Rowen:
I stepped into my childhood room, immediately overwhelmed by the muffled sounds of my parents arguing. The urge to bite my nails was overwhelming, a nasty habit I had broken long ago. I looked at my unmade bed and wondered if the little me was where my father always hid me when he didn't want me to hear my parents arguing.
"Put these on, and don't take them off until daddy returns. Okay, sweetheart. Daddy loves you." I could hear the words he would always say and still smell the alcohol that clung to his breath as he leaned down to kiss my forehead and adjust those sound-muffling headphones over my ears. Some nights I would fall asleep in that damn closet and wake up safely tucked into my bed.
As I reached out to open the closet door, my mother's voice caught my ear.
"Dax, you
