Marvin was beyond frustrated.

He’d broken up with his boyfriend Whizzer. He’d found out his ex-wife, your mom, whom he still loved very much, was about to get married to their ex-shrink. His boss had threatened to fire him if he couldn’t ”maintain a positive energy whilst delivering the daily forecast.”

He was beyond angry, and hurt, and devastated. He now had an even shorter fuse than before, and one night, the fuse is lit, and he explodes.

It was nothing. A bad grade on a test. But nothing that would have previously earned either of your parents’ disapproval. But when your father found out, he lost it. He stood and shouted and called you out for failures he had only conjured up for the sake of the argument. He didn’t notice how you shrunk further and further as he berated you. He didn’t notice how you tensed your jaw and held back tears. But what he did notice was how, when he threw up his hands in frustration, you flinched.

You flinched hard, as if something had really come flying at your face. A ball, a frisbee, a fist, a missile. Immediately, Marvin’s argument is lost. His words fall flat and his hands fall to his sides. His eyes widen.

He remembers how, just a week ago, you’d witnessed him slap your mother. He hadn’t meant to, not really — it just happened. What a bullshit excuse for domestic abuse — it just happened.

“Baby, you know that I—“ but his words get caught in his throat. My god. He’d tried to say the exact same thing to Trina the other night.