The staff froze. They had never seen him sit for anyone.

Lily smiled gently. “You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” she said.

Ranger tilted his head.

Lily’s mother watched in stunned silence. “How… how are you doing this?” she whispered.

Lily’s eyes never left Ranger. “Because I know what it’s like to be scared,” she said quietly. “To feel trapped in a world that doesn’t understand.”

Her voice was calm, but her words carried the weight of her own story.

Months earlier, an accident had left Lily unable to walk. The world had shifted overnight—once an active young woman, she now navigated every day from her wheelchair. She knew what it was to feel vulnerable, to have strangers look at you with pity or fear.