...there's a lying in your silence... ~ Hanson, Yearbook

Silence. All around was the silence, it cut like a knife and penetrated her soul. Why couldn't they speak? She knew what was on their mind. She could feel it in their heavy, unpronounced stares.

Their eyes, everyone's eyes were focused on her. They intended to hurt with the icy stares. But why the silence? That was too much. She could barely deal with the piercing stares but the silence was beyond painful. She knew she'd done wrong, let them all down but time couldn't turn back and things that had been done were done.

She felt horrid, she hadn't meant to hurt anyone else. No one else was supposed to get involved. If only so many people hadn't cared. She hadn't asked for their help, all she wanted was to be left alone. Suffering, dying slowly like she was, had always been pretty easy to do when everyone left her alone. Sure it wasn't pleasurable but life never was. Now, after so many people tried to help where no help was needed, everything was far worse. The suffering had been prolonged and innocent people had been hurt.

She knew things would never be the same, she couldn't expect them to be. The memories would always be there, hovering over her like a rain cloud over a formerly sunny day. Not that her days had really been sunny in any sense. Living these memories down would be nearly impossible, her life was changed forever. Though she'd rather not have a life than be living in this silent hell.

People, people that had cared about here, had died trying to save her. But why did they have to care? Emotions always made things more complicated. She could never forget those people, never forget that harrowing experience. Life after what she'd done to herself, what she'd done to them seemed pointless and excruciating. Yet the silence around her was far more painful than the ache in her empty soul.

They all thought the same things, she could feel their thoughts, but they refused to voice them. They defied her wordless begging and stared, tight-lipped. Some had expressionless faces; other's looked angry in their own right; yet some held looks of concern and care. They lied and she knew it, the silence proved it. There was a lying in their silence, they were hiding the truth. All she wanted to do was scream at the top of her lungs, but she couldn't.

Finally she could take their lying no longer, the silence became too much. She slowly got up and left the room, no one seemed to notice or maybe they just didn't care. No one followed her, no one asked why she left, they just sat silent as ever. They were ignoring her pathetic existence and she could hardly blame them. The things she'd done were inexcusable and irrevocable.

Once she was alone she took a long look at herself. She looked like death on a sunny day, ironically enough exactly how she felt. Slowly weighing each consequence, and deciding none were as horrible as going on like this, she pulled the pills out of a drawer. Taking far more than were necessary to achieve the desired effect, she was finally able to let go of their pained and lying silence. Finally the incessant aching ended and she could find her own comforting, dark, silence.