WHEN SILENCE SCREAMS

A  NOVEL

They were at it again.

The screams split the night like jagged lightning, cracking through the thin walls and slicing into Liv’s chest. She froze in her bed, every breath catching tight in her throat. The small room seemed to shrink around her, every shadow pulsing with dread. She felt her body go rigid, a live wire trembling with fear.

Slowly, silently, she slid off the mattress and dropped to the floor, her knees pressing tight to her chest. The wooden boards beneath her were cold, biting into her skin, but the heat of panic was all she could feel. She curled into herself, her breath quick and shallow as the sounds in the living room roared louder—flesh meeting flesh, the sickening slap echoing through the house. Her mother’s voice cut through the darkness, ragged and raw—a chorus of pleading and pain.

Liv’s tears spilled hot and fast, slipping down her cheeks as she pressed her lips together to keep from sobbing. She didn’t flinch anymore. Not like she used to. Now, she waited. She counted the seconds between each slap, each guttural roar, her small fingers digging into her knees like she could anchor herself in the chaos.

Then she moved.

She crawled across the splintered floor, each scrape of her palms another shiver down her spine. She pushed open the door just enough to slip through, the sickly yellow glow of the hallway washing over her like a warning. She tiptoed down the hall, her breath a whisper in the thick air. She reached the room where her little brother, Oscar, lay curled on the floor, his small body shaking with quiet sobs.

Liv’s own tears quickened as she knelt beside him, gathering his tiny frame into her arms. She pressed her lips to his forehead, trying to hush the world around them, her voice a soft hum in the darkness.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you.”

She held him tighter, her small body turning into a shield. Even though she was only five, she felt the weight of something bigger than herself—a promise she was born to keep. In that moment, the fear melted away, replaced by a spark of fierce determination. She was shaking, but she was steady. She would be his protector. She would be the calm in the chaos. Even if the screams never stopped, she would be his safety.

Her baby sister, Olympia, wasn’t even here yet. Not in this chapter. Not in this chaos.

By the age of six, Liv had already lived a thousand lives. From Oklahoma to Panama, LA to Moreno Valley, Sausalito to—“Hey, hello, Germany,” she whispered the day she saw snow for the first time, white feathers drifting from the sky. The trains hummed through that small town, and at Christmas, they left shoes outside the door instead of stockings. Something about that quiet, foreign place filled her with a strange ache. Olympia would be joining them soon. That promise kept her going.

At night, Liv and Oscar would press their faces to the cold windowpane, fogging the glass with their breath as they whispered about the Moon Man—a story they made up to explain the shadows that crept along the walls. They told themselves he was watching them, waiting to take them away. But Liv knew the real monsters weren’t in the moonlight. They were in the living room.

Each morning, she woke with her heart pounding, never knowing what she’d see—Mama’s face swollen and bruised, her eye purple and puffy like a twisted flower. Every time Liv looked at her mother’s face, she felt something hot and bitter—part rage, part shame, tangled in a knot she couldn’t name. The man who did it—Mama’s husband—was supposed to be “dad.” But Liv would never say that word. She only called him the sperm donor, as if the name alone could keep him from taking up space in her head.

There was a time when laughter lived in that house. Friends would come over, giggling as they played dress-up and danced across the living room floor. Sleepovers meant popcorn, movies, and secrets whispered long into the night. Liv used to love that feeling of safety—like the house could hold them together for one night, like magic.

But the rules changed.

No more sleepovers. No more friends. Too much danger in the darkness when the grown-ups weren’t watching. Or worse—when they were.

It started the night Melissa came to spend the night. They were only six, still daring each other to sneak into the kitchen for cookies, still giggling about the Moon Man. Liv remembered how Melissa’s hair glowed in the lamplight, how she laughed so easily.

Then the sperm donor came in. His breath smelled like dry mouth, his eyes dark and wild. Liv froze in the doorway as he ordered Oscar, too small to understand, to pull down his pants. She watched, numb, as he forced Oscar to press himself against Melissa’s tiny body. She remembered the way Melissa’s tears fell, the bruises that bloomed on her inner thighs like dark, angry flowers.

After that, Melissa’s mama never let her come back. Liv didn’t blame her. The house wasn’t a place for little girls and laughter. It wasn’t safe.

Liv and Oscar stopped talking about the Moon Man after that. They stopped talking about anything that didn’t help them survive. They learned to move quietly, to make themselves small. The real terror didn’t live in stories—it lived in their house. Liv knew it was her job to keep Oscar safe, even if it meant turning her heart to stone. Even if it meant becoming the protector she never had.

But even in the darkness, there were slivers of light.

Mama could bake. One time, she made the prettiest strawberry cake Liv had ever seen—soft pink frosting, fluffy layers that looked like magic on a plate. Oscar stuck his little fingers in it when no one was looking. Just a taste.

When the sperm donor came home and saw the fingerprints… it was over. Liv watched through the cracked door as he made Mama bake five more cakes. Forced Oscar to eat every last bite. The little boy sobbed, frosting smeared on his cheeks, his small belly heaving. That was the lesson—a taste that never left their mouths, a night that never left their bones.

But even in that nightmare, there was a place of sanctuary. The attic, warm and bright with light, became Liv’s refuge.

High heels clicked on the wooden floor as fierce women gathered to model. Diamonds in the Ruff, Mama’s small modeling agency, turned the attic into a runway. Mama strutted like she owned the world—because in that space, she did. Every purse matched every shoe, every belt sparkled like stars. Liv sat on the steps, wide-eyed and silent, drinking it all in. In that attic, her mama was powerful again. In that attic, Liv could breathe.

But the cycle always came back around.

Time passed, but nothing changed. Each day was a new nightmare, each night thick with tension that threatened to split the walls apart. Laughter choked in their throats before it could bloom. Fear seeped into their bones, winding around them like smoke.

Mama became pregnant again. When she told Liv, her heart had soared. A girl, she said. Liv imagined them playing dress-up together, giggling in the attic, safe and bright in the soft glow of that secret place. She pictured them spinning in Mama’s clothes, laughing like they used to.

But that hope turned to fear. She thought of the sperm donor, of what he’d done to Oscar. What he might do to a little girl. The thought of it sat heavy in her chest, a stone she couldn’t swallow.

The day Olympia was born, though, was bright. They were all so happy to have her—this tiny bundle of new life and soft possibility. Oscar beamed with pride when he held her small hand, Liv’s heart swelling with a fierce, protective love. Even the sperm donor’s voice softened in those first few days, his hands less cruel. For a moment, it felt like maybe, just maybe, they could be a family.

But it didn’t last.

Mama’s light flickered, worn down by endless nights and quiet exhaustion. The laughter faded into silence, the house heavy with the ache of loneliness. The sperm donor disappeared more often, leaving behind only the bitter taste of his absence. All that hope Liv had carried slipped away, as if it had never been there at all.

One day, Mama’s brother flew in. Liv thought he came to save them, to finally take them to safety. But it was just a handoff. Mama and baby Olympia left. Liv pressed her palms to the cold window, watching the car grow smaller down the street. Her breath fogged the glass, her heart cracking open.

Something inside her split that day. Abandonment didn’t just ache in her chest—it tore at everything she believed was possible: safety, love, family. In the space that was left, she found only herself.

She didn’t know then that she would carry that lesson into every relationship that followed. That trust would feel like a mountain she could never climb. That love would always feel like a lie. Because in the end, she knew—anyone could leave. Anyone could walk away.

One night, Liv sat on the edge of the bed while the sperm donor had sex with a white woman dressed in Mom’s lingerie. She didn’t turn away. She didn’t even know if she could. The woman told Liv to take a bath with her afterward. “You’re old enough to bathe yourself,” Liv thought to herself. But the woman insisted and coerced her into the bath, removing each piece of her clothes. When she told Liv to scrub her breast, Liv cried.

It didn’t stop there.

And still, no one helped. No one came.

But then, just as Liv began to lose the last of her hope, Mama came back. This time, she didn’t come for a visit. She came for them.

She snuck into the house one morning while the sperm donor was at work, her breath coming in short, shaky gasps as she gathered what she could—enough to keep them warm, enough to keep them alive. She grabbed Oscar’s hand and Liv’s hand, dragging them out the door, her grip tight and trembling. Liv felt the panic in her mother’s fingers, but she also felt something else: relief. Like maybe, finally, they were being rescued.

As they sped down the road, Liv pressed her forehead to the cold glass, —she had left behind so many addresses before, but this was the first time she was leaving the man who had painted nightmares on every wall she ever called home. It was shrinking in the rearview mirror, and with it, everything she’d learned to survive. A part of her grieved for it—because even a house of nightmares was still home. She had learned to live in the cracks of that place, to find her own tiny spaces of light.

They flew to Los Angeles, moving in with Mama’s best friend, Margret. It wasn’t home, but it was the safest place they’d had in a long time. They were whole again—Liv, Oscar, Olympia, and Mama.

But safety was always temporary.

Mama said they needed a place of their own. So she left them with Teddy Bear, their great-grandmother. “Just for a little while,” she said. But that little while stretched into weeks, and Teddy Bear’s house was no sanctuary.

Teddy Bear’s house was silent as a church before mass—cold, still, and full of rules that wrapped around your throat like a noose. You didn’t talk back. You didn’t question. You didn’t breathe too loud.

Liv learned to move through that house like a ghost, to skip the steps that squeaked and keep her breath quiet. She watched as Teddy Bear’s heavy hand pressed down on Pooh’s scalp with the hot comb, burning her forehead, her neck. “I used to own my own shop,” Teddy Bear said, her pride as sharp as the steam that rose from the comb. Liv watched her sister’s tears slide down her cheeks and felt a cold fury settle in her chest.

But even there, there were small, sweet escapes. They came with the Belizean side of the family—music and laughter, the smell of curry thick in the air. In that small apartment on the east side of LA, Liv felt something she’d almost forgotten: belonging.

Auntie Mary was freedom. She was red lipstick and loud laughter, hips that moved like water. “You no Yankee,” she said. “You Belizean. You gon’ learn to wind, gyal.” Liv giggled as she stumbled through the rhythm, feeling her own body come alive.

But belonging was never safe for long.

Mama came back for them again, her promises bright as new pennies. They moved in with her twin sister in the Bay Area. Liv got her own room, a kingdom of her own to protect. She moved through her new school like a shadow—no makeup, no jewelry, no dresses to invite the wrong kind of gaze. She ran track and hooped with the boys, pushing her body until the past fell away in the sound of her feet on the blacktop.

She carried the weight of every nightmare she’d survived in the set of her jaw, in the way her fists curled tight around her backpack straps. She was the oldest. The first girl. The one who had to make it out.

Summer brought freedom—camp, dance, the sweet ache of softball games under Friday night lights. During the day, she played grown-up at Applied Materials, watching her little brother and sister, watching her cousins, her hands always steady.

But calm was always just a pause before the next storm.

One night, Mama and Auntie Twin fought like thunder in the dark, their words too sharp to understand. That night, Mama said they had to leave again. They ended up at Victoria’s, a woman whose kindness was wrapped in silence. Liv claimed the couch, curling up under thin blankets, listening to the scurry of roaches across the floor. Mama said it would only be for a little while.

But that little while turned into something else. One day, Liv came home from school and found their things stacked in the back of Mama’s car. Victoria said it was time to go. Liv felt the old ache in her chest, the familiar sting of leaving again.

They ended up in the shelter. The air smelled like damp concrete and day-old sloppy joes. Liv could never eat them again. Mama looked tired in a way Liv had never seen before—her shoulders hunched, her eyes hollow. Liv watched her mother’s hope slip away, piece by piece, and for the first time, she understood what defeat really looked like.

I guess Mama couldn’t take it anymore. She gave in. And there he was—the monster. The sperm donor. He moved to be closer, slipping back into their lives like he’d never left, all hollow promises and forced warmth. This wasn’t safety. This was survival. A different kind of cage.

They only lasted a week with him. Not long enough to forget, but long enough to remember.

It was Liv’s birthday. She was turning thirteen. They went to the bowling alley—family night, laughter, her day.She was turning thirteen, something to celebrate. But Mama and the sperm donor couldn’t hold it together. Screaming. Shoving. This time, in public. People stared. Liv’s heart pounded as she grabbed Oscar and Olympia’s hands and ran. They crawled under a car in the parking lot, crouching low, holding their breath as grown-ups turned to monsters.

They stayed hidden until the noise faded.

That night, Liv made a silent vow. One she carved into her bones: Never again.

The Lesson

I didn’t know back then how those early lessons would shape me. I didn’t know how every slammed door, every night spent waiting for the screaming to stop, would teach my body how to survive in a world that never felt safe. My nervous system learned to stay ready—always ready. Ready to run, ready to fight, ready to disappear. And that readiness? It never really went away.

Even now, as a grown woman, I feel it. My body remembers. I can be laughing in a room full of people, but part of me is always listening for footsteps I can’t trust. I can be held by someone who says they love me, but part of me is already bracing for the day they’ll leave. Because that’s what abandonment does—it teaches you to question everything you see. It teaches you that safety is a trap. That love can turn in an instant.

When you grow up in trauma, you learn to live in the waiting. You learn that calm can turn to chaos in a breath. That laughter can turn to screams in a heartbeat. So you build your life around survival—around reading the room, around feeling for the cracks before they split open. It becomes the lens you see the world through, the foundation for every choice you make.

For a long time, I thought it was just me. That I was broken, or weak. But I know now: this is how trauma lives on. It weaves itself into the way you breathe, the way you love, the way you dream. It repeats until someone is strong enough to break it.

I’m still learning to be that someone. To tell my nervous system that it’s okay to let go. That I don’t have to be the little girl hiding behind the door anymore. But it’s hard. Because these patterns aren’t just memories—they’re survival strategies. And survival was all I knew.

But I’m learning that there’s another way. That I can build something new, even if my hands are shaking. That the cycle can end with me. And maybe that’s the real lesson of Chapter 1—not that the world is cruel, but that I’m strong enough to rewrite my story. Even if it takes me the rest of my life to do it.