Witness: See Series (Volume 1)(64)

“You could have told me,” I muttered into the room. “It’s not like I would have loved you less knowing that you were dark. I already thought yours and mom’s story was tragically beautiful; now I not only think that, I feel it because I’m living through the choices you made. Knowing that the path I’m on was traveled by you would have helped, you know.”

The sound of the guitar grew sympathetic, but it still held the same scolding tone that it had the entire time I’d been home.

I plugged in my charger, then pulled the cord around the lamp so I could plug in my phone. It beeped, but I knew I’d have to wait a minute or two for it to let me make a call.

“You have anything you want to say? I have a minute or so,” I said to the room. The guitar grew silent, which only made me angry.

I reached for the cord on the lamp, wondering if there were a way to make the rock brighter or something. I would rather argue with my father than my mother any day of the week. Out of nowhere, the guitar sound grew louder, then something unseen by my natural eyes knocked the lamp to the floor. I tried to catch it before it fell, but I wasn’t fast enough. As it collided with the hardwood, it shattered into thousands of pieces – literally. It wasn’t broken shards of rock, or even a shallow lamp with a broken bulb inside; it was now thousands of tiny rocks, much like the one on the bracelet Monroe had given me.

I instantly felt guilty for breaking her lamp. I rushed to the floor and tried to pull the pieces into a pile; I wasn’t sure if the sound of it hitting the floor could be heard on the first floor or if anyone would come and see what had caused it. As my hands touched the tiny rocks, I felt how warm they were – almost hot. I hesitated before picking up a few of them; I could swear they were still glowing. I looked around for the base of the lamp, trying to figure out what would cause them to be so warm, to glow.

Then I realized that my father must have broken it, and a sick, guilty feeling came over me. I don’t think he’s ever been mad at me before. He certainly has never broken anything before. I instantly changed my mind – I would rather argue with my mom.

With a handful of tiny rocks, I reached for my phone. It was still trying to find enough power to come to life. It would blink on and then off again, as if my charger wasn’t getting any power. I thought about just driving to my mom’s office. I was sure it would take over three hours at this time of day, but I wanted to see her face, to read her expressions as I forced her to explain why she hadn’t told me about her past.

I reached for my bag, but an invisible force moved across the room before I could touch it. An uncommon fear, one that I’d never had for my dad before, eased through my gut.

“What?!” I said in my defense. “Why did you break her lamp? I need to talk to mom – stop holding me back.”

At that moment, all of the little rocks began to move across the floor. I stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Once they were in a pile, he began to write a simple message within them – it was like watching a message come to life in sand. It read: ‘see her’.

“See her?” I read aloud. “Why did you take my bag? That’s what I was trying to -”

I stopped in mid-speech. I knew what he meant; he wanted to me to go her through seeing, to appear before her.

I fell to my knees as I read what he’d written again. “Is she at the New York office?” I asked in a quiet whisper.

The message in the rocks was whipped away, and the letter ‘y’ appeared.

“Fine,” I mumbled. The sound of his guitar erupted again, but not in a mean way; more like in a proud way.

I hadn’t been to my mom’s office in months, and quite frankly I was terrified of trying to move through memories without Draven there to guide me. I reached for my wrist and turned my bracelet to where I could see the pick that belonged to him, then closed my eyes and remembered her office. The smell of it, the wall of windows behind her large oak desk, the massive book shelves full of photos of me growing up, and the trinkets she’d collected from all her business trips. I held tightly to the memory of that room as I felt a rush of energy move through me. I then slowly opened my eyes and found myself standing in front of her desk.

She was there. Her blond hair was pulled back into a French twist, and she was wearing one of her powerhouse suits, though her jacket was draped across her large leather business chair. She was scrolling through her iPad - but the instant I appeared, the power to it faded, along with all of the lights, dimming the room. She slowly raised her eyes to meet mine, then she reached to pull her reading glasses off as she leaned back and glanced to my side.

My eyes followed her stare to see my father standing next to me. He was dressed in all black. A black leather cord was around his neck with a simple guitar pick hanging there. I unconsciously reached for my bracelet and fumbled with Draven’s pick. As I stared into the haunting image of my father’s dark eyes, I was reminded not only of how much I loved him, but how much I loved Draven. I never realized how redundantly they reminded me of each other.

My eyes moved back to my mother to see her calmly looking over me.

“Looks like you called a family meeting,” I mumbled.

She nodded slowly as her chair rocked with her.

The speech that I had, the words I wanted to say, they all vanished from my thoughts. They were both in one room. I’d only seen this happen once before - the night of my accident - but almost everything about that night was a blur…and that moment wasn’t nearly as private as this one. I felt anxiety rush through my soul.