Helping Others Out

Chapter 7

A look into the past of Marco Bodt.

Trigger warnings: mentions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, mentions of eating disorders, depression, child abuse, emotional abuse, bullying, and unplanned pregnancies.

Heyyyy, guys ...

So, uh, don't hate me. You all knew this was coming. If any of the aforementioned warnings are triggers for you, please, be cautious or don't even read the chapter. I can put a brief summary of the chapter in the end notes, if you still want to know some of what happened in Marco's childhood. I love you all, so please, please be careful. Your safety is more important than my story.

Here are 1,857 words of Marco's past.

~O~O~O~O~O~

Mr. and Mrs. Bodt had their lives planned out: get married, work to become financially stable, have a child or two, slow down their lives a little, then retire and spend time with their grandchildren. They wanted a nice, calm life, and to go through everything on their list in order.

What they didn't expect was for a child to come before the money did. So to make up for their ruined plans, they planned out Baby Bodt's future. Their child would excel in school, get a scholarship to some great college, get a well-paying job to give them money, and once he was done with all that, he'd be free to do whatever he pleased.

Baby Bodt was born a few months after the initial surprise wore off, and he was named Marco.

Marco's parents became very annoyed at his presence very fast. They ignored him when he cried for a diaper change, for more food, to be rocked back to sleep, and many other things that they deemed to be unnecessary. Of course, they did feed him, change his diaper, and put him to sleep, but on a schedule.

He learned not to cry when he thought he wanted something or when it wasn't appropriate, because he knew crying would be pointless. Well, he thought all this in baby terms, but I assure you, he stopped crying as much as a normal baby would. Often, baby sitters would comment on how quiet he was and Mrs. Bodt would say it was because she taught him to be obedient. When they asked about the schedule and why it was in place, she would change the subject.

Marco's first words came at an early age. Or, Mr. and Mrs. Bodt claimed the garbles he would sometimes utter out were English. Marco rarely made a noise, so they couldn't be proven wrong.

Fast forward a few years and Baby Bodt was no longer a baby, but instead an elementary school student.

The kids at school always laughed at Marco's freckles, but that never bothered him too much. He was an oblivious child, having not yet seen the true horrors of the world. A bad day for him was when he had green beans at dinner. He didn't know what hate was---but then again, he didn't know what love was either.

In his third grade class, he got his first ever 'B.' Mr. and Mrs. Bodt were far less than pleased, and they yelled at him, scaring him into getting good grades. After that, he made sure he always got an 'A' or an 'A+' on everything.

That is, until sixth grade. Marco was having a difficult time in his history class. There were just too many specific dates and names in one of the chapters, and on that test, he scored an eighty-three percent. When he got the test back, he sat there and stared, afraid of what his parents would do to him. That was the lowest grade he had ever gotten in his life, and he was terrified. His peers laughed at him, not knowing why tears were pooling in his eyes and why he looked like he had just seen a ghost. They called him a "typical nerd," laughed at his freckles, and didn't care that his ever-present care-free smile was gone. Not even the teacher cared, considering the class average was a seventy-six percent. Marco had done well, in his eyes.