I didn’t mean for anyone to see. I didn’t want anyone to know. It was supposed to be my secret—my pain, my way of dealing with everything that’s been boiling inside me for years. But Isiah found out. He saw everything.
It was after practice. Most of the team had already left. I thought I had time to breathe, to just be by myself for a minute. I pulled off my shirt, letting out a shaky breath. The locker room was empty, or at least I thought it was. Then I heard him—Isiah, standing right there in the doorway.
“Harrison?” His voice was soft, almost confused, but when he stepped closer, his eyes locked on my scars.
I froze. My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt the shame rise up like bile in my throat. I didn’t want him to see. I didn’t want anyone to see.
“Why?” he asked, his voice trembling, like he didn’t understand. Like he couldn’t.
I turned away, but he grabbed my arm, not rough, but enough to make me stop. “Show me,” he said again, this time firmer.
I didn’t want to. God, I didn’t want to, but I did. I turned, letting him see all the marks—old ones, new ones. The silence between us was crushing. He stared, and I couldn’t even look at him.
“Why would you do this?” he whispered, and it sounded like he was breaking right in front of me. I couldn’t answer. What was I supposed to say? How could I explain that sometimes the world feels like it’s too heavy and I don’t know how to carry it?
His face twisted with anger, but not at me. I knew it wasn’t at me. He slammed his fist against the locker, and the sound echoed through the empty room. “You don’t have to do this, man! You got people here who care about you—me, the team. Why would you… why would you hurt yourself?”
I couldn’t hold it together anymore. The guilt, the shame, it was all too much. I hated that I was hurting him. I hated that I was weak.
“I don’t get it,” he said, tears filling his eyes. “I don’t get why you’d do this when you’ve got people who love you.”
But he didn’t know. He didn’t understand what it was like to carry the weight of those memories, the things they did to us at that camp.
I wanted to scream, to tell him everything, but the words wouldn’t come out. How do you tell someone that they broke you? That no matter how hard you try, the memories won’t leave you alone?
I see it all, like it was yesterday. The conversion camp. The prayers. The punishments. They made us kneel for hours, asking God to fix us. When the prayers didn’t work, they turned to other methods. Isolation. Electroshock. Anything to “cure” us. I was just a kid. I didn’t understand why they were doing it, why they hated me so much.
The worst was the room. Dark. Cold. They locked me in there for days, telling me that I was sick, that I deserved this. By the end of it, I didn’t even feel like a person anymore.
Those scars on my arms? They’re not just from a blade. They’re from their words. From their hatred.
I wanted to tell Isiah all of it, but I couldn’t. I was too scared. Too ashamed. I looked at him, and he was crying now, shaking his head like he didn’t know what to do.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered, pulling me into a hug. His arms wrapped around me, and I felt like I might fall apart right there. “Why didn’t you let me help?”
I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know why. All I knew was that I had been carrying this for too long, and I didn’t know how to let it go.
Isiah held me tighter, like he was trying to take some of the pain away. “Don’t do this again, okay? Don’t hurt yourself. Give it to me. I can handle it. Just… don’t carry this alone.”
But he didn’t get it. He couldn’t just take the pain. It wasn’t that simple.
But in that moment, I let myself believe, even if it was just for a second, that maybe I didn’t have to be alone in this. Maybe someone could help me, even if it didn’t feel real.
But the memories, the voices—they were still there. They always would be.
