She does not stay because she cannot see the exit. She stays because the room already knows her shape. The telephone offers connection, but she has returned to hear the same voice.