Silence

Silence is a normality, I suppose, during long car rides with my mom. Usually, I find solace in silence. It’s normal, expected, and comfortable. However, this silence is deafening. It’s mixed with this sorrowful tension that floats throughout the car.

I don’t want to look at her, sitting over in the driver’s seat. I can’t and I won’t. I don’t even have to. I know what I’ll see. My mom is a silent crier. She’ll never make a sound, but you can always tell when she was. Her eyelids become a ruby red, contrasting the deep green of her eyes. She doesn’t look at me, either, or even say a single word. She just sits there, driving in the glow of morning light. I know she is upset and frustrated with me. I can sense it. I hate it, that emotion of deep guilt I get when she looks at me. I know she’s worried about me. I’m worried too.

Not about me, but about what happens next. I didn’t anticipate this outcome. Why isn’t she saying anything? Say something, please! I plead in my head. Hoping she’ll say anything. Even if it is to yell at me. But she continues to drive in silence. Crying silently. Together, we are drowning in this deep, sorrowful silence between us that grows ever more suffocating.

I fidget with the bandages woven around my wrists. Tight and unyielding. My mind is filled with the familiar, persistent dread. The effects of the painkillers have been waning but have not fully resolved. They were never enough anyway. Thoughts continue to race in my mind. Everything is the same. Nothing has changed. Yet, everything has. The guilt and the shame press deep into my soul. I hate it. All of it. The way my mind is cursed to be. The way it feels like I can’t ever breathe properly. The way they look at me because I can’t get out of bed. I hate the way she looks at me, scared and never understanding.

She doesn’t understand me, the way I am, how it all affects me. I know she doesn’t understand why I had to do it; why I had to stop these feelings, these thoughts. Stop the pain. Stop the fog from creeping in any further. Asking God, “Why me?!” Those things that were supposed to kill the pain almost killed me. How do I tell her? Tell her I needed to die to breathe again. To stop feeling nauseously hopeless. To stop suffocating and feeling as though my chest was caving in, and the world was crashing down. She doesn’t try to either. How could she understand?

She doesn’t talk to me the entire car ride home from the hospital. She only cries in silence. We only cry in silence. Separately. In deafening silence. We won’t speak of this “incident” again. Instead, we’ll try to use the silence to block it all out. However, its cause will continue to exist, fester, and grow; 

Author’s Note

I wrote “Silence” for the 2026 Georgia Governors Honors Program Communicative Arts application during my Junior year in high school. This short story got me to the semifinal interview round!

I love when storytelling highlights the struggles and effects of mental illness, especially when paired with coming-of-age themes. The emotional vulnerability allows people who may be going through anything similar to feel heard. In these stories, the emotions are so real and raw. “Silence” is meant to portray those themes by putting the audience into the mind of a teen who has been struggling with mental illnesses. All the while, highlighting the relationship between her and her mother. Its purpose was to show the disconnect in their relationship due to the lack of communication and how mental health not only affects the one afflicted, but those around them. This is implied through the mother ignoring the problem, because she doesn’t understand what is happening to her daughter and doesn’t know how to help. Furthermore, it’s meant to portray that the daughter needs help but doesn’t know how to communicate that. Thus, it causes the tension within the silence.

The desired effect was for the audience to not only read but also feel the daughter’s desperation and disquieted behavior within her thoughts. I wanted the audience to feel uncomfortable, as this moment in their lives is anything but. The inspiration came from the novel Perks of Being a Wallflower, the film Lady Bird, and the movie Beautiful Boy. Lady Bird inspired the friction and disconnection between the mother and daughter characters. Perks of Being a Wallflower influenced the mental health struggle the daughter has, as well as her first-person narration. Beautiful Boy influenced the relationship between the characters, some of their characteristics, and even the mother being the opposite of the father.

My idea began when I realized stories can still carry so much emotion and storytelling, even if they are a single scene. From this sprung the idea of the car setting, which gives the audience a glimpse into the relationship between the mother and daughter. I wrote various drafts after each substantial change to the story. Starting with the original idea, then making changes in the tone, reorganizing the structure, making grammatical changes, and finally making edits from feedback. Often, I had to accommodate the word limit and had to remove sentences I thought were good but ended up not being necessary.

Another influence was the symbolism of the semicolon. For a writer, “;” means to continue a thought when it could’ve ended. However, it also symbolizes one’s choice to continue their life after struggling with mental illness. Its placement at the end of the story implies that their story will continue past this silent car ride. I believe stories like these bring topics that aren’t widely accepted to talk about in society to the forefront. It causes others to learn and become more empathetic. These stories are so powerful as they bring awareness and give a voice to those whose voices haven’t been heard. These stories make those struggling feel seen and heard, which may seem small, but is still immensely important to those who are.