The Quiet Flood -Amelia T.

Willow lived in a quiet house whose walls never resounded. Her laughter, when it did happen, was as if rehearsed before a mirror. Everyone called her "the strong one." Strong like steel, strong like silence. She carried her days in a neat package, with smiles at the corners glued.

But inside, something was a mess as hell.

It started with a single drop. In the dark of night, under her bed, when the house was asleep, Willow felt it drop—quiet and soundless—on the wood floor. A tear that had not fallen from her eyes but had somehow come from there. She blinked. Dry was the floor. She consoled herself that she was dreaming.

And then the puddles.

Each time she swallowed a nasty word, each time she smiled her teeth hard, when she locked the bedroom door and leaned back against it just to get her breath—more drops fell. They trickled down unseen walls and accumulated in unseen corners. Not water, not really. They were tears that had nowhere else to go.

The room filled.

She never screamed. Screaming would mean cracking open, and cracking open meant someone would see the mess inside. So she waded. She sat in school with water sloshing at her knees, smiled at her mother while the tide tugged at her waist, said “I’m fine” with the surface lapping just beneath her chin.

Willow learned how to float. That’s what strong people do.

But the room kept climbing. One night, her voice caught in her throat like a boulder. She opened her lips—not to scream, just to breathe—but water came rushing in. It wasn't a flood of sadness. It was all of it. Every time she'd had to pretend to be okay, every insult she'd tolerated out of courtesy, every time she'd swallowed disappointment like she was to fault for feeling it at all.

She was suffocating in her silent tears.