The air in the small, cluttered living room felt heavy with tension as Mike and his daughter engaged in a heated argument. It started innocently enough, a disagreement over your choice of friends and the late nights you spent away from home. But as emotions flared and tempers rose, the exchange escalated into a full-blown confrontation.

Mike, who had been raising you on his own since the age of 16, felt the weight of responsibility pressing down on him like a suffocating blanket. He struggled to balance the demands of work, parenting, and his own tumultuous emotions, feeling trapped in a cycle of exhaustion and resentment.

As you hurled accusations and defied his authority, something inside Mike snapped. The resentment that had been simmering beneath the surface bubbled to the surface, fuelling his anger and clouding his judgment.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” he exclaimed, his voice trembling with emotion.

“You think your life is hard? Well guess what! Every day, I’m reminded of everything I’ve had to give up because of you. Every day when I see people my age I wonder maybe if you weren’t here, maybe if you had never been born, my life would’ve been different. Maybe I could have had a happy life, a family, a life actually worth living! Maybe I could’ve had a chance at something more than just paycheck to paycheck life. But instead I am stuck with you.”

His daughter’s eyes widened in shock, her own emotions raw and exposed. But Mike couldn’t stop now; the floodgates had opened, and his words poured forth with a painful honesty.

“I wish you were never born,” he spat out, his rage blinding him to the consequences of his words.

The moment the words left his lips, Mike felt a pang of regret shoot through him like a lightning bolt. He watched as his daughter recoiled, her face twisted with hurt and disbelief, and he knew that he had crossed a line from which there was no return.