David (narrating):
You know, Adrian, it's easy to be quiet when no one's really listening. You become like a shadow, blending in with the noise of everyone else's problems. But when it's time for you to speak, when it's time to rise above the silence you've created, you realize there's no one left to hear you. There's no one left to care about the quiet that's eaten you alive.
---
The aftermath of it all came crashing down faster than I could have ever prepared for.
I watched as the people I had once called friends turned their backs on me.
Ali stopped answering my calls. Tirhe, who had once laughed with me about the foolishness of relationships, now avoided me in the halls. It wasn't because of something I did to them; it was because they had chosen sides. They saw the cracks in my life and decided they didn't want to be around when the building came down.
Lucie? She… well, she broke my heart in the most subtle of ways.
At first, it was the small things. She would text less, smile less. The affection we shared faded like a mist under the rising sun.
She couldn't look at me anymore the same way.
But it was Nabal — that's where everything truly broke.
---
I had always known Nabal to be a manipulator. He had this way about him, this forceful presence that made people believe what he wanted them to believe. He was the kind of person who made others doubt themselves without ever raising his voice. He didn't need to. He had power in his silence, just like me.
But his silence wasn't born from listening. It was born from control.
And that control was what he used to turn Abigail against me.
---
I remember the day I saw Abigail again. After everything, after the lies and the heartbreak, she still held some kind of hope that maybe we could salvage what we had.
She had come to talk to me in secret, away from Nabal's eyes, because she couldn't bear to see him win. But she was too late. I had already lost her.
There was nothing left to say.
David (pauses, the hurt clear in his voice):
I told her what I should have said long ago, what I was too afraid to admit: "You don't have to choose sides, Abigail. But you already did. And that choice was never for me."
---
I wasn't angry. Not really.
I had made my peace with it a long time ago.
The truth was, though, that silence had betrayed me. It had given Nabal the ammunition he needed to hurt me, to make everyone question me. It wasn't about the love I had for Abigail, or for Lucie, or even for Ali.
It was about the fear I had of speaking the truth. Of speaking from my heart instead of keeping everything buried under the weight of everyone else's pain.
---
David (quietly):
And so, I watched as everything fell apart.
I lost Abigail. I lost Lucie. I lost Ali, and I lost Bridget.
But there was one thing I couldn't lose, and that was my silence.
--
Years later, when I had the opportunity to look back on it all — everything I had done, every word I had never spoken — I realized the consequences were deeper than the broken friendships, the lost loves, and the shattered trust.
The consequences were me.
I had become so comfortable in my role as the listener that I forgot what it felt like to be heard.
I had hidden behind the title for so long that I forgot I had a voice of my own.
---
David (reflectively):
The biggest consequence of all? I couldn't fix anything. Not my friendships, not my relationships, not even myself.
And I realized something that made me feel small, so small, that I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.
---
The silence had never been my sanctuary. It had been my prison.
---
And now, years later, standing here with you, Adrian, the question still lingers in my mind: Is it too late to break free from the chains I forged with my own silence?
---
(David looks up, meeting Adrian's gaze. The weight of his past is heavy in his eyes, but there's something else there — a trace of hope, faint but real.)
---
David (softly):
The truth is, the consequences of my silence still haunt me. I lost everyone, not because they didn't care, but because I didn't let them.
But I'm here now, Adrian. Not just as the listener anymore. I'm ready to speak. Ready to be heard.
But the question is, do I still have the right to ask for it?
---
Adrian(With a stern look):
"And so Dad, at which point does Joe and my Mom come into the story"
David(looking deep in Adrian's eye):
"You've got to remember that you forfeited the right to ask that question when you asked about how the Listener had been born. Joe came at a time when l was on the verge of collapse. He came and...."
THEEND