Beautifully Damaged

22. Answers

The sun sank below the horizon, casting unearthly colors across the land. After the day I’d had, I should have been tired enough to be content with going home. However, I wasn’t.

If anything, I was just itching to do something with my clarity and piece of mind.

As I drove, I didn’t realize where I was going until I pulled up and parked on the side of a street. A quietly uniformed building towered above the Audi and I. It exuded something far more subtly official than the military base.

If both places had been people, I would imagine that one would be tall, heavily muscled and gruff, whereas the other would be slighter, and well spoken.

Anticipation buzzed like energy in my veins, gripping my thoughts and turning them into one.

There were answers here, I could feel it.

I stepped out of the car, feeling the evening breeze brush against my bare neck. Struggling to keep my composure and my gait steady, I approached the building.

Momentarily, I looked up to see the enormous seal on the front of the building: ‘The National Archive Center’. Instantly, I thought of legal records, and my mysterious emancipation. Perhaps they’d have information on that here.

I pulled my jacket closer around me and entered the department. Air conditioning instantly hit me, raising goose bumps on my skin. A long, clean corridor stretched out in front of me, and my footsteps echoed along granite flooring.

Summoning up courage, I quickened my step and hurried along the narrow hallway until I reached a set of elevators and a stairwell.

I slowed, looking for something to tell me where I was supposed to go.

A directory, neatly typed and preserved, presented itself by the first stainless steel elevator. ‘B1- Records of Death, G- Entrance and Exit, L1- Marriage and Birth, L2- Legal Records’. I stopped there, my attention immediately captivated by floor two. After all, I didn’t know my parents’ names or anything else, really. I did, however, know that I was emancipated and surely, there’d be a record of that here.

I pressed the plastic button by the elevator, lighting it with a dingy orange. Gears hummed and whirred as the machine operated and opened the doors in front of me. It was cold and silent on the inside of the carpeted elevator, and it moved like it was unused to working. The elevator chimed twice before the doors sluggishly opened again, as if it were reluctant to let me out.

I raised my eyes to a dim room, pretty bare with walls lined with black chairs. A grey desk was the immediate draw of the room, harboring a darkened back room and a sleepy clerk. The elevator chimed once more before the doors shut and the clerk looked up, surprise clear over the tops of his thick lens glasses.

Forcing the confidence that I’d seen in Morgan into my own stature and stride, I headed toward the desk. I noticed that the man was not as old as I had originally thought; he must have only been in his twenties, without a hint of wrinkle or weathering on his skin. Boldly, I spoke over the nervous pulse of my heart.

“I need to see records on an Emancipation of a Minor.”

A dark eyebrow rose, slight amusement tightening the features of the young man sitting behind the desk. He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “I cannot give out information or records on any legal matters to anyone besides those involved with the instance,” He replied. “If you’re looking for records pertaining to you, then I will happily supply you with that information, if you show some ID.”

Blushing profusely and muttering a quiet apology, I searched through my purse for my driver’s license and produced it, letting him take the only answers I’d gotten so far. At least I knew my name and age at this point.