On my birthday, my father walked in, looked at my b:ruised face, and asked, “Sweetheart… JJ
On the morning of my birthday, the sun filtered weakly through the kitchen blinds, casting thin stripes of light across the worn wooden floor. I had tried, as I always did, to keep everything together—my face composed, my hands steady, my voice quiet. But when my father walked in, smiling as he always did when…
