Chapter 1

The moment the chair went over, the back of my head cracked against the floor.

Everything went dark for a few seconds. I lay facedown and did not dare move. It was not because the fall had stunned me.

I was afraid that if I got up too quickly, it would look like the fall had not hurt that badly, and Dad would decide I was putting on an act.

The relatives’ whispers reached me in fragments.

“That poor kid. It was just an extra piece of meat.”

“Was that really necessary? On a holiday, no less.”

Only my cousin Brady Avery grinned and helped himself to another piece of pot roast. “He had it coming. He knows Uncle Phil cannot stand being laughed at, and he still acts out like that. Of course he needed to be put in his place.”

I did not say a word. I pushed myself off the floor, righted the chair, and sat back down.

Dad looked pleased. He raised his voice so the whole table could hear. “Kids need discipline. If you do not set them straight now, they will embarrass you in public later, and it is the whole family that looks bad.”

He swept a glance around the table. “See? One good lesson and he is already behaving.”

Then he turned to Brady, and his whole expression softened. “Now Brady, he is the sensible one. Never gives his dad a reason to be laughed at.”

Brady lifted his chin at me with a smug little grin and leaned into a honeyed tone. “That is all thanks to you, Uncle. I always wished I was your son instead.

“Not like some people who do not appreciate what they have and just make you look bad.”

The word kept landing, over and over. Laughed at. Laughed at. Laughed at. Each repetition sent a tremor through my body.

It was not fear. It was the suffocating weight of Dad’s obsession with never being laughed at, pressing down on me until I could barely breathe.

What he called discipline left bruises on my skin and a flinch reflex buried so deep it had become part of me. What he called good behavior was me being too afraid to breathe wrong.

Because of the way Dad raised me, none of the other kids at holiday gatherings dared come near me. They were afraid their own parents might pick up his methods.

I sat curled in a corner with my fingers clenched around the hem of my shirt. Most of the guests had finished eating by then and were scattered in small groups, nursing their drinks and making conversation.

I did not dare leave. I could only sit there and be the son who did not cause trouble, so Dad would not call me ungrateful, so the relatives would not give him another reason to feel laughed at.

At some point Brady wandered over and lowered his voice. “Kellen Avery, you are dead weight. Wherever Uncle goes, you make sure he gets laughed at.”

There it was again. A shudder ripped through me, and my fingers dug into my palm before I could stop them. The skin there had already broken open, slick and raw.

I swallowed everything rising in my throat and forced my voice to come out steady.