The one thing Kyrese couldn't stand was not knowing when it would be too late.

Too late to make amends. Too late to reconnect. Too late to change. Too late to correct course.

Too late was one of those things you only realized passed when things came unraveled at the ends and no amount of grasping would ever put things right again. Kyrese didn't know when things were unraveling, either.

What he did know was that he was doing his best to prevent history from repeating. Or rhyming. Or whatever people called it anymore.

While he prepared his daughters "s'moremores," which were just toasted sandwiches with marshmallow fluff and hazelnut spread, his son Xavion sat nearby on a stool in time-out, complaining and whining. Kyrese had tuned him out a while ago. He had to. He wasn't going to get mad and put hands on his kid the way people had put hands on him. Breaking the cycle and all that.

He was still mad, though. Xavion's friends were little bullies, and after a sleepover at the most well-adjusted one's house Xavion had come home a little monster, gleefully tormenting his sisters in a way that reminded Kyrese too much of himself. Kyrese wouldn't have that, so no more sleepovers, and no more of those friends.

Monday, he'd have to go have a talk with the principal, see about having Xavion moved to a different class. As "unfair and mean" Xavion would lament about it being, Kyrese knew it was for the best.

He gave Xavion a sandwich on his way out of the kitchen, less as a peace offering and more as a way to plug his complaint hole, and continued to the living room to set down the plated snacks on the coffee table. His gaze swept over Yasmin and Zuri's scene, which appeared to be a cult Barbies sacrificing Ken to a unicorn...

He wondered, for a moment, if all kids were some variety of weird little monster.