My name is Marissa Quinn, and I’m 18 years old. People think silence in a house means peace, but they’re wrong. There’s a kind of silence that isn’t calm at all. It’s hollow. It echoes in the walls and in your chest until you feel like you could scream and nobody would even turn their head.
That’s the silence I grew up in.
I was the middle child, which in my family might as well have been code for optional. My older sister, Lena, was the golden one—varsity cheerleader, straight teeth, hair always shining in the spotlight my parents held up for her. My younger sister, Aaron, was the baby, the one who could spill milk on the carpet and still get a kiss on the forehead because she was “just little.”
And then there was me. The girl who had to figure things out alone. The one nobody noticed had stopped asking for help.
When I was twelve, I thought maybe good grades would earn me attention, so I got straight A’s. Nothing. When I kept my room spotless, helped fold laundry without being asked, cooked dinner when Mom came home late, I thought maybe then I’d hear a “Thanks, Marissa,” or even a small “We’re proud of you.”
It never came.
But Lena got flowers for making varsity. Aaron got a brand-new Xbox for bringing home a report card with nothing higher than a C.
And me?
I got silence. Always silence.
Birthdays came and went. Some years there was a card. Some years, not even that. When I turned sixteen, they said it slipped their minds because things were hectic. That night, I sat on the edge of my bed staring at my phone, waiting for a single message.
It never came.
It wasn’t loud neglect—no screaming, no slamming doors—just a steady drip of indifference that felt heavier than yelling ever could. I cooked my own meals, washed my own clothes, took the bus to school. At some point, I realized I could probably disappear for days and they wouldn’t notice.
That thought didn’t even make me sad anymore.
It made me curious.
So I decided to test it.
When I turned eighteen, I didn’t say a word. No party, no cake request, no reminder. I just waited. At breakfast, nothing. At dinner, still nothing. Not even a passing happy birthday.
They didn’t remember at all.
That night, I zipped a bag closed. Inside was every dollar I’d saved from working part-time at the bookstore down the street. Not much—barely enough for a few weeks of rent—but it was enough for an exit.
I didn’t slam the door. I didn’t even leave a note.
I just walked out.
And you know what? No one called that night. Not the next day. Not for weeks.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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