He had a secret. He never told anyone because he was afraid of what they would think. It was dirty, nasty, and he live with guilt for most of his life because of it. His mother didn’t know. In fact, the only other person that did was her boyfriend, a man he could never bring himself to call dad.
He was around six years old when his mother brought her new boyfriend home one night. The boyfriend was a bad man. He drank and smoked, and when he got high he would beat her. When he got really high, the boyfriend molested him, forcing him to do things that would never be forgiven.
Nearly twenty years later he still lived with the guilt. Because of the boyfriend, he would be forever broken. It was never spoken of, but it always lingered in the back of his mind.
It all came tumbling out one night after a family gathering. He was in the back room when the boyfriend came in. The boyfriend was high again and was berating him, calling him weak, stupid, gay.. he lost it.
He beat the boyfriend. For all the wrongs, all the hurt, all the anger, it was all released in an instant.
Two weeks later, he was arrested.
He knew it was coming, he could feel it. As much as he tried to escape his past, it always came back. It was worth it, the boyfriend deserved it. He did his best to make sure the boyfriend never hurt him again.
It wasn’t until a couple days later that he learned the horrible truth. The arrest wasn’t about the beating. Police found photos on his computer. Pictures of kids in the neighborhood, some worse than others.
Of course he denied it. In fact, he was in shock. He knew what it felt like to be molested, why would he inflict that on others? They took him to the county jail, which was like unlike anything he ever experienced. The place was crawling with cockroaches and bedbugs. He made the mistake of letting people find out what he was in for and soon found himself being assaulted by more than just the bugs. He found a way to survive though, he had to, if only to prove his innocence.
What he found out later was that the boyfriend, afraid that he would tell everyone what was done, and still reeling from the beating, planted those photos and then called the police. His mother, either from fear or misguided love, sided with the boyfriend.
The images contained pictures of kids he grew up with. Despite everything he still loved his mother and did everything he could to help her. He let her borrow one of his older computers for a couple weeks while hers was in the shop. That was his first mistake. His second was trusting her to believe him. At the trial his mother called him an unruly child with authority issues.
The public defender tried to show the district attorney that it wasn’t him, but with only a couple hours prep time, it just wasn’t enough. He got a plea deal for 20 years.
Nine years later, he’s still trying to understand. The boyfriend is still free and most likely still doing what he always has. And there’s nobody there to stop him.
