When you grow up in a house like mine, fear starts to feel like wallpaper. You don’t really notice it until you step outside and realize not everyone lives with it. Not everyone wakes up to the sound of shouting or watches grown men kneel at the kitchen table just to whisper something into your father's ear.
But I didn’t understand that back then. Not at first.
I was nine when I found out what my last name really meant.
There was a park three blocks down from our house. It wasn’t anything special—just a half-broken jungle gym, a crooked bench, and a dusty patch of grass barely good enough for soccer. But the neighborhood kids made it work. So did I.
I used to go there most afternoons. Sit on the sidelines, watching the boys from my school kick a half-deflated ball around, shouting and
