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I'm Jake. I've been wanting to tell someone this for awhile but ya know?
It's hard being a kid sometimes. I mean, like I think I know how my parents will react about some tings and then I'm totally blown out of the water. So I shut up a lot. A real lot.

At fourteen you think I'd have it together. I don't. Some nights I sit alone in the dark and wish I could be my brother...which might be a good thing except he's dead. He died last hear in a motorcycle accident. My parents keep his room a freakin' shrine. The big brother I'll never live up to. Yeah. Lucky me.

When I was ten my parents insisted I get more involved in the church. I go to public school but I've always had CCD classes and I made my firt holy communion and all that. Ten was how old I had to be to be an altar boy. Like I wasn't teased enough in school, parade me around in front of church wearing a "dress"!
I was grounded for more than a week until I gave in. Worse decision I ever made.

Long story short here, because you probably get paid by the millisecond to
give me therapy-the priest did me like a whore. Told me it was God's will and our secret pact. Insisted it would be a sin to tell anyone. So I didn't. I cried when my parents made me go to communion because I knew inside this had to be wrong...but I didn't know how to stop it or who to confess to.

About a month ago I started cutting. You know-a lotof kids do it now.
Taking a razor and slicing my skin open. The blood made sense to be. It was pain I could see and touch and feel. I had thid whole t hing going with peroxide bubbling and pinking water in the sink...cool.

So just my freakin' luck that this secret would be revealed! Mom knocked on the bathroom door while she was opining it to hand me a towel and...well, she just screamed and screamed. Dad came in, called me a moron. Huge drama...

Now I'm here. Still haven't told them about the priest. Didn't seem like a good idea since he comes for dinner twice a month. Last time I looked, he wasn't cutting. Course I try never to look. Mostly I close my eyes and bite my lip.

You getting this all down on that yellow pad of yours? Not that I care.
I just want the folks to understand when their second son dies...

Learn more about this author, Karen Miner.
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