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CHAPTER FIVE
“It’s so good to finally see you again, dear.” Without hesitation, Estelle takes a 4 x 6 photo from a padded album on her lap and slides it across the table to me. “Your mom. She was something, wasn’t she? You have her eyes.”
My pulse quickens asI grab it and gaze at it for minutes. After Leyla died, I used to keep under my pillow and talk to them at night. I would fall asleep wondering how my life would be if they were still around. I still wonder what it’d be like if they were here now. Just looking at my mom’s eyes gives me comfort. Besides the picture in the hallway, I haven’t been able to look at them in years. Not since Jet barged into my room like a drunken mess and tore the picture to shreds, laughing cruelly as he did it. Since then I’ve held on to a fading image that my memory tried so hard to keep current. One of my biggest fears was forgetting their faces.
“When was this taken?” I ask.
“She was pregnant with you there. Just three months along.” She pulls out another photo. “Here’s one with your father. He was such a good man. An even better son.” Before she hands it to me she glides her fingers over it. She watches him, like he’s talking back to her.
I’m afraid to even ask any questions. But I have to.
“Please don’t tell me they’re alive?” I finally ask shyly, swallowing the rock lodged in my throat. It wouldn’t make sense. They died. But then again, I was also told I had no living family, and yet here I am. I don’t think I could handle knowing that my parents too had chosen to give me away like a useless hand-me-down.
Bud interjects, “No, no, of course not! But we'll get to that, I promise. And call me Bud. It’s what everyone calls me.”
“Why ‘Bud’?”
He chuckles. “I have this habit of calling people ‘Buddy’… in case you haven’t noticed. Always have. One Father’s Day when your dad was young, he gave me one of those Hallmark Father of the Year trophies as a joke. He made a label that read ‘Bud’ and stuck it to the plate. Hasn’t changed since.”
I smile. That’s something I would have done.
“Gavin,” Estelle begins, “There’s a lot you don’t know about. About who you are.”
“Who I am?” I’m not sure what she means.
“Better yet,” Bud says, “how about we show you?” He pulls out another photo and hands it to me. It’s a 1970s-style diner. Just like the ones in the “Grease” movie or that show “Happy Days.” I used to watch old reruns Saturday nights on Nick at Nite with Leyla. “See this?”
I nod.
He takes a slip of paper, writes something on it, and gives it to me. It reads:
To this time, allow my travel.
Take me there, let time unravel.
“Just look into the photo and recite the words with us.”
“I don’t get it. This is—”
YOU ARE READING
THE PHOTO TRAVELER (THE PHOTO TRAVELER SERIES - BOOK 1)
Teen FictionSeventeen-year-old Gavin Hillstone is resigned to being miserable for the rest of his life. Left alone in the world after his parents died in a fire when he was four, he was placed in foster care, which for him meant ending up in an abusive home wi...
