Scars

“So let’s hear it Arnold, I haven’t got all day.” I lay there on his couch, shaking. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. “Tick-tock Arnold, I’ve already told you, once you’ve told me your story you’ll feel a lot better.” I feel unsure of his words. He says these things, but does he really mean them? “I promise this will all be over soon once you tell me how you got that scar on your leg.”

I start to shake uncontrollable when he says scar. He shoves a needle into my arm and I calm down. I look out the window and see people passing by, going on with their daily lives and not a single one can help me. I feel so alone, I’ve felt alone my entire life. I was never loved and never will be… what do I have to lose? I start to speak.

When I was younger my parents worked a lot in corporate America, they never had time for me so they would drop me off at my Uncle Harry’s place for a week or two. I always felt like they didn’t want me around and I know after talking to them years later, I was right. They didn’t even love me, hell half the time they would forget they had a son. Needless to say I hate my parents.

I used to love going to my uncle Harry’s house as a child, it was basically built for children. He had every toy known to man, at least to me, and he had a full playground in his backyard. Every night he’d tell me stories about how he fought in the war and his life in general. I loved those stories. After a while I started to see him as my father and by that time I basically lived with him.

I was about twelve when it started. I was in my room getting ready for bed when Uncle Harry came in. He sat down beside me and started to tell me a story, as soon as he started up I began to get sleepy. I turned away from him and I closed my eyes, then he stopped talking. He was right in the middle of a sentence and he just stopped. It sounded like he had gotten up and was walking around, pacing at first, then his steps began to get closer to where I lay. He walked lightly, almost a tip toe as he approached. He sat on my bed and silence.

He sat there a long while silent, I was so confused, Uncle Harry never acted like this before, and I didn’t know what to do so I just laid there, silent. After a long while I felt movement coming from where Uncle Harry was sitting. He leaned over and touched my leg, now it wasn’t the kind of touched he usually gave me, this had a softer feel to it, more like he was rubbing me than anything. Then the bed started to shake in this weird way, up and down, up and down, real slow at first. Then he started to rub my calf more and more and the more he started to rub the faster the shaking went. Faster and faster until finally, Uncle Harry moved his hand up to my ass and squeezed hard, he was moaning really load as he did this. Then silence.

After an eternity he finally moved. He got up ruffled with his belt and crawled back into my bed naked. He put his hand on my waist and pushed his penis onto my ass. A night he lay there giving me little pumps, sometimes he moan and I’d feel liquid pool around my thigh, after a while he finally left, but sleep never came to me that night. He left me with fear and confusion.

The following morning I tried to get out of bed, but I was stuck. I literally couldn’t get up out of bed, it seemed that the liquid from the night before had dried and when that happened I got fused to the bed. I tried to tug, but the harder I tried to get up the more pain I’d be in. I wanted to call Uncle Harry, but what if he got mad at me and started to do what he did last night. This is how I got the scar.

Being a kid I panicked and like a kid I thought of the worst possible way to get myself out of that situation, I got a pocket knife out of my dresser and started to cut away my own skin. I tried to only whittle away just the crusty bits, but I didn’t know what I was doing. By the time I was out of bed most of the skin on my right thigh was gone.

Now that I was finally out of bed I went to the bathroom, making sure Uncle Harry couldn’t see me. I took a shower. At first the way the warm water poured over my wounded flesh felt like I was cutting myself all over again. I endured the pain, I had seen an infected wound on TV before, and I didn’t want that to happen to me. After a while I laid down in the tub letting the water wash over me, I would have sat down, but my thigh would have started bleeding again if it touched anything other than air or water. I fell asleep.

I awoke to freezing cold water washing over me, bright lights, and yelling. I felt hands all over me grabbing and tugging. I fought back against these figures and I called out for Uncle Harry, the only person I could think of who could save me. I felt a poke in my arm and I blacked out. I can to a few hours later in a hospital, with my parents at my bedside.

My parents, like always had their laptops on and were typing away, they didn’t even notice that I had awoken. I looked down at my leg and saw that it was bandaged up. After that everything kind of blurred together. My parents sent me away to boarding school and that was that. A few years later I was told by a detective that my Uncle Harry shot himself shortly after I fell asleep in the shower. I only know this because I went investigating a few years ago, I wanted closure, I never got it.

“And that’s all you have to say, nothing else?”

“No! God what more do you want? Here I am spilling my guts out about the most traumatic experience of my life, to a complete stranger no less, and you think I’m still not telling you everything.” I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists tight. “I’ve told you everything.”

“If that’s the case then why don’t I believe you?” He walked up close to where I lay and lifted my shirt, “and why do you have so many scars on your chest?” He softly caressed my chest, running his short nails over each and every scar I had. I felt helpless. “So many stories…” He injected me with another syringe.

“Too bad you won’t live to tell anyone else.”