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“I was wearing my favorite pajamas the first time it happened,” I sob. “The blue ones with the stars. I remember because your friend ripped them apart like I was a toy, and I cried for you to help me, Dad. I cried until my throat bled. You never came. You closed the door on me like I deserved it. And mom told me it was okay, that the pain would disappear. It never did. It’s still here, killing me every fucking day!”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink.

I drop my hands and look at him, my voice breaking apart. “Why? Why do you hate me so much? What did I do wrong?”

He stares at me like I’m speaking another language. “You’re drunk on your mother’s lies. That’s what’s wrong with you.”

I laugh through the tears. “You always find a way to make it her fault or mine.” He starts to say something, but I cut him off. “No, you listen now.”

My voice rises until it’s almost unrecognizable. “You broke me. You broke me, and now I don’t even know how to sleep at night without wondering what I did wrong! I wake up and I still hear your voice in my head, telling me I’m nothing!”

He tries to grab his glass again. I slap it away. It shatters against the floor, but I don’t care. I want to hurt him. I want to let it all out. Little shards of transparent glass scatter around us, and I can see fragments of myself in them. Every memory of his anger, his hatred, every version of me that begged him to stop. It all reflected back in those broken pieces.

“You talk about crazy? You made me this way!” I shout. “You made me scared of every noise, every hand, every man who looks too long. You made me think love was pain, and I believed you! I still fucking believe you.” He looks startled. Maybe even guilty. But I don’t care. “Do you know what that does to a kid?” I keep going, voice shaking now. “To grow up believing your pain isn’t even worth stopping for?”

He steps closer. “You’re imagining things⁠—”

That’s when it breaks. The years, the silence, the nights of pretending. The hands, the kisses that were never allowed and the bruises that felt like poison on my skin.

“IMAGINING?” I repeat louder. My whole body trembles. “You think I imagined begging you to come in that room? You think I imagined being afraid to sleep, or flinching every time someone moved too fast? You think I imagined the blood dad? Or mom’s tears when she understood your friend never left after abusing her but came into my room to finish the job?”

His face goes white.

My chest feels like it’s caving in. I can hear my heartbeat, fast and uneven, like I’m drowning or floating on anger and pain. “Do you know what it did to me, to realize the one person who’s supposed to protect you just… doesn’t? To spend your whole life trying to make sense of why?”

"Stop.”

Stop. Stop. Stop.

I used to beg for his friends to stop. I begged and begged and they never did.

“YOU WERE NEVER MY DAD!” I scream. “I NEEDED A DAD AND YOU WEREN’T THERE!”

The silence after that is unbearable. Only the hum of the fridge, the sound of my own uneven breathing and the voices screaming how tired I am in my own head.

“I begged to be enough for you. I begged you to love me, to see me. You never pushed them away, you let him touch me like I wasn’t even a person.” My voice is trembling so hard I can barely get the words out. “You–you just fucking stood there and let it happen. You watched. You fucking watched and you never stopped watching.”

He opens his mouth, maybe to deny it, maybe to throw another insult, but I keep going.

“You made me feel like being born was a mistake. Like every breath I took was something you had to forgive me for. And I still tried! I still tried to make you proud. I gave up everything—my happiness, my sleep, my childhood, my fucking life, just to make you look at me without hate. And you couldn’t even do that.”

He stares at me. Silent. Maybe for the first time in his life.

“You’ll never understand what it’s like to live with the echo of you in my head, dad,” I whisper as he stares at me in disbelief. “To wake up and still hear you, even when you’re not there.”

I can’t even breathe from how much tears are falling now, but it doesn’t feel weak. It feels honest. For the first time it feels honest and okay to cry in front of him.

“You don’t get to tell me anything. You don’t get to take any more of me. I tried, I really tried. I gave you my childhood, my entire life, and now I have to think about Milo.”

He doesn’t answer and simply looks away.

I wipe my face, grab my bag, and step back. “If you ever touch Milo, if you ever so much as look at him the way you looked at me, I swear to God, you’ll never get to touch anything again.”

He opens his mouth, but I’m already walking out the door. The air outside is cold and sharp. I can still feel the sting on my cheek.

For a second, I think I hear her voice, my mom’s, telling me to keep walking, to never turn back. Even if it hurts, even if it feels like grieving my entire life.

So I do.