I guess it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that I was sent home after a severe berating by the police and my parents telling me how I needed to straighten up and act right. I kind of took their choice of words a bit too personal.

“This is who I am. Why are you trying to change me?”
“This is not who you are. Your name is Taylor. Taylor Micheal.” My dad said as he avoided looking at me. “And as long as you are under this roof, and believe me, mister, you will be for a very long time—you’re going to do follow the rules.”
“Was doing this to my head a part of following the rules?” I pointed at the haphazard buzz cut on my head.
“It looks better than it did before,” he replied as I felt at the cuts that were still on my scalp. “Go to your room”
“No,” I replied.
“I said go to your room.”
“I heard you. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
“You heard what the police said.”
“And you heard me,” I said as I stared him down. I knew I could take him as long as it was between the of us. If my brother was there, they would have taken me down.
“Taylor!”
“You destroyed my room. Hell, you destroyed my life!”
“Your life, as you put it, was going way our there!” He yelled as he pointed multiple times to his left, apparently signaling to me that the way I was living was so far out of whack, so crazy, that the only way to resolve it was to beat it out of me, one piece at a time. “Go to your room!”
“You mean my prison? No.”
I turned around and ran for the front door. I didn’t think about what would happen once I took a step outside, I didn’t acknowledge the Hell that I was about to ignite all around me. It was a fight or flight response.
I will admit, I regretted nothing.