Chloe lay stiff in her bed, the thin blanket barely brushing her skin. Her bedroom was dark and quiet—or so she hoped. But through the cracked door, the house breathed a different story.
The front door slammed. Her heart slammed too.
She slid out of bed and pressed her ear against the cold wood, straining to catch the voices that spilled into the silence.
"Where the hell have you been?" her mother, Samantha, said. Her voice was calm but brittle, like glass ready to shatter.
"Don't start," came the thick, slurred reply from her father, Alex.
Chloe's fists clenched as the tension thickened.
"You promised you'd be home before midnight. You promised you'd stop."
A bitter laugh echoed through the floorboards.
"Promises mean nothing. Do you think I'm a child?"
Heavy footsteps shook the house.
"I'm trying to hold this family together!" her mother's voice cracked, drenched in pain.
"Don't you tell me what I know or don't know!" her stepfather bellowed.
A loud crash—the lamp, breaking.
Chloe squeezed her eyes shut, her back cold against the wall.
Upstairs, Kayden's door slammed.
"Get off me!" Samantha's scream tore through the night.
A shove. A thud.
Chloe's breath caught in her throat. Tears slid silently down her cheeks.
The angry footsteps retreated, replaced by the soft clink of a bottle. The house sank back into silence.
Chloe hugged her knees, wishing the nightmare would end. Wishing her dad would stop.
She crawled back into bed and pulled the blanket over her head, letting it swallow her whole.
Sleep came, at last.
YOU ARE READING
After The Silence
Teen FictionSixteen-year-old Chloe King runs away from a broken home searching for answers from the father who left her, but when she finds it forces her to confront deeper truths about family, forgiveness, and herself. After The Silence is a story about heali...
