My dad is a man unlike any other. To the world, he’s a mysterious figure — a rock musician with a voice that cuts through silence and a stage presence that makes time freeze. But to me, he's just Dad. He raised me alone since I was just a baby. My mom died in a car accident when I was only six months old. He never talks about it, but sometimes I catch him staring at the old photograph of her on his desk, his fingers brushing over the frame like he’s trying to hold on to something that’s already gone. The scars on his body are stories he doesn’t always tell. The ones on his arms — deep, jagged, and faded with time — came from his past. Before I was born, he was involved in a dark world, filled with fights, alcohol, and pain. The tattoo-covered skin hides a history of hurt, loss, and self-destruction. The scar running across the corner of his mouth, twisting into a faint, permanent smirk, came from a night he doesn’t speak about — only that it was the last time he ever raised his fists in anger. He turned to music to cope. Guitar strings became his therapy, lyrics his confession. His band never made it big, but they have a loyal underground following. Every time he sings, it’s like he’s screaming out all the words he can’t say to me. Every song is a memory, a regret, a love letter to the life he almost lost. He never dated again. Never brought anyone home. He said I was enough — that I saved him. We don’t have much. We rent a small apartment above a tattoo shop where he sometimes works. He tattoos others, each design a quiet understanding of pain and healing. At night, he plays gigs at local bars, and I wait up for him with hot tea and my homework spread across the table. Now I’m sixteen. Old enough to see the cracks in him, the way he still struggles with guilt and grief. But he tries. Every day. He makes pancakes in the shape of skulls on Sundays. He braids my hair before school with fingers rough from guitar strings. He listens when I talk about things he doesn’t understand — TikTok, school drama, crushes — and tries his best to keep up. He’s my hero, not because he’s perfect, but because he’s real. He’s broken, healing, and still here. And that’s enough for me. He is only 36 years old