Chez, I've never been honest with you, it's too hard but you deserve to understand why I'm a monster. And I'm sorry for what you're going to read.
I remember the first time, we were at the holiday home, me and you were outside playing hide and seek with Nana but Da said I had to come inside and put my toys away. I think I was 8 maybe 9 and I always done what Da said.
So I went up into the room and started putting them into the toy box when he came in and locked the door behind him. I didn't know what was going on, who would? He told me to lie on the bed and he touched me, I tried to move away but he wouldn't let me. On the first occasion he just touched me but even then I knew it was wrong.
He always told me I was his special boy, that I was different from you, that I couldn't tell anyone because they wouldn't believe me. The violence started shortly after that, he came into my room and dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and he punched me. And then he raped me telling me it was my fault for being a girly faggot, for being a puff; that this is what happens to boys like me.
It went on for years, I told him I was going to tell my Ma or Nana when I was 14 but then he said he would hurt you. That if he couldn't do it to me it would have to be you instead; I couldn't let him hurt you Chez so I didn't say a thing. That's why as soon as I turned 18 I never saw him again, I thought as long as he wasn't in my life it wouldn't affect me.
But when I realised I was gay I couldn't handle it. That everything he had ever said about me what true that I was a puff so I thought everything else he said was true. That I'd end up like him, I was a monster that deserved everything I got. That's why I married Eileen; I thought if I had kids these feeling for other men would go away, that I'd be normal and then nothing he ever said was right.
He's the reason I always push people away because if no one is allowed close then they can't hurt you. I need to feel like I'm in control that I'm more powerful than everyone else because I spent my whole childhood feeling useless.
All I've ever wanted to do was protect you, I don't go about it in the right away but it's the only way I know. I just don't know how to do it any more, I've got no fight left, and I just want it all to end. I felt like I was starting to take control of the anger, that I was getting better but then Joel's step Da turned up and he was hitting him. I couldn't handle it, he's only a kid; I wanted him to take the power back like I never did. It's the only way to let go.
We roughed him up a bit and that's all we did until he hurt Theresa so we dangled him off a lighthouse and when he was scared enough we brought him back up. He swung for me and Joel got in the way and he fell. And that's when I knew I really was a monster because I felt relieved that he was dead just like I'd always wished Da was. It felt like something had been lifted and although Mick had never sexually abused Joel he still battered him- no one should hit a child.
But when we went to the holiday home and I walked into that room I could remember everything he ever done. And then Nana came in just like he used to, she told me that she'd known what Da was doing all along and she never tried to stop him.
They took away my childhood, my life never really began, Nana said he picked on my because I was quiet and sweet so I made sure I was never like that again. I turned into a freak because of them and I've always wanted to change but I don't know how Chez this is all I've ever known.
I'm sorry I've hurt you I never wanted to; all I've ever wanted to do was protect you.