Many people have asked questions about my childhood. I always say the same thing. It was ideal. And it was. I never tell psychologists or reporters anything more about my younger years. It makes them angry that I won't say anything else. Up until high school, my life was pretty much perfect. I lived in a white picket fence neighborhood. My parents had well paying jobs with lots of time off. My siblings were older and in college by the time I was born, so my parents had plenty of time to spend with me. We were all healthy and happy. I should have turned out fine. I should have ended up like my parents. I should have been like my older siblings, with college degrees and spouses and children and happy lives and taking their kids to baseball games and ice cream afterwards and going to their daughters ballet recitals and buying a car for your son when he turns 16 and watching your kids throw their hats up in the air at graduation and growing old together and watching your grandchildren grow up and I am just rambling and I will stop now. Sorry. But, you get the point, I should not have been not like this. Life has a funny way of surprising you. They all think that I'm hiding something, that my parents abused me, or my neighbor raped me, or I had a severe head injury when I was a kid. No one made me this way.
High school is when I started to change. I was the same person on the outside, but inside a storm was brewing. I was that kid that moms wanted their daughters to date. I didn't do drugs, I played sports but wasn't a shithead jock, I was at the top of the class and deserved it, and I spent my weekends volunteering at children's hospitals. Not to brag, but I was a good person back then. I would be a good person now too, but my brain decided otherwise. I don't want to go on some long drawn-out sob story about my life, but it's kinda important to the rest of this thing so i'll try and sum it up.
My freshman year started like all other years, I was refreshed from summer and ready to get going on school. I had plenty of classes with my friends and was ecstatic for the high school experience to begin. If I could go back in time I would slap that little hopeful bastard with the cold hard reality of what he would become. Sorry, back on track. So, I got through first semester, everything was cruising along just fine; our team went to semi-state for football, I was playing varsity on the basketball team, I was third ranked in my class, and my sister had just given birth to my nephew. I started feeling weird (and it wasn't just puberty) and I tried to hide it. I smiled in the hallway at friends and teachers, even though it felt like a lie. I finished up the basketball season as one of the top scorers, but my heart wasn't really in it anymore. No one noticed, except for Ms. Allen, my writing teacher. She kept me after class one day, she was concerned.
"Mr. Knight, do you know why I am keeping you after class today?" She asked softly.
I shrugged, I really didn't know.
"I've was grading your writing and couldn't help but notice that your compositions have taken quite a dark turn." She waited for me to say something.
I didn't respond, but tried to avoid eye contact.
"Martin, look me in the eye," she had a very serious tone.
I did.
"Is something going on Mr. Knight, be honest, i'll know if you're lying." She meant it.
I spoke for the first time, "No, of course not Ms. Allen, everything is fine. I'm sorry for making you worry, I was just trying something new with my writing."
She stared hard at me for what seemed like forever. I could feel my self squirming in the unbreakable silence.
"Martin, sit, let me tell you a story." I listened and sat down, the late bell already rung and she didn't have a class that period.
"I've lived a long time and had many students walk through that door and into my class. Even my own children were in my class. There are things that you can express through writing that you can't say out loud, and sometimes your stories can find things about you that you don't even know. As I said, my children all took my class at some point. I thought my son was fine, he reminds me of you, athletic, kind, a good kid. He took my class his sophomore year. I did think that he was having any problems, until I began to read his writing. I became increasingly worried as the year went on and his stories became darker and darker, but on the outside he never changed. One day he wrote a story about a boy who was playing with his father's gun and accidentally shot and killed himself. I was going to ask him about it when I got home, but he never came home. We called the police and they said that they had just found him, sitting on a park swing with a gun in his hand in a bullet in his head." She took a deep breath and slumped back in her chair.
"My son died, Martin, and nobody would have ever expected it. Just think about that, and if you ever want to talk, I'll always be available." She patted me on the shoulder and left me in the classroom alone. I got up too, but my legs gave out and I crumbled to the floor.
That was the first time that I ever cried at school.
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It turns out Ms. Allen was pretty spot on, but I suck at tying knots.
YOU ARE READING
The Donor
Horror"It's your choice. You can continue with your worthless life, or you can become someone that matters." These wise words were the beginning of a new era for Martin Knight. Drunk, lonely, and penniless, Martin wanted to turn his life around. He had q...