There was this moment where it was like frozen. I was frozen. This Ms. Suave person knew, she saw the bruises I always hid. An adult, an authority figure knew about it now and that was bad. Bad, bad, bad. This was the deep secret. No one could know. No one. And now someone did. I didn't know how much more I could admit. I wanted to deny it all. People got injured in other ways, it wasn't all from being hit and kicked and strapped.

"Craig?" I still wasn't looking at them, at either of them. I wanted to just crawl under the floor. I could feel my cheeks burning red. This was so embarrassing. Pity. Sympathy. Tears drying on my cheeks. I wiped them angrily away.

"Your father did this to you?" Ms. Suave asked so gently, her voice was so nice and kind and it made me feel weird. Like I wasn't myself. And I felt like they were both being careful around me and with me, careful with what they said and how they said it. But it was also taking on the tones of unreality. Like a dream. Or a T.V. show from the fifties that was in black and white and the people kept making references to things you'd never heard of.

"No," I said, and my voice sounded far away. I blinked. I couldn't breathe right, I felt dizzy.

"Craig, come here, sit down," She lead me to a chair, a comfortable overstuffed chair and I just sunk into it. I heard her tell Emma to go back to class and Emma left quietly, and I heard the door softly click behind her.

"Craig, I know this is hard for you, and you don't want your father to get into trouble. But if he did that to you, if he hurt you like that, it probably isn't going to get better. He'll hurt you worse than that. But if you tell someone then you can both get help. If he's hurting you he needs help, too. So take a deep breath, relax," She took a deep breath when she told me to do it and I did, pulling the air into my lungs, trying to relax but I couldn't at all.

"Did your father hurt you?" she said, and I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her.

"Yeah," I said, and my voice was all shaky, "he did,"

"Okay, we'll get you help," she said.

Help. What kind of help would that be? Arresting my father? That wouldn't be good. None of this was good. I never should have let Emma do this. I should have lied, kept lying. I watched her pick up the phone and call Children's Aid, and I thought that maybe it was okay. Enough was enough, after all. I was tired of being hit all the time, of worrying about everything all the time. Just tired.

Still, it hurt to change things. Even when those things are bad, it hurt. I listened to her explain that I was being beaten and that they should send someone right away because I was in school and it would be better if I didn't have to go home today and I listened with this incredulous feeling. It was almost like she wasn't even talking about me.

She hung up the phone, smiled at me, a sad little smile. I gripped the arms of the chair I was sitting in. My head was starting to ache. My mouth felt dry.

"Someone from Children's Aid is going to come and talk to you, ask you some questions," she said, and I groaned. Talking, talking, talking. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to do this.

"Okay," I said, and the headache pounded in my temples. I didn't know if I should go back to class or what, but I didn't think I could really concentrate too well.

All I could think was how mad my dad would be, but then I'd think maybe that wouldn't matter anymore. Maybe he really did need help, that he lost his patience too much no matter how stressful work was.