The Cost of Silence – A Story in Five Voices

From the Daily Dose of Fiction

Summing It Up -   This week in the Daily Dose of Fiction: The Cost of Silence

Five women sat across from each other on Riley’s veranda, the desert light fading into evening. None of them had planned to speak of it, but the week had left its mark.

They poured wine, tore bread, and let the words come. One by one, they gave shape to the moments they had swallowed.

It all began with a question: Do you ever feel like we’ve kept too much inside?

They share the stories you’ve been reading all week. 

When the last story was spoken, the veranda fell quiet again. But it was not the same silence that had haunted them all week. This one was charged, alive, carrying the weight of words finally spoken out loud.

Each of them had lived it in different ways. 

Riley in the checkout line, Val at the dinner table, Raven in the corral, Quinn in a tea house. But all of it traced back to Skylar’s question: Do you ever feel like we’ve kept too much inside?

The answer had been written across their stories. Yes. Silence had cost them chances, truths, and pieces of love they could never reclaim.

Yet speaking it aloud gave them back a measure of power.

The canyon held their voices, carrying them into the night.

Silence had shaped them, but it no longer defined them.

The Cost of Silence – A Story in Five Voices - Day 1

Does Silence Cost More Than We Admit?

From Skylar’s Point of View

I was the one who broke the quiet that night.

We were sitting together on Riley’s veranda. Conversation had drifted easily, but now it was so quiet all I heard was silverware clinking on the dinner plates and the desert wind rattling the glass doors.

The incident at the hardware store had been gnawing at me all week. The way we were dismissed by employees who ignored us—or worse, told me I should bring my husband back to buy a compressor.

I felt guilty and humiliated by the way my throat closed when I wanted to object. Why didn’t I speak up?

I set my glass down. “I need to bring this up. Do you ever feel like we’ve kept too much inside? That we don’t speak our minds?”

The clinking stopped. Forks hovered midair.

Val reached for her glass, her hand trembling. Riley looked away. Raven’s gaze held steady. Quinn sat back, patient, waiting.

The silence pressed against us, thick and telling.

So I tried again, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’m thinking about what happened at the hardware store. What if silence is costing us more than we admit?”

I heard a sharp intake of air, as if they all gasped at once.

And in that breath, I knew how much of our lives had already been swallowed by quiet—and how much more we needed to be honest about.

The Cost of Silence – A Story in Five Voices - Day 2

Ordinary Invisibility

From Riley’s Point of View

It happened in the checkout line.

I set my basket on the counter and said hello. The clerk didn’t look up.

“Next,” he called, waving the person behind me forward.

I froze. My basket overflowed, proof that I was there, and yet in that moment I was invisible.

I could have spoken. I could have said, Excuse me, I’m next.

But my throat closed, and the silence pressed harder than his dismissal.

I stepped over to the self-check register. I paid. I left.

Outside, Quinn was waiting.

“What happened in there?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. But my jaw ached from the words I hadn’t spoken.

Quinn studied me for a moment before answering. “That’s how it starts, isn’t it? Not with cruelty. Just small slights. Small silences. One after another until you almost believe you’re invisible.”

The SUV door slammed shut. Neither of us spoke as we drove back toward the canyon.

But invisibility had already followed me home.

The Cost of Silence – A Story in Five Voices - Day 3

Politeness can cost more than honesty ever will.

From Val’s Point of View

At the community dinner, my neighbor leaned in.

“Don’t you miss your old life? You were much more… useful then.”

My throat tightened. A dozen replies raced through my mind. Sharp, true, alive.

I swallowed them all.

Forced a smile.

And said nothing.

Back home, Raven found me pacing.

“Why didn’t you say something?” she asked.

“Because I was raised to be polite.”

My voice broke. “And politeness has cost me pieces of myself I’ll never get back.”

The canyon outside our window rumbled with thunder, as if it disagreed.

I sank into a chair, remembering Skylar’s question from the veranda. Do you ever feel like we’ve kept too much inside.

I whispered into the storm, “Now I understand what Skylar meant.”

The Cost of Silence – A Story in Five Voices - Day 4

The Lesson I Withheld

From Raven’s Point of View

Sometimes silence wears the mask of respect.

The corral dust swirled as the young trainee tugged at the reins. The colt tossed its head, nervous, waiting for guidance.

I opened my mouth to correct her, to share the method that had taken me a lifetime to refine.

But her father leaned on the fence, arms crossed. “Maybe step aside,” he called. “You’ve done enough.”

The words sliced, casual but sharp.

My lips pressed shut. I nodded, stepping back. The girl glanced over, eyes searching, but I said nothing.

Later, alone in the barn, I slammed my palm against the stall door.

Skylar’s question echoed in my mind. ‘Do you ever feel like we’ve kept too much inside?’

I finally had my answer. Yes. And my silence had just cost a girl the lesson she came for.

The Cost of Silence – A Story in Five Voices - Day 5

The Words I Didn’t Say

From Quinn’s Point of View

Silence can be loudest in love.

In Kyoto, the lanterns glowed as Robbie and I slipped into a quiet tea house. Conversation buzzed around us, circling in a language I barely understood.

Robbie reached across the table, squeezing my hand. “Isn’t this the life we dreamed of?”

My throat tightened. I wanted to say no. That travel filled the days but not the hollow I carried. That what I longed for was feeling like I was number one.

I swallowed the words and smiled instead.

Robbie’s eyes softened. “I love seeing you happy.”

I nodded, my silence sealing us both into a lie.

Later, as I walked alone through the narrow streets, Skylar’s voice returned: ‘Do you ever feel like we’ve kept too much inside?’

Yes, I thought. Silence in love is the heaviest weight of all.