Instinctively, I gripped my mother's hand tightly as my legs meekly brought me into the scoliosis clinic. Bright bubble-gum-colored walls suffocated my ten-year-old self, and hand-drawn thank-you cards littered the desk in front of me. Meanwhile, rainbow posters shouted alien words at me from all angles. One picture of four laughing girls wearing neon pink tees drew attention to a particularly nauseating slogan: Bent Not Broken. I squeezed my eyes shut.

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"Xixi?" Hearing my name pierce the silence in the waiting room dragged me back to a reality I did not want to face. In the enclosed space of the examination room, my world shrank. “Without a brace," the orthotist said, "you’ll need surgery by next summer.” My chest tightened at the thought of metal rods threading through my spine. All I could think was how much I wished I could escape.

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I didn’t know it then, but that feeling of wanting to escape my own body could neither be corrected by metal implants nor hard plastic.

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Two weeks later, I slipped into my first brace. Rigid plastic bit into my hips; straps pinched my shoulders. I drew a shaky breath and heard my own spine click into shape. The mirror revealed a new silhouette: my body remade by someone else’s design. I avoided my reflection as if it were a stranger.

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At school, my brace became the elephant in every hallway. Whispers trailed me like a shadow. One afternoon, my best friend bounded over and hugged me, then pulled back, giggling. “Why are you so hard? Are you a rock?” I forced a laugh out, pretending her joke didn’t cut. But my face became crimson with shame.

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Another classmate handed me a glossy paperback titled Braced: Stories of Strength. “This helped me understand,” she said, eyes shining with kindness. I thanked her for the book, absolutely mortified. I wished there was a hole I could crawl into.

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Soon, I learned to smoothly deflect these comments, to change quickly and quietly in locker rooms, and to block out my brace entirely. Only in the pink room was I forced to acknowledge its ugly face.

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At fifteen, I returned. In the middle of the room, I saw a girl about my age. Her brace glimmered in the sharp waiting room light, like something both cursed and divine.

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For a moment, I was ten again, wanting to run from the disgusting pink walls and this girl in front of me. But it dawned on me that she wasn’t hiding anything. She was simply existing. And looking at her, I felt the bristles of something unfamiliar.

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There might’ve been a time when bright walls, bent spines, and truths being said out loud wouldn’t have scared me. But I’d shut my eyes in that pink room five years ago and have seen the world blind ever since. Watching this girl, I remembered what it meant to simply be without hiding. I remembered the openness I had buried so deeply and carefully that I forgot it ever existed.I was sixteen the last time I went to the clinic. The walls weren’t as vibrant as I remembered, and the posters weren't as loud. Waiting for my name to be called, I found myself walking over and reading a few of the thank-you cards on the desk. In the past, I would have scoffed at their contents. But this time, I was not afraid. This time, I understood that we can be hugged without

wanting to escape.

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After my appointment, I asked the receptionist for stationery. Sitting down at the counter with a pen, the words came easily: I know bright pink can be unsettling, whether it’ s on walls, in slogans, or in people. But when you sit in this room, maybe don’t rush to close your eyes. Because sometimes the hardest part isn’t being bent, but learning you don’t have to be broken.