An Unseen Moment from Her Past
The house was never quiet.
Even at night.
The television murmured from the sitting room. Someone was whispering in the bedroom. A tap dripped somewhere down the hall. Floorboards creaked whenever someone moved.
She heard all of it.
She always did.
“Are you listening?”
She looked up.
Her sister was standing in the doorway, arms folded.
“Yes.”
“You didn't answer me.”
“I was thinking.”
Her sister sighed. “You always do that.”
Do what?
She almost asked.
Instead, she looked down at her hands.
There were too many words in her head, all arriving at once and none of them making it to her mouth.
Her sister stepped farther into the room.
“Mum asked if you’re coming downstairs.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
She frowned.
She hadn’t heard her.
Or maybe she’d heard the words but hadn’t understood them quickly enough.
It happened sometimes.
More often than she wanted to admit.
“Can you tell her I’ll be there in a minute?”
“Why can’t you just say that yourself?”
The question wasn’t cruel. That almost made it worse. She swallowed. Because sometimes a minute wasn’t really a minute.
Sometimes she needed the room to stop moving.
Sometimes she needed everyone to stop talking.
Sometimes she needed to understand what she was feeling before she could explain it to someone else.
But she didn’t know how to say any of that.
So she shrugged.
Her sister stared at her.
“There. That.”
“What?”
“That thing you do.”
She said nothing.
“Never mind.”
The door closed.. She sat alone. Except she wasn’t alone. The television was still on. Someone laughed in the next room. A cupboard slammed downstairs. Footsteps crossed the hallway. The house carried on as if everything was normal.
She pressed her palms against her ears. For a moment, she imagined what it would be like to live somewhere nobody mistook silence for anger.
Somewhere nobody called her difficult when she couldn’t find the right words. Somewhere she didn’t have to explain why the smallest things could become too much. She lowered her hands.
Downstairs, her mother called her name. She took a breath. Then another. And stood. Because that was what she had learned to do. Keep going.
Even when nobody understood why it was so hard.
