It’s always the quiet ones.

You know, the ones you have to watch out for. The quiet ones blend into the background. They do a good job of it, too – they’re quiet, after all, and it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, not the silent one.

Not the timid girl in the corner desk.

Maybe you don’t even notice. Maybe you never heard her heart screaming her frustration, or begging for a kind word. Maybe you did, but you don’t care.

Maybe she didn’t want you to, but maybe she did. What if she did?

Maybe she wears neutral colors because she’s afraid of loud noises. Maybe she’s afraid to be loud, to draw attention to herself because attention means she’d have to open up to others. Maybe the last time she came out of her shell, it was crushed by the person she trusted most in the world, and she had to find a new shell, a harder shell, to protect her fragile self.

Sometimes the squeaky wheel doesn’t need the grease – sometimes it just needs someone to listen. Grease will silence the squeak, but maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is for someone to notice the wheel behind the squeak.

Maybe the squeak isn’t something wrong, but something right.

Maybe it means that that timid girl is trying out her voice, trying it on for size. Maybe that little, tiny squeak is really incredibly loud, and she’s trying to figure out how to modulate her volume. Wouldn’t you feel terrible for silencing that squeak?

Because that’s what the grease does. It quiets the squeak.

It’s always the quiet ones.

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