Young Life

Why Didn't You Tell Us?

I slowly open my eyes and see Thomas, Mark, MatPat, Jack, Ethan, Felix, and Tyler all encircling the couch I'm laying on.

"What's going on?" I groggily ask as I sit up to face them.

"What happened to you?" I'm confused. Do they know about-

"Nate, we know you either were or are being abused." MatPat kneels down next to me and grabs my hands. "Please, tell me, tell us who did this to you." I sigh as tears start forming in the corners of my eyes.

"M-my parents. My parents did this to me." Tears form in Ethan, Mark, Thomas, and Mat's eyes. Tyler and Felix's eyes widen and Jack looks downcast.

"I know what that's like," Jack mutters. We all turn to Jack, Mark's eyes widening in confusion and sorrow

"W-what?" He sighs and lifts up his shirt to his the top of his chest. His 4-pack abs were marred by scars. Quite a few of them. Most of them faint; a couple pretty visible. Marks walks up to him and gently runs his hands along some of the scars. Mark looks up at him with tear filled eyes.

"Is this why you moved here and became a transfer student?"Jack nods as tears come to his eyes. My gods, we learned so much today. Not only was I abused, but so was Jack.

"It was your dad, right?" I ask. Jack looks up and nods. "Lucky." People look at me.

"How is he lucky? You were both abused by your parents. I would hate it if my parents were to even hate me," Thomas says. I scoff.

"Yes, we were both abused, but he was only abused by his dad. Whereas I was abused by both my parents. Jack had his mom to protect him on nights his dad got drunk and started beating him. At least Jack had someone to protect him. I had no one." I wipe away stray tears from my eyes. I hate talking about my feelings and I'm so used to hiding the feelings that I do want to share because nobody cared. MatPat sits on the couch next to me and gives me a hug.

"How long have you been abused?"

"I was abused frahm when I was 15 oehntil me 16th birthday, so maybe ahnly one year." Everyone looks to me.

"They started abusing me a couple days after my 14th birthday, and they're still doing it, so they've been abusing me for three years." Mark gasps.

"We were dating before that. Why didn't you ever tell me." I shrug.

"I didn't want to bother you. I didn't want to have to go through this shit." I stand up to leave but collapse. Thankfully, MatPat is there to catch me. I rest my head on his shoulder as he basically drags me back to the couch. We sit down and Mark kneels down in front of us.

"Nate, we're gonna get you outta there." I just look at him. They can try, but It's not gonna work.

"If It's the last thing we do."