The Silent Scream

 The Silent Scream

She had always been the girl who filled the silence with her words. Whether it was a random thought that popped into her head or the latest drama at school, her father was her sounding board. He was the one who would listen, patiently, to everything—no matter how small or how trivial.

But there was one thing she never spoke to him about: boys.

She had always known her father would be protective. He would worry, maybe even get angry. So, she kept that part of her life to herself. She had never mentioned the butterflies in her stomach when she first met him, or the sweet feeling of holding his hand, or the late-night talks that made her heart race. She kept it hidden, tucked away like a secret she wasn’t ready to share.

And then, the inevitable happened.

She fell for him.

At first, it was small moments that made her heart flutter, like the way he smiled when he saw her or the way he looked at her like she was the only person in the room. She let herself get swept away in it, in the idea that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t invisible. That maybe she could be someone important to him.

But as quickly as he had entered her life, he was gone. And in the wake of his departure, she was left broken. The pieces of her heart scattered in a million directions, each one carrying the weight of words she couldn’t bring herself to say.

She wanted to talk to her father. She needed to tell him everything—how she had given her trust to someone who didn’t care, how the pain of it all felt like a wound that would never heal. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t okay, that she didn’t know how to make sense of the emptiness inside her. She wanted to hear his voice, his reassurance, and feel the safety of his arms around her.

But she couldn’t. Not now.

Because now, she lay in a hospital bed, her body weak, and her mind too scattered to form a coherent thought. The pain in her chest wasn’t just from her body—it was the ache of words that she couldn’t speak, the unshed tears that burned in her eyes, the confusion of emotions that clung to her like a heavy fog.

She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t speak the one truth that seemed to define her existence now. That the girl who had once been so full of life, so full of words, was now hollow—empty, yet filled with a storm of emotions that she couldn’t express.

Her father was sitting by her side, his hand gently holding hers, but she couldn’t feel him. Not in the way she wanted to. His presence, his love, was a reminder of everything she had been and everything she was losing. He had always been the one person she could count on, the one who had never let her down. But now, the silence between them was too loud, too heavy.

He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. The girl who had once confided everything in him was now the girl who couldn’t even tell him she was broken. She couldn’t tell him how the weight of unspoken words was eating her alive.

And so, she lay there, drowning in her silence, while her father—who had always been her rock—sat beside her, unaware of the storm raging inside her.

She wanted to scream. To shout at the injustice of it all. To tell him how her heart had been torn apart and how she was struggling to pick up the pieces. But the words wouldn’t come. She was hollow, yet filled with so many emotions that it felt like she would explode from the inside.

In the end, the girl who had never been afraid to speak, to express herself, had become the girl who could no longer find her voice.