text: Silence is a fragile thing, but right then, silence seemed to be an insurmountable beast that had its claws around the car. Even the howling wind that was blowing snow outside was banished from the vacuum surrounding them. If it weren’t for her heater, which was working overtime because of the howling January snow, she would have sworn that she had lost her hearing. Even that wasn't fully penetrating this silence though. Ella had offered to drive her nephew to the airport. How could she not with him going away to boarding school? He had become quite a handful for her sister, who was a widow of three years and who had four other kids to worry about. Ella helped where she could, but her sister had always been very independent, and every time Ella came to visit, she would always find her sister doing something around the house, looking tired and worn out. Then she would smile a weary but sincere smile and Ella would tell her lovingly but firmly, "Go to bed Angie, you look like hell. I'll finish up here." Ella jumped out of her thoughts as she noticed their exit coming up. She tried to change as many lanes as she could, but still managed to miss it. She winced. Her nephew rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone. She figured he must be texting one of his friends until a female voice came from his phone, giving directions. Now it was Ella's turn to roll her eyes, "I know the way Rob." Her Nephew's given name was Robert, but he insisted that everyone call him by the nickname. "Right," He smirked at her, "That's why we're going to be late to the airport." "Your flight doesn't leave for another hour and a half. We're five minutes away." "Not the way you're driving we're not." He muttered. "You know, you don't have to insult everyone around you. I know that you're upset that your mother is making you leave but --" “You just don’t get it. No one does, ” He snapped more defensively. Then added quietly, “Not anymore.” “What do you mean Rob?” Ella hadn’t heard Rob speak like this in a while. Actually, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard his words hold that much emotion. She’d known him quite well before his father had passed, but since then, he’d changed. He’d cut himself off from everyone, and whenever Ella or anyone else had tried to talk to him, he’d snap and say simply that he wanted to be alone. In that moment, Rob looked like he was trying to hold back a tidal wave. He probably was. As far as Ella could tell, he never gave himself any release. He was always working in his room, be it on school work, or fixing a broken computer someone at school was paying him for. Ella had never understood it, his fascination with computers. She supposed her brain just wasn’t wired that way. He and his father had always liked working together on little things like that. Her sister thought it was good that he was still working on computers, that maybe it was his way of dealing with his father’s death, but Ella suspected that it was just the opposite. That all he was doing was using the computers to keep himself busy. To never give himself a moment’s rest to think about anything. Finally, the dam that had been holding his feelings back broke, and tears began spilling down his cheeks. "You just don't get it, okay? The only person who ever understood me is dead, all right?" He gasped for air and looked frightened at his words. Ella thought it was something he'd been wanting to say for a while, but he hadn't let himself. "Everyone is acting like three years is a lifetime. Like I should have moved on by now, but I can't. It hurts all the time Ella. I feel empty and angry and sad every day. My mom thinks I'm acting out, but I don't know how to act normal anymore. I keep thinking that if I just get through one more day, then everything will be all right, but every day it just gets harder to get out of bed. I -- I haven't felt happy or even okay in three years." He slumped foreword in his seat, his head in his hands. He was crying in earnest now, sobs racking his body. Ella didn't know what had made him break down. Maybe it was all just too much for him. Going to a new school far away from everything he knew while he was already feeling like this? She couldn't imagine. She paused for a moment. This one was not a suffocating silence as before. It was full of sorrow, but also of relief. Rob had been holding all of his feelings in for years, she could only imagine how hard it must have been for him to tell her. She laid a hand on his back, keeping the other on the steering wheel and making no move to go towards the airport. "Listen, I don't know how you're feeling right now,” Ella started, feeling rather clumsy and out of her depth. “But I'm glad you told me. I lost someone too when I was around your age. He was my best friend. We did everything together. I’d known him since 3 rd grade and I suspect that if he had survived, I may have even developed feelings for him.” She paused, feeling her emotions rub against a wound that she suspected would never fully heal. “He died in a car crash one summer, and after that, my life never felt the same. There was this absence, this hole in my heart that I couldn't even begin to fill. I tried to push people away too, thinking that I didn't deserve to be friends with anyone else, but do you know what I found helped? Talking to people. I thought that If I ever told anyone how I was feeling, it could only end badly, but I was so wrong. People tend to be much more understanding than they get credit for. "That's why I'm so glad you felt like you could come to me with this." She paused, trying to figure out what she was even trying to say. "I'll tell you what. What if, and I'll only do this if you want me to, we don't go to the airport? I could take you home and talk to your mother. You might not think it, but I'm really good at getting through to her. You don't have to feel like that Rob, the people around you can be much more helpful and willing to listen than you probably think." Ella waited. Rob had taken in her whole monologue with his head still in his hands. They sat once again in that strange comforting silence, but then Rob let out a quiet, "Yeah, okay. Let's do that." His voice was still croaky from crying and as he lifted his head from his hands. Ella saw that his eyes were still red and puffy from crying, but as she looked in his eyes, she thought that she saw the smallest spark of an emotion that she too had once nearly forsaken, hope. She felt as though they were stepping tentatively onto the frozen dam that his emotions had become, and somehow she knew that together, they would be able to thaw them out.