Dear Jack (Visual Story)

Chapter Twenty Five

Warning: This is going to get very detailed and very intense. Please be advised before reading. You can still turn back now, skip this chapter completely and save your minds from the trauma that is about to unfold. Because it will one hundred and ten percent make you feel something. It will probably make you ball your eyes out. You have been warned.

Tyler

I knew I had to tell her. She had poured out every last detail of her life and I had promised to do the same. The problem was I had never told anyone. Not a single soul.

I had never even spoken it aloud to myself. I told myself if I didn't talk about it, it would go away. I wanted desperately to forget, to push it to the back of my mind where I wouldn't have to think about it ever again, but it never seemed to stay there. It always rose to the surface, haunting me like the Ghost of Christmas Past haunted Scrooge.

Nina's gonna show you how to be a real man.

Those ten words defined me. Even more than all of the "lessons" my dad had taught me. Even more than my mother leaving. Even more than every single bit of pain I had ever went through combined together as a whole.

I stood there, staring ahead of me, seeing only the scene of that night in my head. It was so clear, so vivid I could feel the red silk sheets gliding across my body, I could taste the sweat that dripped down from her forehead into my mouth as I begged her to stop.

I gulped down a glass of water, trying to taste anything else. Trying to erase the feelings of uncleanliness from my body. But it was there, a pungent reminder of everything I was desperate to be rid of.

"TJ, take off your clothes. Nina's gonna show you how to be a real man." She said, running her hands up and down my arms.

I was confused, my mind was running in circles, creating swirls of living color inside my head.

Be a man was what my dad drilled into me on a daily basis, yet I never seemed to measure up. I could never make him happy.

What could Nina possibly show me that would change his mind? I was only eleven, a child, so why did I need to be a man? Weren't eleven year olds supposed to be playing Nintendo with their friends? Roller skating around the cul-de-sac until dark? Climbing trees and making forts in the woods?

And why did I need to be naked?

My hands shook as I pondered if I should do this. If I should take her advice and do as she said to maybe finally please my dad and learn how to be a man.

"Come on TJ, do what I said. We don't have a lot of time. If you want to be a man this is what you have to do." She said.

I could taste the cigarette smoke in the air; see the clouds of white that poured out of her mouth with every word.

This is what I have to do.

I began to undress, folding my clothes neatly like my mother had taught me to do so my father wouldn't get angry. I stopped when I was only in my underwear, looking up at her brown eyes that were watching my every move. There was a smile on her face that reminded me of the evil witch in The Wizard of Oz, as she looked me up and down.

"Those too." She said, pointing the red tip of her cigarette at me.

My lip trembled. This felt wrong. It felt so very wrong.

This is what you have to do Tyler. Just do it.

I forced back the tears, hearing my fathers voice in my head that said "don't be a pussy," and wiped at my face as I let my Hulk underwear drop to the floor. I leaned down and picked them up, folding them and adding them to the pile.