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“Watch your tone,” he says as his voice drops.

I laugh, shaking my head. My whole body burns with a rage I never thought I’d have the right to feel one day. I push him back and walk to the kitchen, anywhere far from here would be a good option.

“I told you to leave me alone.”

Breathe. Mireya, breathe.

The smell of alcohol is everywhere. On his breath, on his clothes, in the room. It’s on me, in my veins and darkening all my memories.

An ugly laugh leaves him and then he speaks again, “Is this what you’re fucking doing now? You came home high.”

“You’re always home, drunk,” I reply and almost laugh. Even now, after everything, he still finds a way to make himself the person who’s dealing with the other. “Can you hear yourself?”

He grabs the bottle he left on the table and gulps the warm liquid in one go before looking at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you always do this.” My voice is shaking and I can’t stand the fact that he can hear it too. “You act like you’re the one dealing with me. Like I’m some fucking problem you’re stuck with.

His jaw tightens, “Close your fucking mouth, stupid girl.”

“I’m the one who has to live with you!” I yell and suddenly the anger feels different. Like it has been rotting inside me for years. “I was a kid when I learned what kind of fucking night it was going to be by the way you opened the door! I was a kid when I started feeling like I had to apologize for existing!”

His face hardens but he doesn’t talk. He has the same disgusted look on him, because knowing this was true never stopped him.

“You act like I’m the reason this family is the way it is,” I continue, shaking, crying quietly with rage. “You’re the one who taught me how to be angry and I fucking hate it.”

He frowns, not even listening to me. “When did you learn to act like a little bitch and disappear for hours then come back here and talk like that?”

I laugh and throw a glass from the kitchen counter next to him against the wall.

He freezes for a second, looking at all the broken pieces on the ground.

“Why did you have me?” I look around, shaking my head because the anger is all I have left now

He looks me up and down once, his eyes catching the trembling of my hands, the way I can’t function with all the rage that’s building up inside me.

But he doesn’t answer and I don’t want him to.

“I’ve been dealing with your shit since I was a kid.” I laugh, and it sounds stupid. “I’m the one who puts Milo to bed when you wake him up screaming and drunk.” He opens his mouth but I don’t let him. “I’m the one who drags you off the fucking bathroom floor when you’re too passed out to stand.”

His jaw clenches so hard I think I can hear his teeth grind. “I’ve been raising your son while you’ve been drowning in a fucking bottle, and all you can find to do is abuse me over and over again.”

“You ungrateful little sh–”

“I was your child!” I scream. “I never asked you to be my parent.”

“I am your father!” He roars back. “I. Am. Your. Father,” he says it again, louder, as though repeating it enough times will make it true.

My fingers fumble against the edge of the worktop, searching for something, the drawer slides open and my hand closes around the first thing it finds. When I turn back around, the knife is already in my hand. His eyes drop to it, and for the first time in years, there’s something separating us.

“I am your fucking child,” my voice breaks so violently I almost choke on the words. “And I hate you!” Don’t stop. “All I ever wanted was to be loved by my father and all you ever did was hate me!”

The knife trembles in my hand as he looks at me for a long moment. But instead of stepping back, he steps forward.

I know this look, I know this anger. The feeling behind the reflection of myself on the blade. That desperate need to have something between you and the person hurting you, something to make them stop and make them finally see you.

His face changes and then he speaks, “Put it down.” I stand there, making him look at me, the version he created. “I said put it down,” he continues.

My fingers tighten and he smiles before speaking again, “There she is.”