She tells you she craves peace — that the quiet is what keeps her steady. No voices, no music, no disruptions. Just stillness. But the walls in her home know better. They’ve heard the midnight laughter, the low murmurs, the breathless pauses between words. They’ve felt the vibrations of a bed frame shifting slightly in the dark, the almost imperceptible thud of a foot meeting the floor in a moment too hurried to be careful.
Silence, she says, is her sanctuary. Yet the faint scuff marks near the headboard suggest a rhythm that has nothing to do with sleep. The air still holds an echo of something softer than words — the kind of sound made when someone’s mouth is too close to someone else’s ear. She doesn’t hear it now, or pretends not to, but the walls remember. They always do.
And if you stayed long enough, you might hear it too — the ghost of a sigh, the shift of weight, the way her breathing once quickened in that space. She will insist the quiet comforts her. But the truth is, the quiet is only a pause, a space waiting to be filled again. Her walls aren’t witnesses to solitude. They are keepers of secrets — and every secret has its sound.