Elena was born into a world that was never ready for her. From the moment she came into this life, she was different. The doctors assured her parents that everything was fine-that her limbs were strong, her heartbeat steady-but when she didn't cry, they knew something was wrong.
She was mute, they discovered. A condition with no clear cause, no simple explanation. No amount of therapy or medical intervention could change the fact that she would never speak. For some parents, it might have been a challenge to overcome together, a bond to deepen. But not for Elena's parents.
Her mother's initial worry quickly turned into resentment, while her father's disappointment became a wall between them. They never said it out loud, but Elena felt it in every cold glance, every dismissive gesture. She was a burden, a failure to them.
As a toddler, when most children were learning their first words, Elena learned silence. Her parents didn't bother with sign language or any other means of communication, expecting her to "figure it out" on her own. She had no voice to call for help, no way to express her needs. She adapted, but the world she lived in became an isolating place.
School was no better. The other children avoided her, not understanding why she wouldn't or couldn't talk. Teachers labeled her difficult, slow to learn, and disruptive. Instead of seeing her silence as something to accommodate, they treated it as an inconvenience. Notes passed to teachers often went ignored, and requests for extra help were met with indifference. She was constantly left behind.
But Elena wasn't slow. In fact, she was sharp, her mind always racing ahead, finding ways to cope, to survive. She became an expert observer, reading the world through facial expressions, body language, and the tones of voices around her. She lived in the spaces between people's words, watching and waiting, hoping someone would understand her without her having to scream.
The hardest part was always her parents. They never understood her, or maybe they simply didn't want to. Elena's father, a man of strict discipline, treated her as if her muteness was an act of defiance. He would scold her for the smallest things-spilled milk, misplaced shoes-as if her silence was an intentional rebellion. Her mother, on the other hand, withdrew completely. She didn't bother with affection or comfort, and the distance between them grew with every passing year.
Elena often watched her mother with quiet longing, wishing for a gentle touch, a soft word. But there was nothing. Only the hollow clatter of dishes, the sound of footsteps fading down the hall.
The isolation only deepened as she grew older. Every year, new challenges seemed to appear, stacking themselves like heavy stones on her back. The schoolyard cruelty of her classmates was relentless, each taunt about her voice-or lack thereof-cutting deeper than the last. She became a ghost in her own life, drifting from one day to the next, unacknowledged and unseen.
There was one incident that stood out more than the others. She was twelve, just starting middle school. Elena had been excited, hopeful even, that maybe this new school would be different. But within the first week, she learned that children could be cruel no matter where you went.
During lunch one afternoon, she sat alone, as she often did. A group of girls approached, led by a girl with perfect blonde curls and an icy smile. "Why don't you talk, freak?" the girl asked, her voice dripping with mockery. Elena stayed silent, as always, her hands trembling slightly as she clutched her tray.
The girls didn't stop. They jeered, laughed, and mimicked her silence, pretending to speak with exaggerated movements of their lips. They knocked her tray to the floor, spilling her lunch. The humiliation was unbearable, and yet there was nothing Elena could do. No scream. No cry. Just a dull ache in her chest as she bent down to pick up the pieces.
When she got home that day, she didn't tell her parents. She couldn't. Her father barely glanced at her, buried in the evening news, while her mother didn't even notice the tear-streaked face that sat across from her at dinner. Elena ate in silence, her heart heavy, her soul aching for something she couldn't even name.
As the years passed, the weight of her life bore down on her, making every breath feel like a struggle. There was no reprieve, no escape. She had learned to live without her voice, but the cost had been greater than she could ever express.
She often wondered if she would ever find a place where she truly belonged, where her silence wouldn't be met with cruelty, where her parents' indifference wouldn't define her worth. But in this life, it seemed, she was destined to navigate the shadows alone, lost in a world that refused to hear her.
And so, Elena carried on, silent and unseen, hoping against hope that one day, someone would listen.
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YOU ARE READING
Silence Screams
Teen Fiction| ongoing | |First book of mine| ;) Elena has lived a life of silence-born mute, she has faced countless challenges, from being neglected by her parents to enduring years of bullying at school. Her world is shaped by tragedy and loneliness, but when...
