PROLOGUE
They think I’m quiet.
But quiet isn’t calm.
Quiet is the sound before something breaks.
For 23 years, I lived in a house where love was loud only when it hurt. Where silence wasn’t peace – it was pressure. A warning. The pause before the storm. I learned early: don’t speak. Don’t look. Don’t breathe too loud. Don’t exist more than necessary.
I remember the night I stopped believing he’d ever change.
He was screaming again. At my mother this time, though sometimes it was us. I grabbed my brother and sister and locked us in the bedroom. I shoved the dresser against the door like I’d done it before – like instinct. My brother was crying, my sister was shaking, and I whispered, “It’s okay. It’s just thunder.”
But it wasn’t. It was him.
And I sat there, back against the door, holding it shut with my body like a human lock. The whole house was shaking, but I didn’t move. I was nine years old and already building walls with my spine.
That night didn’t end with sirens. It ended like all the others: silence, shattered glass, and a mother who said, “It’s fine. Go to bed.”
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But something in me never did go to sleep after that.
I’ve been awake ever since.
I am not quiet because I’m scared. I am quiet because I’m gathering. Every memory. Every bruise that wasn’t mine but felt like it was. Every scream I swallowed so my siblings wouldn’t have to hear it.
And now? I’m not asking. I’m not hiding.
I’m not holding the door shut anymore.
I’m opening it.
Let him hear my voice now – the one he tried to break, the one he ignored. Let the world hear it too.
I was never just quiet.
I was a bomb with a slow countdown.
And now… I’m done waiting.
