It does not need to.

It is the quiet endurance of the person being stood over.

It is the woman who does not scream back, not because she is beaten but because she is busy — listening, remembering, preparing, surviving.

It is the decision, made silently on a cold floor, that you will not stay.

Everyone in that house that night was louder than me.

Garrett with his cold pronouncements, Celina with her rage, the television, the laughter.

I was the quietest thing in the building, lying on the tile, saying nothing.