"When did you start thinking these thoughts?" She asked. My eyes met hers. She had pretentiously thick lenses that really pissed me off. However, this was one of her only questions I actually knew the answer to.

I noticed my knee beginning to jitter as my mind went back in time. I remembered it so clearly. My ripe, young hand swiping the dust off the photobook. Me turning the pages. Me seeing flesh for the first time. Me seeing blood for the first time. I remember slapping the covers back together and chucking the book back in the attic. Praying that no one saw me looking at it. But that didn't matter. The seed of curiosity had been planted beneath the soil.

Suddenly I started to care a lot less about what was being taught in my fourth-grade class. Would anything I learned make my heart race like it did when I saw those pictures? I didn't think so. From then on, I obsessed over that book. I thought about it when I didn't have to think about anything else. I thought about it at dinner. I thought about it at church. And I especially thought about it when I looked into the eyes of its author, my father.

My parents had such a happy marriage. My brothers and I had such a happy life. We were all smart. We were all leaders. All because of how good our father was to us. He would do anything and everything with us. Just to make us happy. But I knew his dark secret.

I remembered how different blood tasted. So much different than anything else. I scrapped my elbow playing basketball one day at recess. And over and over again, I would lick the fresh wound in front of my buddies to gross them out. Little did they know, the sliver of pleasure that poured over my tongue.

I invited Gerry over to my house one day after school in the sixth grade. I remember us playing by my shed deep in our backyard. And I remember him turned the other way, and me getting that feeling again. I remember waking up, dragging his legs towards the creek. Then I remember lying to his parents.

At his funeral, I remember getting excited, thinking about when I'd do it next. And how I'd do it differently this time. Ever since then, when my father would look at me, I think he knew—I was truly his kin.

"Marcus," I looked up to her voice, "when did you start thinking these thoughts?" I looked down to the stripes on the carpet. Fluttering my feet playfully.

"I don't remember."