From when I was sixteen

“I’m your father,” he said, voice flat as a slammed door. “You’ll do as I say—or I’ll punish you.” The words landed the way they always did: not as guidance, not as love, but as a threat dressed up as authority. My chest tightened. My hands went cold. Somewhere deep inside me, something old and bruised rose up—not fear this time, but fury. Clarity. The sudden, clean understanding that I was done…