I think he was around 12 or 13 when things started to change. He spent more time inside. Maybe he was playing video games, but I wouldn’t know because he’d always be locked away inside his room.
He started dressing in all black. I asked him why he didn’t like his old superhero shirts anymore, and it broke my heart when his response was, “Superheroes are stupid,” before shutting his door in my face.
I talked to my wife about it, but I think she was in denial.
“Boys will be boys,” she said. “Everyone has to grow up at some point.”
It hurt to hear. Mainly because… part of me knew. I saw the warning signs. How he seemed to be attracted to darkness. How the light in his room never seemed to be on.
It was always dirty in there. Empty energy drink cans. Snack wrappers everywhere. I tried to look past it. I tried to believe that this was just a “phase,” but the black metal, angry, hate-filled music that always blasted from that room was enough to drive me to the brink of madness.
I tried my best to ignore it, but he was disrupting our peace. I wanted to approach it in a helpful, positive way. I’d always ask if he’d care to join me on a walk in the park. Maybe we could catch a movie together. Hell, maybe we could even play catch in the backyard.
He rejected every approach. It quite literally seemed like he hated me. Hated us.
Dinners were awkward and almost silent. We tried talking to him about school, but he was so avoidant.
We found out why that was when report cards came in. He was failing nearly every single class.
It caused a lot of arguments. If he failed, it meant we failed. And us failing is what I think caused a lot of the tension.
We became more strict. Set bedtimes. No video games until his schoolwork was done. No more energy drinks and no more seclusion.
We insisted on him spending more time with us, whether he liked it or not. We didn’t know what it was that was causing this change in him, but I’d be damned if I was gonna stand by and watch him slip further and further away.
I couldn’t stop thinking about who he used to be. That laugh that didn’t seem to come around as often. Those Christmas mornings where he looked at me and my wife with nothing but love and affection.
That love seemed to turn to hatred after we tightened our grip on him, though. I wanted to blame it on hormones, but his hatefulness exceeded normal teenage angst.
He started cursing at us. Screaming until his vocal cords would tear. We even had a few physical altercations because I wasn’t going to be disrespected in my own house.
Grounding wouldn’t work. He liked to be alone. It was like a reward to him. So, instead, I made him do yard work. Cut grass, weed-whack, whatever I could think of.
That’s when I think something truly broke within him. He’d act cheerful, but his words were full of resentment.
“I can’t wait for you to die so I can have the house.”
“I wish you understood how much I truly hate you.”
“When I turn 18, you two will never see me again.”
He said these things like he was discussing breakfast. Like it was completely normal. At this point, my wife was starting to see what I saw.
Every now and again, we’d catch him scribbling in a notebook. Any time he saw us watching, he’d either put it away or groan and take it to his room with him.
One night in particular, though, I woke up at around 2 in the morning. It felt like I was being watched. Like my body knew. My eyes scanned the room, and there he was. Standing in the corner of the room in front of our bed. Watching us and scribbling in that notebook.
“Go back to sleep, daddy,” he giggled.
He hadn’t called me that since he was 5 or 6. It felt like there was a stack of cinder blocks on my chest.
I asked what he was doing, and he didn’t respond. I asked him to go back to bed, and he sighed like I was inconveniencing him and stomped out of the room.
That night was the last straw. I intended to look into counseling as soon as I could the next day.
I did what I promised myself I’d do and set up the appointment, but when I went to his room to tell him about it, I found the room empty.
It smelled musty in there. The sheets were mangled and balled up on the bed. Trash littered the ground and his nightstand. But his desk… was completely clean.
On it rested that notebook he’d been scribbling in recently.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. I had to see what he was writing. I knew it was about us, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what I read.
He detailed his plan to kill us. I don’t even want to write what he said he’d do. It was graphic. It was gruesome. And it was in that same messy handwriting that he never seemed to grow out of.
My jaw dropped more and more with each paragraph. My heart raced faster and faster. But before I could finish, I heard a toilet flushing in the hallway.
I couldn’t move. I was frozen in shock.
I heard his black combat boots approaching. I heard the door push open. And I heard that giggle that I hadn’t heard in what felt like years. It was malicious this time. More sinister.
I couldn’t face him. The notebook shook in my hands as I gripped it tighter and tighter.
“Daddy…” he whimpered. “Aren’t I a good writer?”
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