My name is Jay Richard Peters. I was born on the 24th of March 1967. In less than two weeks I'll turn seventeen, and I'll finally be moving out of my home... or maybe I should say my hell, and into a place of my own.

For as long as I can remember, a dark cloud, my father, has hung over my existence. An inescapable, unpredictable force, worse than the devil itself. He's made running away impossible. But I'm not planning to run away. I'm planning to move out. That's what you do when you grow up, you move out.

But first, I want to make a record of my life up to this point. Then, my first night in my own place, I'll hold a ceremonial burning. Burning the past to cleanse the future, as Taylora would say. Not that everything in my past was bad... to tell the story right, I guess I'll want to talk about that too.

No, not want. Need. I need to talk about the good. I need to remember the bits of my life worth living. If I'm going to get through this... I have to talk about those bits too.