Novel & Cerita I've Been Quiet For So Long

Dare Mark’s silence had been gnawing at me for days. He wasn’t one to go this long without stirring up trouble or barking orders. When he went quiet, it usually meant something worse—planning, scheming. The kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful but full of malice. It bugged me, but I kept my cool. If he was waiting for the right moment to strike, I’d make sure I was ready first.

she said. "Quiet," he said. The same word he had used last night. He looked at her across the room. "It's been a long time since my head was only mine." "Ten months," she said. "Ten months." He looked at the window. "I'd forgotten what it felt like. Not having to wonder whether a thought was mine or—" He stopped. "Quiet," he said again. "That's the only word."

Then she said, "He's gone. Been gone for a while." I didn't know what to say to that, so I just let it sit. "Why are you so... quiet?" I asked. Not trying to be insensitive, just trying to understand. Quinn looked at me for a second. Long enough that I thought maybe I'd stepped over a line. Then she said, "I'm quiet because the minute you make noise in a place like this, they got you. You become a target. You make waves, you disappear." That should've been a warning. I should've understood what she was telling me right then. But I was young and dumb and thought she was just being dramatic.

He looks at me. Like I want to keep going. The room is silent. The room is the quietest room I have ever been in. The room is so quiet I can hear the clock. I can hear the parking lot. I can hear his breathing. I can hear the small hum of the building. I can hear the small sound of my own heart, which is a sound I have been hearing for six weeks, and which is, right now, the loudest sound in the world.

I said quietly, ignoring the reporter and speaking only to Eliana. Her breath hitched. “It was the silence,” I said. “The silence?” Sylvia asked, confused. “I live a loud life,” I explained, not breaking eye contact with Eliana. “Noise. Demands. chaos. Everyone wants something. Everyone is loud about what they want.” I reached out, my thumb tracing the line of Eliana’s jaw. “But Eliana… she doesn’t ask for anything. She brings peace. The first time we sat in a room together and didn’t speak… the silence wasn’t empty. It was full. It was the first time in ten years I didn’t feel like I had to watch my back.”

“Umm I don’t have any wine in the fridge at the moment, can I get you a glass of water?” “Water is fine.” He said. I went into the kitchen, seconds later, I was handing him a glass of water. He took a sip and placed the glass cup on the table. The silence felt like the pause between lightning and thunder. Minutes stretched, we didn’t speak. The quiet between us wasn’t tense, it was the kind that hums with things waiting to be said. Then, he leaned back in the chair and saidalmost to himself. “Three years, that’s how long it lasted.”

The door clicked shut, leaving me in a sudden, profound quiet. It was the kind of silence that settles after a storm, amplified by the abrupt absence of shared tension. Just me, the vast ocean stretching before the villa, a half-empty coffee cup, and the weight of three people's unspoken emotions now condensed into one. I let it sit for a breath, maybe four seconds. “So.” The voice, warm and resonant, cut through the stillness. It felt like it had been waiting, coiled and impatient, for the opportune moment. It carried the vibrant energy of someone finally released, someone who had been confined and was now reveling in open space.

Not urgent. Just there. We had been like this for a while now…without words, without movement. And yet, it didn’t feel like silence. It felt like something was settling. Like everything that had been loud and overwhelming these past few days had finally… quieted enough for me to breathe. My fingers shifted slightly against his bare chest, tracing the edges. There was something on my mind. It had been there for a while now, lingering quietly at the back of my thoughts, growing louder in moments like this… when everything else slowed down.

Just those two words, very quiet. "Since college," I said. "Since him, mostly. Not always him, I can't put all of it on him. But he accelerated it." I held his gaze because looking away felt like the wrong thing. "I've gone long periods without. The longest was fourteen months. I told you I was doing better and I meant it, Zyran. I am doing better." He was breathing very carefully. I could see it. "You are," he said, and his voice was rough at the edges. "I know you are."

My footsteps were softer now as I walked through the quiet corridors of the castle, trying to find an escape, a place where I could be alone with my thoughts. The castle seemed endless, with hallway after hallway stretching out before me. I barely noticed the intricate tapestries or the marble statues that lined my path, my mind too occupied with the chaos swirling inside me. I needed space, somewhere far from all of this, where I could think, where I could breathe.