Harry had always felt different. When he looked at the other kids at his school he saw them laughing and playing with big smiles on their faces. Harry did not feel like that. Not at all.

He kicked a clot of dirt forwards as he walked the perimeter of the playground. Maybe, he thought, if he had some friends, he might feel that way too.

But no one liked him. They all thought he was weird and strange and they all looked at him funny.

And the worst part was that he WAS weird. He WAS strange. And he knew it, and it hurt. But he did not know what to do about it.

Every single time he tried to talk to someone he got scared. Really scared. Even looking at someone made him scared, because he never knew why they were looking.

Sure, he looked at people all the time. He studied them. But he needed to. He needed to because he needed to understand WHY they were smiling, how they could smile like that, and maybe... if he figured that out he could smile too.

In class whenever they had to work with a partner Harry got nervous. It wasnt that he didn't know what to say, it wasnt that he didnt understand people, it was because sometimes he felt he understood too much.

There was constantly all this stuff coming at him. All of these ideas would flood his head and he wouldnt be able to figure out up from down, smiles from frowns, friendship from danger. It would all come at him, all these ideas. He knew that some of them were wrong. Some of them just did not make SENSE. Why would the other kids want to hurt him? They werent spies. They werent robots. They were not out to get him in any way. Sometimes he knew this. Sometimes he did. But it didnt stop it from feeling real. And it didnt stop the ideas from coming.

He never smiled. Never. He was afraid of smiling. But he would feel like every single muscle in his body would light up. Sometimes. And he would move. And move. And move. And he wouldn't stop. And people would laugh and his teachers would all think he was acting out. And he would get so so angry because they just didnt understand. He couldnt help it. He had to move. If he didn't, it felt like he would explode.

He hated himself. He wished and wished he could stop. But everything hurt all the time. It was all he could do to try to be normal sometimes. It was a huge effort. It was like sometimes he would get to a point where everything felt clear, but then, some new idea would come into his head and it would hurt him. It would force itself on him. And hed get scared. He was scared. All the time.

But people didnt really know this. Either that, or they didnt really care. He was just weird. He was just a troublemaker. He was just bad. He was just a freak.

He was never good enough. No matter how hard he tried, and he tried hard, eventually it would all start swirling around. It was so hard to pull it all apart. All the real would mix with the fake so it was like trying to turn purple back into blue and red. And he was so tired. All the time. But he was always moving. There was so much going on in his head that if he didnt move he knew something terrible would occur. And he knew he could not let that happen. His skin felt as if it was on fire.

So group projects. They were hard for him. There was so much going on in his head, that everything going on outside of his head felt as if were just sucking every ounce of strength out of him. It was as if the world was laughing at him. Every time he would feel that he 'understood' that he knew what was actually going on... something else would be thrown at him.

And he was only a child.

But people thought he was a monster.

He thought he was a monster.

And that was another one of the worst things.

So he would try. And he would fail. And so he would try again. And fail again. And again. And again. And each time he would try... he would try a little less. Give up on a few more goals. He wanted to be the most popular kid in class, well. He couldnt handle that without throwing something at someone or yelling at someone on occasion. So. Eventually. It became- just have a friend. Just one person. And then when he would realize that that was too much for him- when he would have more of 'those' ideas about them... it would become... just let someone not hate me. Anyone.

Maybe he wouldnt feel so lonely then.

His relatives did not know what to do with him. They had never been kind to him, ever. They hit him sometimes, when he had done something completely stupid. The one time he called his uncles boss, completely sure that somehow he was in on some plot- of which at the moment he couldnt remember, but at the time had felt like it made more than sense- to destroy the family. He was so upset that by the end of it he had crawled into his cupboard, into the smallest ball he could, and cried.

His uncle had come home that night, after his boss had expressed concern about his uncles 'off nephew', and had hit him. With a belt. It hurt. His uncle hit him with the belt a lot, he hit him really with anything he could find. But Hardy wasnt angry about this. He used to be, but now, if anything, it made him feel better.

Because he was bad. He did all of these bad things. He deserved to be punished. Maybe this was God making things right. And it felt so pure. It felt so clean. His mind felt so clear, as he focused on the fact that... he was getting what he deserved. It made sense. It was right. He brought so much pain, that he deserved pain too. And it made him feel better. It made him feel less guilty.

And so he started hurting himself. First. Bit by bit. Nothing big. Just when, when things were very confusing, he would grip his wrist a bit too hard. When it felt like the world was spinning around him but he was forbidden to move, he would run a few fingernails down his arm. When he saw in someones eyes that something he said had scared them, he would bite down on his lip quickly.

It made him feel better. And selfishly, and ashamedly he felt, it helped him. It made things clear, just for a second. It was never enough, but it was one of the most wonderful feelings when it did happen. He wasnt scared then. He could focus on the pain, on getting what he deserved.

Eventually, it got to be more and more. He needed more and more. It was never enough, but maybe if he kept at it he could pretend it was. He could enjoy himself in his little escapes from pain and confusion, just for a while. Just. Its not like he wanted to hurt himself. He knew it was a shameful thing, another one of the many shameful things about himself, but he didnt know what else to do.

This was clear. This made sense. And he deserved it.

The number of scars on his arms grew quickly. Before he knew it he was hurting himself multiple times a day. Any chance he could he would hurt himself in some way. He didnt know if people saw. He had mixed feelings about it. If they saw... would they stop him? Did he want them to?

This was all he had.

He wore long sleeves. The marks on his arms and on the rest of his body grew more grotesque. Larger. More dramatic. More desperate. When he looked at them he felt a mixture of both revulsion and fascination. Maybe a bit of pride as well. He was cutting away all the badness.

This was something he COULD do. This was something he HAD. Something no one could take away from him. He got to decide. He wasnt confused. He was in control.

But he wasnt.

He knew that. But it was nice sometimes to pretend. To pretend that when he hurt himself, the bad stuff would go away forever, instead of coming back almost immediately after. That this was helping him. He couldnt accept anything different.

So he was weird. No one liked him. Why would they? He didnt even like himself. And he was so tired. So tired of feeling awful. So tired of feeling confused. So tired of feeling bad.

So when he went home that night, woke up the next morning, and there was a letter for him... he couldnt imagine just how much his world would change.