Yesterday I got beaten by my dad for protecting my mother. I don’t look forward to what will happen today. I constantly worry for my mother’s life. Honestly, I would be happier if my dad was dead, or at least had a divorce. I am living with such a large burden that is not mine to bear. I am ashamed of how I cut myself to relieve the mental pain. How the sensation of cold metal slicing through the damp skin almost makes me happy. I can control the physical pain, just block it out. Mental pain is different, it keeps coming back, like waves to a never-ending ocean, and those waves are flooding over my collapsed barrier, drowning everything. I walked casually down the hall with a perfect act. Nobody would ever find out my true self. I was hiding the fact that every night, I walk home to a place that could hardly be called a home, to be attacked by my father, and laughed at by my mother. I hid every emotion in a skin deep barrier. Nobody knew that I wasn’t Mr. Popular or captain of the football team…no, no. I’m just me, no one else. It’s just a disguise. I may look happy on the outside, but if you could feel how I feel on the inside, you would understand. When I go home, you wouldn’t recognize me. When I lay my head down on my bed, scared for mine, and my mother’s life, you can see my true personality. Who I really am. My thoughts, my friends, those things make up who I really am. But, one day, my life changed forever. My secret was revealed. It all started with my mother. The very person I vowed to protect, crushed my purpose for existing. I was protecting my mom as usual when I saw a look in my “father” I’ve never seen before. I, regretingly, picked up the knife from under my foot. He jumped on me, landing right on the knife. I looked into my father’s eyes in his last moment of life. “I’m sorry boy” Tears flowed down my cheeks. I wasn’t really listening to my mother’s shouting, and then I heard something I would never forget. The words “I wish you were never born” rang out through my mind. As if she understood what she just said, she stopped talking. Then kept right on going. I clenched and unclenched the knife in my hand again and again. The problem was, my only friend I ever knew was right there. The next day I couldn’t hold back the emotion. Everyone backed away from me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up and sprinted out of the classroom. I ran for the bathroom and screamed for them to get out. A tsunami of emotion flooded over the barrier and engulfed the rest of my body. I couldn’t control what happened next. I thought of all the punches I took for my mother. I can’t believe she took that for granted! I pulled out the razor blade from my pocket. The sensation of cold metal ripping the skin warmed me. The blood dripped down the side of my arm. I was releasing the anger built up inside, just in my own way. I walked back to the classroom, tears flooding from my eyes. There was solidified blood crusting over my arm. I could feel the pressure of all the perfect little kids looking, starring at anything different than them. At last I had enough. I ran from the school, from my disguise, from my old life. I found an old, abandoned bridge; It was nice and lonely there. No one was here to laugh or stare at me. I walked down to the edge of the bridge. I looked across the edge, at the tempting rocks spiking out of the ocean, and the answer was clear.