Sad, Scared, Confused is a conversation between a nine year old boy and his parents about sexual abuse. This book can be a resource to educate all children about sexual abuse whether they have experienced it or not. In this book, Alex did not realiz...
It was the first week of summer vacation and he was excited to spend as much time as possible with his best friend, Kenny. They were like two peas in a pod – riding skateboards together, doing canon ball competitions in the pool and spending hours and hours gaming at Kenny's house. They had been making plans for their summer break and they expected everything to be perfect.
But something happened today at Kenny's house that wasn't perfect. In fact, it made Alex feel really sad, scared and confused.
When Alex got home from Kenny's, he could smell fish frying in the kitchen – his favorite. But rather than dropping his baseball glove in the doorway and making a bee line to the table, Alex went past the kitchen and upstairs to his room.
A little while later, his mom came to his bedroom door.
"Alex, it's time for dinner. Dad made fish!"
"I'm not hungry," Alex said as he sat on his bed and turned his head away.
"What? The boy who ate the most fish at the Friday night fish fry doesn't have any more room in his stomach? Did you and Kenny eat too much junk food today?"
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Alex didn't say anything. He just stared at the wall across his room.
His mom's face grew serious.
"Alex, did you eat too much junk food today or did something else happen?"
Alex just shrugged his shoulders and continued to look at the wall.
By this point, Alex's dad had come upstairs. He saw the concerned look on Alex's mom's face so he stood in the doorway while his mom went inside and sat down on Alex's bed.
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"Alex," she said softly. "Did something happen today while you were at Kenny's house?"
Again, Alex said nothing. He pulled his knees up to his chest and tried to bury his head inside. When he was a little boy, he thought he could make himself invisible when he did this.
His mom looked over at his dad as he walked over to join them on the bed.
"Alex," his dad said. "Do you remember the other day when we had to change the bandage on your knee? You really didn't want to do it."
"That's right!" his mom said. "You came up with so many reasons why we should leave it there." She laughed a little as she said, "I think the best line was when you said you wanted to leave it on for a Science Fair Project. 'What does a bandage look like after being on a boy's knee for one hundred and sixty two days?'"
Mom tried to make her voice funny when she said this. That would usually make Alex laugh, but not today.
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Dad chuckled for a moment as well.
"That was a classic Alex excuse for sure. But once you mustered up the courage, took a deep breath and let me rip it off, it started to feel better. There was a lot of ucky stuff under that bandage. Once we were able to clean it off, it started getting better! Look at it now. It is all healed up except for that little, white scar."
Alex picked up his head a little to look at his knee. Sure enough, his skin had grown back together and just left a white line to remind him of his epic skateboarding stunt. Well, at least it would have been epic if he hadn't fallen and scraped up his knee.
