May the truth set you free

So I sit here and all I can think of is that little black book. I believe I was about fifteen years old when I started showing signs of depression. I wasn't hanging out with friends as much and my grades had started to drop. Well at the age of sixteen I started seeing a counselor at school. She asked if I liked to write and so of course I said yes. One day during one of our sessions she handed me a little black book and said, "Here, I want you to have this. Write down your thoughts and feelings for the rest of the school year and before the last day if you feel up to it we can look over a few pages together."

"Thank you," was all I could say in that moment.

See as I was growing up I was the youngest of five sisters. Life wasn't always perfect but I survived. We had a lot of trauma happen and so for some reason I ended up with depression.

I remember at the age of fourteen I had learned something in school. We were learning about proactive and reactive people and how they differed from one another. For me learning a new concept I was all excited to go home and tell someone about it. When I got home, I remember talking with one of my sisters and somehow it became an argument really fast. Of course at this time having three girls going through puberty in the same house at once was tough, then we all had our own personal mental disabilities as well. So of course I'm standing in the house listening to my sister yell at me and I remember what I learned in school.

"Your such a reactive person, all I asked was this and you blew right up at me."

Next thing I know my sister is flying across the house, coming straight after me with such a temper I for sure thought I was a goner. She kept swearing in my face up and down, "What the **** did you just call me?"

I refused to tell her, I said with confidence. "If you wanted to know, you should have listened. I'm not repeating myself."

She wouldn't stop screaming in my face and yelling and asking what I had said. I stood with confidence knowing, or at least thinking, I had won this fight. Next thing I know She picks up a knife and grabs ahold of me.

"If you don't tell me what you called me, I will kill you."

All I saw was her arm move out of the corner of my eye. Then next thing I knew she was on the floor. My dad ran through the door and was able to get to us in time right before she was about to stab me.

Instead of anything happening I wasn't put into counseling at that time and I still had to live with my sister knowing what she was capable of.

So a few years later when I got that little black book I started writing everything I could. I would write about things that had happened to me and how they made me feel. How angry I was at my parents after not doing anything with my sister.

Now years later I realize not only why she is the way that she is, but why I am the way that I am. All of my sisters and I grew up with mental illnesses and the first factor on that is genetics. Then you factor in that we live in Maine and most people are vitamin D deficient in the winter time, making them more depressed and more susceptible to having mental illnesses. Then you add the fact that only one of my sisters wasn't raped or molested. We all had not only family pass away at young ages, but also friends pass away at young ages as well. So I guess you could say we were all screwed from birth.

Back to the book, sorry I tend to get distracted. That black book helped me in more ways than I could ever imagine. I was finally able to get out what I wanted to without having to risk my sisters or me being taken from the home.

Time was getting closer to me having that session with my counselor about my journal. My heart started to race whenever I thought about what I would do if anybody saw the things I had written about. How tempting it would be to just sneak into my sisters room at night and what I would do to her with a knife.

One day I remember my mom bringing me to the store. I almost walked past it at first, to be honest. I glimpsed then walked away, then realized what I had just seen. There on the shelf was an exact replica of the book my counselor had given me. I didn't have money, and didn't want my mom or anyone else knowing of it so I snuck it under my sweater I had folded up.

It felt like I was having a heart attack, but I had a way out. See I started having seizures a little while before and had just had one a few days prior. I found my mom and said, "Mom I really don't feel good. I'm getting lightheaded, is it okay if I go sit in the car?"

"Yes of course hun, I won't be too long. Here are the keys."

As soon as we got home I went and took my journal out from hiding. Oh the trouble I would be in if they found out I had thoughts of harming my sister. I made sure I had the right book in hand, the one filled with secrets. I opened the wood stove and through it in.

When I went to see my counselor for our final session before school was out, I was relieved to say that I had a little black book, just not the one she had originally given me. We spoke for a little while, then she took something out of her bag.

She had a little black book covered in soot and ashes in a zip lock bag. "Now Jammie, I understand that I can clearly see you have your little black book. Your mother took this out of the wood stove after you threw it in there. She said she hadn't tried to read it because she didn't want it damaged any more than it already was. Can you tell me why you did this and what have you written in this book before I try and read it."

Next thing I remember is waking up outside. I don't recall what happened. I try to look down at my hands but its dark and I can barely see anything. I feel something wet on my hands, but I'm not entirely sure what it is or what happened. I hear sirens getting closer.

"She's over here." Are they talking about me? Or maybe someone else.

My head is pounding, it feels like I was hit by a bus and than ran over by a train. I see lights from the cop cars so I start to walk towards them.

As I walk into the opening all I hear are guns clicking and, "put your hands where I can see them. Did you hear me, put your hands on your head now."

I finally looked at my hands as I was raising them up onto my head. They were covered in blood. No wonder all I could smell was that coppery smell. I still have no idea what was going on. I was brought to the police station where they brought in my parents to see what had happened.

I was told that there was a shooting at school that day and they thought it was me. I guess the counselor was killed first and then a bunch of faculty and students. Nobody knew what had happened to me or anything. Fortunately for me there were multiple eye witnesses.

Over the next few days I was able to shower and we were able to piece together what happened. Apparently I wasn't the only student who was given a black book. We had another student, she was in the grade below me, who had also received a little black book from our beloved counselor. Well she didn't have the same idea that I did about burning the book and getting rid of the evidence.

She came into the office during my meeting and shot my counselor. It was a highly stressful moment so I must have started seizing shortly after therefore causing me to forget. I'm not sure what happened next but after some time went by somehow I had grabbed my counselors body and started to drag it outside to bury it. The girl saw a common feature about us and apparently we were in the woods together for a while. All they said after that is that is when they found me covered in blood. Someone recalls me having another seizure on the front lawn. Still to this day I have no recollection of any of the memories from that day.

They found the bodies not too far in the woods. It looked like there wasn't much of a struggle at all, that she was caught off guard. They also found a small firepit, but couldn't make out anything from it.

After over thirty people had come to tell what they had seen that day, I was finally let free exactly one week after the incident. Without my memories they can't exactly piece together the rest of it. I sat in silence for a while after that.

The one lesson it showed my family is that I am not afraid to kill. After that horrifying day my mother never once asked again what were in the pages of that book. That's when she started treating me with respect. For I had shown my mom what I could do, and anybody who knew me from that moment on either stayed out of my way or made for damn sure that I was happy to see them.

Hope you enjoyed my story, some of it is true. However I will leave it up to your imagination on what you want to believe.