Through The Ascension Room***Book One COMPLETE***

CHAPTER SIXTEEN ~END OF PART TWO~

CHAPTER

                             Sixteen

    Dr. Finley struggles to shove some things into the desk drawer as I wait for him to continue explaining how any of this is connected to me.

    “Dr. Finley? What is going on?” I begin to feel even more uneasy with the situation and I sense urgency in his movements that puts me on edge. I shift the bag of contents to one side and reach for Dr. Finley’s shoulder. My touch seems to have frozen him in place. His frantic motions have ceased as he stands next to me.

    “You’re much like your father, you are.” Dr. Finley says turning to face me.

The words seem foreign to me and catch me off guard. I can’t remember the last time I had ever heard someone refer to my father. I let me hand fall from his shoulder as I take a couple of steps back. My mind reels with questions and confusion. My father hasn’t been around for years and years. I was almost beginning to forget I even ever had a father.

“You knew my father?” I ask him taking a step back as I think that it would make one of us who knew him because I never really did.

“Knew?” His face twists as his eyes fix on mine in an unnerving way. “I know your father.”   

He’s still alive? How can that be? What about my mother?

“He’s alive?” I manage to choke out.

“Yes, indeed.” His answer is given without any hesitation. Almost as if it feels natural, almost routine to reveal to me of my long lost father and how he is in fact alive.

“And my mother?” I ask fearing the worst but hoping for the other.

His eyes lower to the ground and he wipes a fresh layer of sweat from his brow. “I’m afraid she is no longer with us.”

The only thing worse than losing a parent is losing them twice. The hope that she may still be alive, that I would someday see her face again and be reminded of where I came from was intensely running through my body, pumping with adrenaline and excitement.

I feel a heavy sadness sink in as I realize that this is actually the first time that anything about my parents whereabouts has ever been really, truly confirmed for me. I lost them at such a young age and moved around so much that I never had any firsthand accounts of what happened to them or where they could be if they were still alive.

“I’ve wanted to tell you this long ago, but I was unable…” A tear breaks free from his eye leaving a wet trail down the side of his face. “…Truth is I was afraid. Afraid of what they would do to me for telling you. Of what they would do to you knowing what you now know.” The distress he radiates begins to penetrate my skin as I am filled with fear. Fear of the unknown. Of the known. Of everything at this point.

My arms begin to feel weak and my grip on the bag slowly falls away from me as I let it plummet to the ground. I follow after as my knees buckle underneath me dropping me to the ground. My head throbs with immense pain and confusion as I try to make sense of this tornado that has now become my life.  

I should have just said no that day on the roof with Richard. What was I thinking?

As I continue to rethink my whole life and the choices I’ve made, Dr. Finley rests his back against the wall and slides down it joining me on the floor. Breathless panting replaces my inhales as I feel all control of the moment being ripped away from me, forcefully pried from my fingertips, un-yielded by my struggle to keep ahold of it.