The Girl Who Wasn’t Allowed to Speak
Lina was thirteen, but sometimes it felt like her heart had lived many years longer. At school, she was quiet, almost invisible. But at home, everything was loud — full of fear and heavy secrets.
Lina had gone to school with Leo since primary school. Leo was always a very problematic child, and while many kept their distance, Lina tried to help him. Maybe too much. Sometimes she wondered if things would have been different if she had been more selfish, if she hadn’t cared so much.
Everyone said Leo was like a baby and that Lina had to be patient with him because he had a mental problem. But Lina knew better. Leo was smart and strong, and when he lost control, he could be scary.
Leo’s problems were bigger than most people realized. He could get angry so fast that he broke things, shouted, or even hurt others without meaning to. Once, he nearly hurt his own brother, and everyone was scared of what he might do when he was at his worst.
Because Leo was bigger and stronger than Lina, she often felt powerless. If he decided to lash out, she knew she couldn’t defend herself. It was a secret fear she carried every day.
But the hardest part wasn’t just Leo’s behavior. It was how everyone treated Lina like she was responsible for him — even though she was only a child herself. Everyone expected her to take care of Leo, to understand him, to be patient with him. Like it was her job. The weight of that responsibility was too much for her young shoulders.
She couldn’t escape him. Even being near him was too much — and yet, they did homework together, even though Lina preferred doing it alone or with someone else. They ate together. He came to her house without asking. He was always there, in her space, and no one seemed to notice how suffocating it was.
If Lina made even a small mistake, her parents would get angry, scold her, and tell her she was too sensitive or angry. But when Leo did something wrong, everyone said, “You know his problem,” or “He’s just joking.” No one ever asked Lina how that made her feel.
Leo laughed it off like it was all a game, but for Lina, it wasn’t a joke. It was real — and heavy. Every day felt like carrying a weight too big for her young shoulders.
Sometimes, Lina wished she could scream and be heard. But the only place she felt safe was in her secret notebook — not a real book, but her notes app on her phone — where she wrote everything she couldn’t say out loud. She wrote to remember who she was and because she was terrified of forgetting. She couldn’t talk to anyone, but her words still mattered, even if no one heard them.
She tried to talk. But it wasn’t important enough.
They never listened.
Every day, Lina told herself, “Don’t give up.” Because giving up meant giving up on her dream — the dream she had fought for in silence, through all the pain. She had suffered too much to let it slip away.
There weren’t enough words to explain what she was going through, how heavy it all was. How could anyone really understand a storm they hadn’t lived inside?
Sometimes, Lina wondered if hope was even real. The tunnel she walked through felt endless and too dark to ever see the light. She didn’t know if things would get better — maybe they never would.
And still, one question stayed with her:
What if they were right all along?
Everyone loved Leo. His family adored him. Teachers explained his behavior. Friends forgave everything.
Lina seemed to be the only one who ever said it wasn’t okay.
The only one who got tired of being stepped on.
The only one who saw the danger.
So maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she was the difficult one — too impatient, too angry, too cold.
It was easier to blame her than admit something was really wrong.
But that’s what happens when you scream and no one listens.
You start to believe you’re the one who’s broken.
She was scared, more than anyone knew. Because if one day she disappeared, if something happened to her…
Who would know?
Who would believe her?
Who would care?
She didn’t want to be a girl remembered only through a few notes on a phone — words that were never loud enough to save her.
Still, in the darkest moments, Lina clung to a small, fragile dream:
That one day, she might leave.
Find a place where she could breathe.
Where she could be free from fear and responsibility.
Where she could simply be herself.
But even that dream felt far away, like a faint light through thick fog.
Every day, Lina told herself to hold on, but sometimes it was hard to remember why.