It felt like class took forever, but finally the bell rang and we were free. I gathered my stuff as fast I could and ran out the door. Emily ran after me and caught up to me just outside the door.
“What is going on?” She said, “you looked like you saw a ghost this morning.”
“Honestly, I have no idea how I got here this morning. The last thing I remember was driving down by the bank and the next I knew I was in class. Was I there the whole time?”
“Well sort of. You came just as the bell was ringing, but that’s nothing new. You were there for about 10 minutes when Mr. Thomas called on you. You probably just blanked, you have had a lot on your mind, especially with today being your birthday! Happy birthday by the way!” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a wrapped box with a big bow on top.
“Awe, Em I told you that you didn’t have to get me anything!”
“It’s no big deal, you are my best friend so I had to get you something!”
I pulled the ribbon to untie it and the box fell open. Inside lay a beautiful gemstone of multiple colors. Depending on how you turned it, it was a different color. My breath caught in my throat. Something about this gemstone mesmerized me. Yes, it was beautiful but that wasn’t what had my air caught. As soon as my eyes fell upon it I felt something deep inside of me, like a fire that had just been lit deep in my soul. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.
“Hey!” I snapped my head up. “So? Do you like it? I spent months going through stores trying to find the perfect thing for you, but nothing seemed quite right. I finally found this last night. I swear I had been in the store like 10 times and never saw it. The sales person hadn’t realized it was there either so I got it at a good price since it wasn’t in the inventory. But something about it said that it was yours.”
“…..Em…… I-I don’t know what to say. I love it!” I said hugging her.
“I was hoping you would like it! I got you something else, but I wanted to soften you up with the stone.”
“Soften me up?” I asked. “what do you mean?”
“Well, do you remember a few months ago, we were at your house studying and we got in that fight because I wouldn’t stop asking about your dad?”
“Yea….. Oh God Emily, what did you do?”
“Nothing! I swear! I just looked him up! I didn’t contact him or anything, not that I could have, I didn’t find anything recent on him. But what I did find I think that you will be interested in.” She stopped and looked at me pleading.
I sighed, “Okay, as long as you didn’t contact him. I don’t want to talk to him. What did you find?”
A huge smile spread over her face as she reached into her backpack again to pull out a handful of papers.
“It’s a good thing we both have a free period next because this is going to blow your mind!”
She handed the papers over to me. The first one was a picture of my dad in black and white but he looked the same age as he did in the last picture we have of him.
“See I couldn’t find anything about him by just typing in his name. Nothing would come up except some random creepy stories about siting’s of a mysterious man from like the 30’s. And I was like, well that can’t be him because how would he have had you and been in his 20’s if he was alive in the 30’s? So, now don’t be mad… I took a picture of him from your house and did a reverse image search hoping to find like a social media page or something. But what I found was SO much better.”
I was just staring at the first page. The picture of him. He had that same scar down his left cheek that he had when he left. He looked the same as I remember except there was a light in his eyes. I flipped over to the next page and there were a few news articles about a siting of a mysterious man. It showed a couple of pictures and all of them noted a small scar on his left cheek. Over the years it seemed to get bigger and bigger to the author of each piece but all the other attributes were the same.
“W-what is this? Is this some sort of joke? Like one of those satire pieces?
“NO! I even checked all of the resources and every single one of them show the same guy. Every one of them describe him the same. There is one article in there that the author actually spoke to the guy.” She says while flipping through the pages to pull out the one she is talking about. “ Ah Ha! This one. It says that they had a few drinks at a local bar and had talked for a quite a while. The guy felt something was off about him but didn’t think much of it because he had been drinking. The next day he decided to do a little research and found the different articles. So he wrote his own. Only this time he caught the guy’s name. Look! It says the guy he talked to was named “Martin Blackburn!” That’s your dad’s name!” She shoved the article in my face. I had to push her hand away just to read the article.
With every word I read my heart thumps faster and faster. The article that the author had actually spoke with him said that he had a slight accent though not distinguishable to any known language. The one thing that the author kept bringing up was the man’s eyes. He described them as bright blue with a golden tint. I remember my dad’s eyes being so beautiful that I would spend hours just looking at them. I didn’t inherit his eyes, mine are green but I always wished I had his color. I finished reading the articles and looked up, completely dazed.
“Did you find anything else?” I asked.
“No not really, just more of all that. I couldn’t find any contact information. It is literally like he disappeared when he left you and your mom.”
“Yea I have tried to look for him a few times since as well and I couldn’t find anything either.” All of a sudden the bell rang. Could it already have been an hour? “Thank you Em, for everything. You are too good to me. I gotta get to class though. Oh hey, Em? Will you please not say anything to my mom about this? She was pretty upset this morning and I don’t want to upset her anymore.”
“Yea buddy, I can do that. Go to class, I will see you after school.”
“Okay, see you later.” I turned and ran to my other class.
All through the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad. Every chance I got I would reread all of the articles Emily had printed out for me. Looking for anything that could disprove what they were saying but I couldn’t find anything. They were all by different people who had established their credibility beforehand. They all said the same things, describing the same person.
But how could that be? My mom told me that they were in their early twenties when I was born, how could he have been photographed in the 30’s when I was born in 2000?
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