People want to say you weren't always like this, that something bad had to happen for you to be so hateful. They don't want to admit babies can be born wrong, that you're just a bad egg formed in a womb you tore apart. Mommy killer. They want to blame her death first, too. Mommy died so little Henry got all fucked up. Her loss doesn't register.

Your first memory is screaming so loud and for so long your father puts you down in your cradle and walks away. Glass shattering type screams. He says you never stopped, your tiny lungs held too much air and expelled their pain with the screeches of an infant.

---

Teachers tell your father, "he's quite bright for his age" while you slobber on a Wahl-Eversharp mechanical pencil and seem to hate the taste of it, crisp metal with no give, but try biting it anyway and chip your front tooth. Your signature grin has a funny hole you lisp words through now, but it doesn't matter because your baby teeth haven't fallen out yet. Your delighted giggling unnerves them and your big brown eyes through messy curls of hair portrays only innocence. You're wondering why they seem so concerned. It's because you didn't chip a tooth, you broke it, and blood is dripping from the corners of your mouth.

---

Your neighbor finds you crouched in the middle of the street, poking and prodding fresh roadkill. Your fingertips are cherry stained and wet as you stretch and snap exposed muscle apart. When they try to grab you, you sink your teeth into their arm. Your father lashes you for that, badly, which makes you more careful. Do whatever you want just don't get caught, you think.

---

You get caught. Dirty bathroom stall with your fist curled in another student's hair while you bang his face against the seat of the toilet. His front teeth shatter on the porcelain and you're numb to the pleading, 'Please stop', is what he tries to say, but it comes out muffled and choked because his nose is broken and blood is caught in his throat. Never never never never never. For every never comes another bash, another bang, and your arm is tired and aching and the roll of have to have to have to goes on and on until the crying stops and blood is everywhere and violence covers you. Some is in your eye and you're squinting, winking down at this innocent kid you've just beaten to a bloody pulp. His jaw is broken and makes his mouth hang open at a strange angle. When the stillness hits you, adrenaline pumping through your veins, you vomit.

You spend some time talking to a psychiatrist afterward before transferring to another school. They keep you for hours and then days and analyze you and bore the living fuck out of you so you give them answers that make them have to circle back thinking you outsmart them. The doctors tell your father to keep a close eye on you and send you home with some pills that you don't take because they make you feel funny.

---

Puberty hits and girls ignore your past for your looks. Sexual behavior starts too early and sends you into overdrive. Fumbling through uniforms just looking for a release, hard in a classroom while a teacher talks about nothing and you make eyes with a girl who will suck you off in the bathroom later. Sinful behavior thats all the better when you're not supposed to do it. You keep your grades high and don't show your work, and sometimes you raise a hand just to prove your teachers wrong— it gives you a sense of power.

Losing your virginity would be easy if you didn't want to make it difficult. You're sweet because that's what people want. You get what you want when you're sweet, it pays to be nice. Nice with a little danger. Nice with dominance beneath it. Your best friends mother is widowed and she's sad all the time, so you talk about that. You practice what to say in the mirror until you sound genuine and really talk to her. You go out of your way to pass by her bedroom even though the bathroom is down the other hallway. She's young, twenty-eight and pretty and you tell her what you think she wants to hear, coming from a fifteen year old boy. When you kiss her she slaps you and the pain stings. You stare at the floor in stunned-shock silence, but your father has hit you harder.

She regrets it immediately. Caresses your face and tells you how sorry she is. You make tears well, lips pouty, fake guilt pouring out and you tell her she's exactly the type of mother you'd want, which makes her cave for you. She teaches you how to suckle on her nipples and allows you under her skirt to suck her there, too. When she comes on your face you get to fuck her, but she calls it making love. You call her mother and make her one.

Then it gets complicated. You're not allowed over anymore and your best friend moves away after all the rumors. People have their suspicions about you and boys don't want you over at their houses in case you seduce their mother. Fathers hate you. You never liked them. The isolation makes you lash out. Fights every other weekend becomes every weekend becomes a jail cell becomes getting bailed out by your old man becomes not getting bailed out. No one understands– your grades are high. Your IQ is at 162. So what did they have you do? Have you enlist in the army, that'll straighten you out.

"I'll come back for you," you say to your father. "I'll come back for you if you don't drown yourself in booze first."