My 10-year-old son started acting really off lately. It began subtly, just a quietness I hadn’t seen before. Then it escalated. He was shutting me out, retreating into himself like a snail into its shell. His bright, inquisitive eyes became distant, clouded. He’d barely speak to his friends, preferring to sit alone, staring into space. School notes started coming home – missed assignments, declining grades. It wasn’t like him. Not at all. I tried talking to him. I tried everything. Gentle inquiries over dinner, playful nudges while watching his favorite show, even sitting on his bed and just… being there. He just kept brushing me off. “I’m fine,” he’d mumble, or “Nothing, leave me alone.” Each dismissal was a tiny knife twist in my gut. Was I failing him? Was this normal? My heart ached with a worry so profound, it became a constant dull throb in my chest. I felt like I was watching him slip away, and I had no idea how to pull him back.
One night, the throb turned into a sharp spike of anxiety. I woke up, disoriented by the dark, and reached for him. My hand met empty sheets. My husband wasn’t in bed.
A jolt went through me. He never left the bed in the middle of the night unless it was for the bathroom, and he always came straight back. But the bed was cold. How long had he been gone? My mind raced, creating a thousand ridiculous scenarios. He was restless, maybe? Getting water? The house was silent, too silent. A heavy, suffocating silence that pressed down on me.
I slipped out of bed, my bare feet cold on the floorboards. I checked the bathroom – empty. The kitchen – dark. My heart began to pound a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Where was he? This wasn’t like him. Not with the way things had been with our son, not with the worry that had consumed us both. I found myself creeping towards his home office, a place he usually only used for work during the day. The door was slightly ajar, a sliver of light escaping.
I pushed it open, slowly, my breath catching in my throat. He was there, alright. Sitting at his desk, but not on his computer. He was hunched over, his shoulders slumped, bathed in the soft glow of a small desk lamp. In his hands was an old, faded photo album. And next to him, a small, worn leather journal.
Relief washed over me, quickly followed by a wave of confusion. He looked utterly desolate. His face was pale, drawn, his eyes rimmed with red. He hadn’t even heard me come in. I took a step closer. The photo in his hands was of him, a skinny, awkward boy of about ten, standing alone on a playground.
My eyes fell to the journal. It was old, maybe from his childhood. A strange impulse made me reach for it. He didn’t stir. I gently picked it up. The cover was scuffed, the pages yellowed. I opened it to a random page. The handwriting was childish, scrawling.
And then I started reading.
October 12th. They tripped me again today. Said I was a loser. Nobody wants to play with a loser. Just want to disappear.
My breath hitched. The words, simple and stark, echoed with a familiar pain. A pain I’d been seeing in my own son’s eyes. I flipped through more pages. Entry after entry described exactly what our son was going through: the isolation, the fear, the relentless bullying, the feeling of being invisible. It was his story. His childhood trauma, laid bare on these yellowed pages. He hadn’t told me any of this, not in all our years together.
I looked at him, my husband, hunched over the memories of a pain he’d carried silently for decades. He was reliving it, trying to understand, trying to find a way to help our son because he knew what it felt like. But he couldn’t bring himself to talk to me about his own past. He was trying to “fix” it alone, just like he wished someone had fixed it for him.
And then I saw it. Tucked within the pages, sticking out slightly. A loose sheet of paper. It wasn’t yellowed. The paper was crisp, new. And the handwriting… it wasn’t his childish scrawl. It was our son’s hand.
I pulled it out, my fingers trembling. The words blurred for a moment, then came into horrifying focus.
“Dad, I found your journal. I feel like you’re the only one who gets it. They said if I tell, they’ll hurt you too.”
My world spun. He wasn’t just reading his past. He wasn’t just trying to figure it out. OUR SON KNEW. He knew his father’s secret pain. And now, they were sharing a new, terrifying secret, a bond forged in fear and silence, locking me out. He wasn’t in bed because he was consumed, not just by his past, but by the weight of a present terror shared only with his son. And the most heartbreaking part? I was outside of it. COMPLETELY outside.
