Chapter 2: The Girl Who Learned to Stay Silent

Silence was not only my shield but also my prison. It grew like a vine in my throat, choking me every time I tried to speak. I knew my words were not welcome, that every sound escaping my lips could turn into a clenched fist, a look of disdain, a punishment I couldn't afford to receive.

I learned to read the shifts in the air before danger arrived. I learned to hold my breath when the atmosphere grew heavy, to disappear within my own body when the storm loomed. I learned to stay silent.

My father was a man of few words but many gestures. His hands spoke with the fury of someone who had never known tenderness, with the violence of someone who mistook fear for respect. My mother, on the other hand, had learned to become the shadow of a man who devoured everything in his path—silent, absent, broken.

I watched her and understood that one day, I would become her if I didn't escape.

At school, I tried to play the role of someone else. I smiled when necessary, nodded when spoken to, pretended the marks on my skin were accidents, that the sadness in my eyes was just exhaustion. But the truth always found ways to betray me—in trembling hands, in shaky breaths, in the way I flinched when someone raised their voice.

There were moments when I believed silence would protect me forever, that if I learned to disappear enough, I could survive unnoticed. But there were nights when I woke up with my chest burning, with the desperate urge to scream until my voice gave out. To scream at the world that I existed, that I felt, that I was not just a specter condemned to the shadow of a home that never wanted me.

But I never did. Because in my house, silence was the only way to stay alive.