Silence is the Loudest Kind of Pain

Chapter I:

I can still remember the day we stopped saying we loved each other.

When our vows were transformed from acts of love to mere words written on a document. When Blaine didn't… couldn't look at me the same. He had a glazed expression in his eyes. He felt cold… he was cold. The same fiery hearth that had once greeted me was unwelcoming and distant, his lips curled into a frown, and his hands clenched into uneasy fists. The spark that we once had was missing. Gone. If I had any clue where it had gone, Hell, I'd love to have it back. But the fact remained, we were broken.

And me, I loved him, or I so desperately wished to. But our connection had suddenly faded… like lightning. It struck and all so suddenly the same light that had once so passionately penetrated the crisp air was gone. I couldn't look him in the eye without my heart faltering, my breath wavering, my hands shaking miserably under his forbidding gaze.

Of course, around Tracy and Hepburn, our children, we'd keep it hidden. It'd been months since everything changed. One day we just couldn't seem to show any affection, any genial, intimate gesture of love towards one another. That warm feeling that other couples seemed to procure seemingly from thin air was gone. Yet we both seemed to refuse to speak about the subject, as if it wasn't negotiable, as if we didn't deserve each other's love. It was like a mutual understanding that what we had would never come back, and the most frustrating, defeating part was that I didn't even know why. Blaine was different, and I, who'd known him for years, didn't even know him well enough to understand what ran through his mind. The thoughts that kept him up at night, creating a void in our once happy relationship. Yet somehow, I still refused to believe that this was the end. How, after seven years of marriage, could the tenderness we had once affectionately held together leave our hearts? Had the years really caused us to be bitter and indifferent to the special things in life? That couldn't possibly be true… Blaine's face still lit up once in awhile, and I could see an overjoyed youthful light in his eyes when he watched Tracy's first recital. Her small arms would gracefully move about her, as she took elegant steps reminding me of Rachel. She really was the embodiment of Rachel Berry too. Her attitude could stop a determined adult flat in their tracks. Blaine and I loved her. She and Hepburn were our pride and joy. Typical parenting really, but it's a magical thing to raise a child. You get the privilege to watch them grow from just a small naive handful to a beautiful independent grown-up.

Before I knew it, hot suffocating tears streamed down my face, and my hands shook violently against my waist. I clasped them together and closed my eyes tightly, letting my face scrunch into a warped version of myself. The sheets in my bed were full of comforting warmth, yet I felt as numb as ice. Deep pervasive discomfort racked my body, even though I should have been dreaming as softly as an adolescent child. Nothing worked in my life anymore. How did it even get this bad? I felt I had all the control in the world, yet at that moment I had lost my grasp of not only myself, but Blaine as well.

"Blaine…"

I whispered his name as if it were forbidden to my lips. Forbidden to my heart. I had neglected to utter his name in the privacy of even my own company for months. Saying it hurt… so… good. I gulped back tears and pulled the safety and sanctity of my bedsheets away. Pale white skin flashed my eyes, my legs lumbering to the ground. I felt like I would collapse. I did collapse, right there to the hardwood floor. My fists hit the ground and I winced as sharp pain shot through my wrists. Again, I felt numb. As if any amount of physical pain could equate to my daily torment- my continual existence on this Earth. Yet some part of me did feel it, and relished the experience. For once feeling anything was so refreshing, so tranquil. It was the only solace offered to me in my bitter and agonizing life. In fact, I welcomed it.

Getting up took effort, but once my legs received the message, they started to work stiffly, as if they had been asleep for twenty loathsome years. I felt miserable and ashamed of myself. While I should've been independent I was still nothing without Blaine. I couldn't even walk, nor function as a normal human being should, and this disturbed me to my very core.

One hundred and fifty pounds. I'd lost weight. Thirteen pounds to be exact. Appetite was an unfamiliar feeling to me as of late. I knew that I was supposed to eat, and I really, honestly, wished to eat, but I felt no hunger for food. The only palatable source of nourishment I'd found was chewing on my chapped and bleeding lips. Which I had been regularly gnawing on with a ferocity that if transferred to food, would have me gaining pounds by the minute. My toes shifted nervously on the cold surface of the metallic scale beneath me. I crossed my arms against my bare chest and shivered, stepping slowly off of the instrument.

Why was I deemed deserving of this brutally lonely fate. Half of me wanted to believe that there was some cruel other-worldly creature devising this unhappy situation for me, but common sense told me I was wrong. Just telling myself that because I couldn't face what was really, truly going on. The fact that I wasn't good enough for Blaine. We'd had our ups and downs as teenagers, but one way or another, I'd always believed we'd end up right back in each other's arms. Only now did I finally stop believing that. It was too good to be true. Movies lie when they portray marriage as some fairy-tale like situation. Only children believed in that.

It was time to grow up.

I suddenly realized that I'd been staring at myself in the mirror for over half an hour. Blaine would be home with the children now at any moment, and I deemed it more than necessary to mentally prepare myself for their arrival. I ripped sheets of the coarse toilet paper from its dispenser and blotted my eyes dry. Testing my speaking voice I croaked out a single prepared line…

"Welcome home, my lovely family!"

The words that ringed in my ears were foreign. Illegal aliens that had no right to trespass in my ears. At least that's what I told myself. But the illusion of a family felt so marvelous and euphoric. As delicate as our little charade was, it still felt real when I let the lies sink into my system… become intermittent with my sense of what was real and what wasn't. Honestly though, I couldn't tell mere apparition from veracity anymore. I was damaged, and in denial. What fabrications my mind could've created to adapt to my circumstances were really endless.

The sound of the door creaking open, and children bellowing with joy jolted me awake from my rampant thoughts. I ran towards the hall and greeted Hepburn and Tracy with a wide smile. Blaine's eyes averted mine as he moved forward forcibly and pressed his cold, dead lips against mine. As quickly as I could, I pulled away, the devastating kiss teasing every inch of my body.

"I missed you guys soooo, soooooo much!" I said loudly. My voice sounded surprisingly confident and smooth. I suppose that's what my acting career had amounted to, putting on a grand show for my own children. I shuddered as I planted a warm kiss on each of their heads. I still felt as affectionately as ever toward them. The feelings I'd grown for them could never leave my side. They were mine the first day I saw them at the children's home we'd visited. They giggled and bounded away as I turned to Blaine, uneasy and nervous. His eyes focused on the floor, and he wouldn't return my gaze with the same bright eyes that always used to greet me.

How long could this go on?

I kept my eyes trained on the ground and walked past him aimlessly. The door called me, its cedar frame hugging the bright white walls. Light filtered in through the shades which covered each cornering window around the door. I felt the light, even needed it. The door clicked open as I turned the knob, and I took a wobbly first step onto our cement steps. Light burned into my skin, seared into my bones, threatening to yield its truths to me. I straightened my back and walked to the mailbox, feet slowly getting used to the sensation of walking again.

The mailbox was nearly empty. Insurance, and perhaps someone's medical bills sent to the wrong address. For a moment, my eyes lit up in horror at that particular envelope, assuming one of the kids had had a terrible fall, or some accident that tended to worry every parent. But shortly after, my rational thinking kicked in. The cold metal of the trashcan felt good as I tossed away the medical bill, not bothering to examine the name of the individual it belonged to. I didn't want to know anyways, it wasn't my business if either one of my neighbors were sick. It hurt my insides to think about how callous I'd become, but I ignored it and walked back inside the empty house.

That empty house I'd become so accustomed to. Blaine stood upright, in the same place I'd left him, his shoulders slumped downwards. His eyes looked at me; they were pleading, desperate. He wanted to disclose to me every possible secret he'd held, every minor fragment he could tell me. Every second he'd ever left me alone, he wanted to be with me, and I could see that. In fact, I could feel it. I put my hand out, shakily, placing it on one of his broad shoulders. He flinched, as if he hadn't even noticed my presence yet. With one look, he shot me down, making what little courage I'd had disappear into thin air. I pulled my hand away, fingers trembling. I'd put my heart out on the line. Displayed my naked, vulnerable self to him, and still, nothing had changed.

Silence suffocated me, threatening to consume me, and I ran to our bathroom, tears filling my eyelids. The noise was so loud… and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop the silence between us.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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Thanks for reading if you made it all the way to the end. It means so much to me even if one person does.

-SM