Chapter 24: When Someone Falls Silent So The Other Will Hurt

There is no couple that never wounds.

But there is one wound that does not merely wound, it multiplies.

Not the minute of silence needed to breathe.

Not the natural wish for a little distance.

But the silence that knows the pain it causes.

The silence that raises a wall, not to calm down, but to make the other feel guilty, lost, unworthy, foreign.

That silence is a weapon.

And like any weapon, it is rarely lifted out of evil. More often it is lifted out of fear.

Still, it can fire.

A scene.

An ordinary evening.

No great fight.

Only a small remark among friends.

He teases her once too much, and she is hurt.

On the way home she is angry.

He tries to speak.

She says coldly, without shouting:

"I do not want to talk to you now."

And she means it.

At first he respects it.

He waits for her to settle.

But instead of time softening her, it hardens her.

Inside, she begins building stories of her own.

The next morning she walks past him in the house as if past a piece of furniture.

No look.

No word.

No shared air.

He tries:

"Can we talk?"

Silence.

Not the smallest answer.

She leaves the room.

Inside him something drops:

I am invisible.

I do not exist for her.

He grows angry.

And when the heart is struck by sudden alarm, it reaches for what it knows best.

He stops asking.

Stops trying.

And inside he makes himself a promise:

If she punishes me, I will turn cold.

I will go.

And the relationship receives two separate ends, distant and lonely, each shut inside a private cell.

Written by Enoch Segal. Published by The Celestial Guide.