Silence Screams

Chapter 2: Broken Pieces

Elena had learned early on that life wasn't meant to be kind to her. After the torment of middle school, the world only seemed to grow darker. By the time she entered high school, the silence that had once been an unfortunate reality became something much heavier-a suffocating force that kept her isolated in ways she never fully understood.

Her parents had all but given up on her by then. Communication at home was limited to the bare necessities. Her father, stoic and cold, treated her presence as if it were a mistake he was forced to tolerate. Her mother, fragile and distant, had retreated into her own world, often drowning in the haze of wine and unspoken frustrations.

Elena tried to manage the best she could, but the weight of their indifference broke her in ways she couldn't fix. They didn't understand her, nor did they try. Her mother rarely left the house, and when she did, it was usually to get more alcohol. There were days when Elena would come home to find her passed out on the couch, the smell of stale liquor thick in the air. She'd clean up the bottles, throw a blanket over her mother, and sit silently at the kitchen table, staring at the wall, wondering how things had gotten so bad.

Her father was even worse in his own way. His silence wasn't the absence of care, but a deliberate act of punishment. He believed her muteness was a failure on her part, a weakness she refused to overcome. He spoke to her only when necessary, his words clipped and devoid of warmth. There were no kind smiles, no reassurances. Only orders-do this, don't do that. To him, she was a defective part of his life, and his resentment was impossible to hide.

Then came the worst of it-the night that changed everything.

It was late, past midnight, and Elena was in her room, reading by the soft glow of a bedside lamp. Her mother had been out all evening, likely at the bar, and her father had locked himself in his office, as he often did when he wanted to avoid the reality of their broken family. The house was eerily quiet, save for the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Suddenly, the front door slammed open, the sound echoing through the walls. Elena tensed, her pulse quickening. She heard her mother's familiar stumble, the telltale clink of empty bottles in her bag. But there was something different about her steps that night-something more frantic, more erratic.

She rushed down the stairs to find her mother sobbing uncontrollably, her hair disheveled, her clothes soaked from the rain outside. She was holding something in her hand-a piece of paper, crumpled and stained with tears.

Elena stood frozen in the doorway, unsure of what to do. She had seen her mother drunk before, but never like this. Her mother's eyes were wild, red and swollen, as if the weight of the world had finally broken her.

Her father stormed into the living room, his face dark with fury. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he shouted, grabbing her mother by the arm. She stumbled, nearly falling, but he didn't seem to care.

Elena's mother waved the paper in his face, her voice slurred and broken. "He's gone! He's dead, and you didn't even tell me!"

Her father's expression hardened. "What are you talking about?"

"David!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "He's gone, and I didn't even know!"

David. Elena's older brother. He had left years ago, estranged from the family for reasons she was never told. He had been her only source of comfort in those early years, the only one who ever tried to understand her. But he had left when she was just eight, tired of the constant fighting and the toxic atmosphere of their home.

Elena held onto the faint hope that one day he would come back, that he would take her away from all of this. But now, that hope was gone.

Sometimes you can't let go of what's making you sad. Because that was the only thing that made you happy.

Her mother crumpled to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Her father stood over her, his fists clenched, his face twisted with anger and grief.

Elena's legs buckled beneath her, and she sank to the floor in the hallway. The room spun around her, the walls closing in. David was gone. The one person who might have saved her was gone. She wanted to scream, to cry out in agony, but no sound would come.

After that night, the house fell into a deeper silence than ever before. Her mother rarely left her room, her days spent in a fog of grief and alcohol. Her father became even more distant, if that was possible, burying himself in his work and leaving Elena to fend for herself.

And so, Elena did what she always did-she endured. She moved through the halls of her home like a ghost, unseen and unheard. She kept her head down at school, avoided the cruel stares and whispered insults, and tried not to think about the empty chair at the dinner table that would never be filled again.

But no matter how hard she tried to push it all away, the pain was always there, lurking just beneath the surface. The grief, the loneliness, the crushing weight of being abandoned by the people who were supposed to love her. It was all too much.

One day, sitting alone in her room, Elena picked up her notebook and wrote a single sentence:

I don't know how much longer I can do this.

The silence in her life was no longer just physical-it was emotional, spiritual. She was trapped in a world that refused to hear her, and the more she tried to reach out, the more the world pulled away.

For Elena, the tragedies of her life weren't just moments of pain-they were a constant, unrelenting presence. They had shaped her, broken her, and yet somehow, she had survived.

But as she stared at the words on the page, she wondered how much longer she could keep pretending she was okay.

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