You wrote "Don't Forget"

Chapter 12- Daddy Issues and Holy Hitchcock

She looked at me with a piercing gaze, nailing me down to the floor, staring deep into the trenches of my soul. I tried to be as blank as possible but my discomfort was evident in the way my face twitched, my foot tapped and my eyes kept blinking as if a kid was turning the car's windows up and down.

"Sure, whatever you say." She said. Something flickered in her eyes, the iciness shifted.

"He comes in here a lot, not as much as you but frequently. Maybe you'll find him in here someday." She said. "Now either scram or tip me. I don't have the entire day to talk to you unless you pay me for it."

I immediately walked away.

Now, there could be two possibilities. Either Stacy was just a good manipulator and had devised this perfect lie to get me to keep coming here or the other being a very remote but more promising possibility, she was actually telling me the truth.

I wondered why I wanted to see him. What would I say? What would I do? Did I really want to say anything?

But there was this irrational feeling inside me telling me that it didn't matter. I just wanted to see him.

I walked out of the coffee shop with a clearer head and a hopeful heart, all thoughts of Alejandro left me as I took a cab to work and spent the entire day trying not to procrastinate, cornered by money and numbers.

At the end of the day my brain was a whirring mess of static. There was not much going on in there. A silent sea of corpses of numbers past.

When I got home, I didn't expect a tall, coat-clad figure standing on my doorstep.

I gasped as soon as I saw him. He looked the same. The same perfectly pressed and polished attire. The same, brushed, on-point beard, not a single strand out of place. The same trimmed brown hair. But the face had aged. The twinkle in his eyes was gone and instead there was this infinite, incorrigible, impenetrable darkness inside.

I took a step back.

He turned around and saw me.

Whatever I expected, I didn't see there. I expected a flicker of a twinkle, a shadow of a smile, a small display of affection, a hug even. I expected something. I didn't expect to see a perfectly still, emotionless statue staring back at me.

"Hello, Tristan." He said, his voice colder than it ever was.

"Hello, father." I said, my voice laced with an equal amount of iciness. He shouldn't be here. He should be in London or Australia or anywhere else in the world, wherever he had a project to do. He wasn't supposed to be here.

"Three years." He said. I just nodded. I didn't want him here. Why didn't he just leave?

"What are you doing here?" I asked, glaring at him. All the hate and anger welling up in my stare.

"I have come to see you."

I laughed, a cold, cruel laugh. "Stop kidding. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?' I raised my voice, my body flaming up with anger.

He just stood there. Emotionless.

"Tristan-" He started. I laughed again.

"Who the bloody hell do you think you are, standing in front of my house after what you have done? I think I made it very clear, you are not welcome here. I am done with you. I need you out of my life. Do you understand?" I said, my voice a ball of blazing fire and my eyes threatening to spill the pain I held in.

"Tristan, just let me speak."

"I did. I did let you speak once. And we both know how that worked out. You had your chances. Now, take your bloody money and your bloody business and get off my porch."