"I want you to think back, back to when you were a little kid or a toddler and remember your first scar. Please write about it, was it a sports injury? Was it a fight you got in with your sibling? Tell me about what you think about when you see that scar."

I could feel myself start to freak out, my first scar? The long white strip that stretched across my chest burned at the memory.

"This will be due tomorrow, please make it at least two pages."

The classroom burst into movement as the students around me pulled out their notebooks and laptops. I stayed still in my seat, dreading what I had to do.

I could definitely lie, but writing… writing was my safe place, writing a lie would be lying to myself; it felt wrong.

Would he read them? I would be safe if he didn't read them; he never read them anyway, just making sure there were an appropriate amount of pages.

I would be fine.

My mother made my first scar when I was seven and I remember the occurrence very clearly. It was the first time she had ever taken a knife to me and I was terrified, I had never thought it would go this far. The silvery gleam of the knife rivaled the hateful gleam in my mother's eyes.

I had never thought that my mother could hate me that much.

I hadn't really done anything to deserve it; my mother just snapped that day. I look too much like my father is what she says.

The scar stretches from my shoulder to my hip, covering almost the entirety of my chest, when it is in the sunlight it shines white, when it is in the dark it looks dull. Sometimes when I move around too much it gets irritated and red and because it was such a big wound I need to be a little wary of how I stretch the skin of that area.

When I see the scar I remember what my mom does to me and it makes it kind of hard to see the bright side of things.

I hope no one has to read this. I am sorry. –Matthew