Scars Ch. 01

All sexual acts are committed only by legal adults over the age of eighteen. In no way do these events relate to real or semi-real happenings. This is all of my own creation. Any and all feed back would be greatly appreciated considering this is my first submission.

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My name is Dylan Morrison. A lot of kids would call me goth or emo, but I'm not either one of those. I like dark clothing, but I'm not into leather or black eyeliner or anything like that. I cut, but I don't go around showing it off trying to get attention. I am sixteen. My father died when I was ten. He was a Marine sniper. I don't remember much about him because he was gone all the time, but my mom still keeps his uniform and the folded flag they gave us at the funeral.

My mom and I live in a small house in an older neighborhood in a little town just outside of Boston. I researched the house and it was built in the early nineteen hundreds, so it is pretty old, but well built. I don't have many friends and I go to a local public high school with only about three hundred other kids.

Most of the time I'm down at the lake that is just over five miles from my house. I ride my bike down there and just stare out over the water. I grew up in this area, and coming down to the lake just seemed peaceful.

There might not be a lot of kids in my school, but the amount of stupidity and drama that goes on there is like any other large school in the United States. I deal with it every day. Everyone looks at me like I'm a disease, like I'm something to pity, or their own personal fixing job. I hate it. I started cutting when I was twelve because of the amount of pain I saw my mom in. I could never do anything right. I was always doing something wrong in her eyes, even when I was doing everything right. I got into fights constantly and developed a reputation as someone who was distant and not to be messed with.

Never once did my mom ask why I had been in the fights or why I did what I did. I did everything I did for her. I never got into fights over petty things, but when someone made a pass at my mom, they regretted it. Cutting was my way of escaping the pain of knowing that all I was, was a reminder to my mother of my father, and as a disappointment to her for all the things I did. I found my dad's service knife when I was twelve. I was at home after school, waiting for my mom to get off work.

I missed him and went to my mom's room and to her closet to his gear. He had three knives, a military grade throwing knife, a combat knife, and a Swiss Army knife with multiple different things in it like a corkscrew, a knife, and a saw. I was playing with the combat knife and the throwing knife. The combat knife slipped out of my hand and cut my arm. It was painful, but it with the pain came a clarity that I never had since the day the Marine's came to the door telling my mother that my father was dead.

I cleaned up the mess and bandaged my arm. I took the two knives with me and put the Swiss Army knife back and made it look like I had never been in the room. I wore long sleeve shirts for the next two weeks to cover up the bandages. No one ever knew, but I did. I didn't cut myself on purpose until about two months later.

A kid in one of my classes kept staring at me. After class, I finally approached him and told him to shove off. The kid made a snide remark about how he could do what he wanted. Then he said something I would never forget. It was the first time someone ever made a cruel remark about the military or my family. He said, "Why should I listen to you? Your daddy ran off and got himself killed. You don't have a father, and mother isn't much better, just a house cleaner. You're poor, and I don't have to listen to you." I laid him out. Two punches and he was down on the ground. I gave him a bloody nose and a split lip. He never made a remark about my family again. Of course I got sent to the principle's office and had gotten written up.

I was grounded for a month and my mother never even asked me why I punched the kid. The kid lied and said that I just punched him, so that was what was written on the report and that is what my mom believed. That night I went home and pulled out the combat knife. I pressed it against my right arm, just above where the last cut was made and drew the knife across the skin. Blood welled up immediately and the pain was fleeting, but the physical pain chased away the emotional pain, at least for a while it did.

Those were the first times I cut myself, on accident, and then on purpose. I continued to do it up 'til now. I still do it, but I've gotten better at controlling my emotions. I would cut myself when the emotional pain built up to a breaking point. Now I have outlets to help myself, a job at the local market, a small time gym that I go to, and walking my mom home from work.

My mom still thinks I'm a bad kid, but I haven't gotten into a fight in six months. I have better things to do than sit at school and let the kids bother me. I get up at five in the morning to walk my mom to her first job, go home, get the car and drive to school, then drive to work afterwards. My mom lets me take the car because I work farther out than she does. Most of her work is centered in the neighborhood. It is a largish neighborhood though. While in general she makes more than I do, I work fewer hours than she does and I still pull in almost as much as she does. We still get monthly checks from the military, a life insurance thing from my dad, but we still have troubles making ends meet during slow months. Christmas' are small, but we enjoy them because we are together.

That is my life up until right now.