WHAT WE CARRY IN SILENCE
By Zainab Sanni
Email: [email protected]
WHAT WE CARRY IN SILENCE
I. THE SOUND OF BREAKING
The first sound was always the same — a sharp, cracking snap that sliced through the thin evening air like something being broken on purpose. I knew that sound the way people know their own names. It lived in the walls. It lived in me.
Amara didn't scream anymore. She had learned long ago that silence was its own kind of armor, a way to hold on to dignity even when everything else was being taken from her. But silence has a weight too, and I could feel it pressing into my chest as I sat at the edge of my bed, listening to my mother's voice rise and fall in sharp, heated bursts.
"Useless girl—always stubborn—do you want to ruin my life?"
The same lines. The same bitterness. The same ritual.
I was eighteen, but I had been hearing this since I was old enough to form memories. My mother hated my sister — not in the way people exaggerate when they're angry, not with small, passing frustrations. Hers was a raw, cold hatred woven into action: the slaps, the beatings, the refusal to look at my sister with anything but blazing disappointment.
No one ever told me why.
Maybe no one knew.
I had asked once, when I was fourteen and brave for no good reason.
"Why do you always do that to her?" I whispered.
My mother looked at me with a calm so terrifying it chilled my bones.
"You don't understand anything, Zuri. Just keep being a good girl."
And I obeyed.
I learned how to stay quiet, how to tuck myself neatly into corners, how to be invisible enough not to irritate the edges of her rage.
But every time she struck Amara, a part of me felt like it was happening to both of us.
Or maybe only to me.
Tonight, it was worse. The house felt heavy, like the air itself was bracing for impact.
I stood in my doorway, the hallway half-dark, lit only by the flickering bulb my mother refused to fix. Amara staggered out of her room first. Her eyes were shiny with tears she wasn't willing to let fall. Mom followed, breathing fast, her hand still clenched like she wasn't sure she was done.
Amara's gaze flickered toward me — a quick, aching thing — and then she kept walking, making herself small, heading toward the kitchen.
I didn't move.
I never did.
That was my sin. Not hitting her. Not yelling.
My sin was silence.
---
II. THE ONE WHO SAW ME
The next day, I met Eze under the mango tree near the old mechanic workshop — the place he always waited for me like it was a duty he didn't mind performing. The afternoon sun painted his skin gold, and he had that lopsided half-smile that always made my chest feel lighter, like he had peeled back a thin layer of the world just so I could breathe.
"You look tired," he said as I approached. His voice was soft — always soft — as if he knew the weight I carried before I even spoke.
"I'm fine."
A reflex. A lie with a heartbeat.
He didn't push.
He never did. Instead, he shifted a little, making space for me on the concrete block he sat on.
I sat beside him, my hands clasped between my knees. For a moment, the quiet between us felt safe, like a small room with locked doors.
"You heard them again?" he asked eventually.
I didn't know how he always knew.
Maybe I carried it on my skin.
Maybe sorrow has a smell.
"Yeah," I whispered. "Last night was bad."
He looked at me in that intense, searching way that made me feel both exposed and protected. Like he was reading a book I didn't remember opening.
"You shouldn't have to live like that," he said softly.
"I know."
But knowing and leaving were two different things.
Leaving meant becoming the girl who abandoned her sister.
Leaving meant freedom I didn't believe I deserved.
Eze nudged my shoulder with his. "Come on, walk with me."
We walked down the dusty road, our shadows long and thin beneath our feet. He talked about small things — how he argued with his brother, how he tried making pancakes and burned half the kitchen, how the new tailor near the junction sewed his trousers too tight.
I laughed.
A real laugh — one that cracked something open in me.
He always managed to pull that out of me: joy I didn't even know I still had.
At one point, he looked at me again, expression serious.
"Zuri," he said quietly, "if you needed to leave… I mean really leave… you know you wouldn't be alone, right?"
My chest tightened.
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
Because that would mean admitting that I wanted to go.
It would mean admitting that staying was killing me.
---
III. THE BREAKING POINT
It happened three nights later.
A crash.
A scream.
A thud.
I ran to the hallway and saw Amara on the floor, her hand over her cheek, my mother standing over her with a rage so big it barely looked human.
"I said don't talk back to me!"
Amara looked up, her eyes defeated in a way I had never seen.
A way that scared me.
"Mom, stop!" I yelled, stepping forward before I could stop myself.
My mother turned slowly, surprised. She wasn't used to resistance — especially not from me.
"You too?" she said, her voice dangerously calm. "Is that what this house has become?"
Her eyes dared me to answer.
I opened my mouth — nothing came out.
Coward.
Amara pushed herself up and brushed past both of us, walking outside into the humid night air. I followed her, heart pounding like it was trying to escape my chest.
She stood by the gate, breathing hard.
"You're leaving?" I whispered.
"No," she said, though her voice shook. "I can't leave. Not yet."
"Why not?"
She didn't answer.
Or maybe she couldn't.
Then she looked at me — really looked — and her voice cracked.
"But you… Zuri… you can still save yourself."
The words landed like stones in my stomach.
She wasn't angry. She wasn't jealous.
She just sounded tired.
So tired.
"You think I'll leave you?" I asked, a whisper.
"Yes," she said. "And you should."
I felt something inside me split open — something I had been holding together with tiny pieces of fear for years.
I didn't sleep that night.
By morning, the decision had formed itself silently inside me.
I was leaving.
---
IV. PACKING QUIETLY
I didn't pack much.
A pair of jeans, two tops, my old notebook, the small silver chain Amara gave me last birthday. That was all. I didn't want anything from that house that felt like it belonged to my mother — nothing that carried her anger in its fibers.
I moved slowly, almost reverently, as if every fold of fabric was part of a ritual. The house was quiet that morning, too quiet, the kind of silence that feels like a held breath. My mother had already left for church to help with cleaning. Amara was still asleep.
I stood in the doorway and watched her for a moment.
Her breathing was shallow, her back curled slightly like someone who had spent too many years bracing for blows. There was a small bruise forming beneath her eye. I swallowed hard.
Leaving her felt like betrayal.
But staying felt like death.
I tore a page from my notebook and wrote four words that trembled as they left my hand:
I'm sorry. I love you.
I folded the note and slipped it under her pillow.
Then I picked up my small bag and walked out.
No dramatic exit, no slamming doors.
Just footsteps — quiet and final.
---
V. THE WAITING
I texted Eze the moment I stepped outside the compound.
"I need to go. Now."
His reply came instantly.
"Where are you?"
Ten minutes later, he found me sitting on the low cement block beside the barbed-wire fence at the end of our street. My bag sat at my feet like a tiny, shy confession.
"You're really doing it," he said, breathless from running.
"Yeah."
He studied my face for a long moment, like he was memorizing it.
"Are you scared?"
"A little."
He nodded, then held out his hand. "Come."
We walked without speaking. The air carried that dusty, warm smell of mid-morning, and somewhere far behind us a generator hummed like an annoyed giant. Every step made my legs feel both lighter and shakier.
"You don't have to know all the details yet," he said gently. "Just one step at a time."
His voice worked like medicine.
Like a hand steadying me as I crossed a shaky bridge.
We got to the old bus terminal — cracked pavement, peeling yellow paint, the faint smell of diesel. People moved around us: hawkers shouting, drivers arguing, mothers tugging their children along.
"Where will you go?" he asked softly.
"I don't know yet. Maybe Uyo. Maybe Calabar."
He nodded. "Good places to start. Fresh air."
A small smile touched my lips. "Fresh air sounds nice."
He reached into his pocket and handed me folded bills.
I stepped back immediately. "No, Eze—"
"It's not pity," he said quietly. "It's support. Let me do this."
I hesitated, my heart pounding with guilt and gratitude tangled together.
"Please," he added. "Let me help you leave the kind of life no one should have to survive."
So I took the money.
His fingers lingered against mine — warm, firm, grounding.
---
VI. A DIFFERENT KIND OF GOODBYE
We stood in front of the green-and-white interstate bus, the driver banging the hood to get people on. My hands were trembling so hard I tucked them into my pockets.
"You're shaking," Eze murmured, stepping closer.
"It's just… everything."
"I know."
He wasn't the kind of boy who made big speeches. He wasn't the type to promise forever. But he held my gaze with an intensity that made my throat tighten.
"You deserve a life that feels gentle," he said. "Don't forget that."
A tear slipped down my cheek. I didn't bother wiping it.
"I don't know what's waiting for me," I whispered.
"You don't have to. You just have to go toward it."
He brushed a thumb lightly against my cheek — a soft, respectful touch, as if asking permission without saying it. Then he stepped back.
"Call me when you arrive. Or even if you don't arrive. Call me anyway."
I nodded, unable to speak.
Then I got into the bus.
Eze stayed outside until the bus rolled forward, his figure growing smaller through the dusty window. He raised one hand — not a wave, but something gentler. A farewell without finality.
For the first time in my life, the road ahead felt wider than the fear behind me.
---
VII. ON THE ROAD
When the bus finally pulled out of the station, a strange quiet settled over me — not emptiness, not sadness, but something softer. Like I had placed a heavy load down and my body was still learning how to stand without it.
I watched the familiar streets drift away — the broken signboard of the pharmacy, the kiosk with the always-sleepy attendant, the dusty football field where kids played barefoot every evening. They blurred into each other until they became something distant.
A woman beside me slept with her head against the window. A little boy chewed chin-chin noisily. Two students argued softly about football.
Life went on, indifferent to my escape.
For a moment, a sharp guilt pierced through me.
I left Amara.
I left her alone.
But then I remembered her voice the night before:
"You can still save yourself."
Maybe she wanted me to be the proof that escape was possible.
Maybe she needed one of us to survive so the other could imagine survival.
I placed my forehead against the window, letting the wind press cool air against my skin.
The road unspooled before me — long, uncertain, open.
And for the first time since I was a child,
I felt something like hope.
VIII. ARRIVING
By the time the bus rolled into Uyo, the sky had softened into evening — not dark, not bright, but that in-between colour that feels like a held breath. My body ached from the long ride, but my mind felt clearer than it had in years.
People spilled from the bus quickly, eager to get home, to be met by waiting arms, familiar voices, cooked meals.
I stepped down slowly, my bag slung over my shoulder.
No one was waiting for me.
But for the first time, that didn't feel like abandonment.
It felt like possibility.
I stood for a moment, letting the warm air settle around me.
New sounds, new smells, new sky.
A girl with braids brushed past me, laughing into her phone.
A taxi driver called out, "Where you dey go, fine girl?"
I shook my head and kept walking, my steps steady and light.
I didn't know where I would sleep that night.
But I knew I wasn't going back.
And that knowledge alone felt like a home.
---
IX. FIRST NIGHT
I found a small guesthouse with cracked paint and a flickering fluorescent bulb that made the receptionist look ghostly. The room they gave me was small and smelled faintly of damp, but the bed was clean, and the lock on the door worked.
I sat on the thin mattress and exhaled for what felt like the first real time that day.
I didn't cry.
People expect tears when someone escapes pain.
But what came over me wasn't sadness.
It was relief.
Bone-deep. Heavy. Warm.
Like stepping into water after carrying buckets for too long.
I showered with trembling hands and changed into the clean shirt I had packed. Then I sat cross-legged on the bed and finally picked up my phone.
There were six missed calls.
All from Amara.
My chest tightened.
I stared at her name for a long moment, then pressed "call."
She answered immediately, her breath shaky.
"Zuri?"
"Yes."
Silence.
The kind that holds a thousand unspoken things.
"Are you safe?" she whispered.
"Yes. I'm okay."
Another silence.
Then, very softly:
"I'm proud of you."
The words hit me harder than anything my mother had ever thrown.
"I'm sorry I left," I said, voice cracking.
"No," she replied quickly. "Don't be sorry. One of us had to get out. Maybe… maybe seeing you make it will give me the courage too."
I pressed a hand over my eyes.
"We'll figure things out," I whispered. "Somehow."
"I know."
We stayed on the phone for a while — not talking, just breathing together across the distance. When she finally hung up, I felt lighter, like she had placed a blessing on my decision.
---
X. THE CALL I OWED
Only after I had spoken to Amara did I text Eze.
"I arrived."
He called immediately, the ring barely lasting a second.
"Zuri."
Just my name — but said with such warmth I felt myself unclench.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I think so."
"You sound… different."
"How?"
"Like someone who just unlocked a door."
I smiled, a soft, tired smile that made my cheeks warm.
"Thank you," I whispered. "For… everything."
"You don't have to thank me," he said quietly. "Just live. That's enough."
I closed my eyes, letting his voice steady me.
"You know," he added gently, "leaving doesn't make you a bad person."
"Doesn't it?" I whispered.
"No," he said firmly. "It makes you brave."
The words settled deep inside me, like seeds.
We talked for a few more minutes — nothing heavy, nothing dramatic. Just small things. Soft things. Then he let me go, telling me to rest, promising he'd check on me in the morning.
When the call ended, the room felt strangely full.
---
XI. A NEW MORNING
When I woke up the next day, sunlight spilled into the room like something kind. The hum of traffic outside was steady, alive, indifferent.
I sat up slowly, stretching my stiff limbs. There was a lightness in my chest that felt unfamiliar, like breathing air that hadn't passed through pain first.
I reached for my notebook — the same one I had used to write the apology note — and turned to a blank page.
At the top I wrote:
"Day One."
Not of punishment.
Not of exile.
Not of running.
Day One of choosing myself.
I didn't know where this path would lead — whether it would be difficult, or lonely, or messy. But for the first time in my life, the fear of the unknown didn't outweigh the fear of staying trapped.
I set my pen down and stared at the words.
And slowly, quietly, something inside me bloomed.
A small, fragile hope.
The kind of hope you hold carefully at first, like a newborn thing —
but that grows stronger each time you decide not to walk back into the fire you escaped.
I stood up, washed my face, tied my hair, picked up my small bag.
A new life waited outside the door.
I opened it.
And stepped into the sun.
---
THE END