My fist connected with my stepfather’s face: black-gloved, angst-ridden, unadulterated teenaged anger against unprepared, first-class jerk flesh.

It was hardly a fair shot, but I took it anyway.
What happened was this:

I had just stepped inside my house. Or, should I say, David’s house, because my living there was just an example of his extensive kindness, etc. If he’d had his way, I would be off to military school with a buzzcut and an attitude adjustment on the way. But, as he so often reminded me, I was spared the Gruntdom and only had to suffer a move to a different state halfway through senior year. Thanks, David.

I had just stepped into David’s house, still brushing the snow off my shoulders in his doorway, when he ambled downstairs. “Now, listen here, you good-for-nothing punk,” he slurred. I could smell whiskey on his breath. Real classy. “I’m not gonna let you stumble into my house like you own the damn place, even if your slut of a mother-”

That’s the point where I hit him.