I heard the sound before I felt the pain. It was a sickening, dry crack—the distinct acoustic profile of bone colliding with enamel—followed immediately by the sensation of my head snapping back on my neck. The world tilted violently to the left, and then came the taste: hot, metallic copper flooding my mouth, thick and overwhelming.
My father’s face was so close to mine that I could count the broken capillaries in his nose and see the gray stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave. His breath, a stale miasma of cheap coffee and unfiltered cigarettes, washed over me, making my stomach churn.
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