Page 84 of We Thought We Were Invincible
Colby took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “There's one more.” He gestured to the small final box, resignation dulling his movements.
The final box was full of pictures, nothing more. Colby scooted toward me and we began to lay them on the floor in front of us.
Mom smiling - as always. Mom and Kat. Mom, Kat, and their parents. Kat and some man.
Mom sitting on her surfboard in the ocean next to a man I didn't recognize.
I turned to grab more pictures to sift through.
Wait.
Snatching the image off the ground, I held it closer.
“Do you have something?” Colby asked.
The beat of my heart pounded in my ears, drowning out all other sound. This was it. Him.
I turned the photo over to see mom's familiar messy scrawl.
E and A. Always.
“E and A,” I muttered. I knew who A was. Allison. Mom. “Who the hell is E?”
Colby took the picture from my shaking hands, his eyes lighting up when he read the back.
“This has to be him, doesn't it?”
I only nodded.
Faceless man from my dreams was faceless no more. The picture had to be at least nineteen years old because it was before mom was pregnant. I didn't recognize the beach they were near, so I focused on the man whose blood ran through my veins.
He had brown hair a few shades darker than mine and Colby's. Deep chocolate eyes stared toward the camera, a stubborn tilt to his chin. He wasn't smiling like the woman beside him. No, he seemed different. Strong arms rested on tanned thighs, the relaxation in his pose in stark contrast to the grim determination on his face.
“He looks like you do when you surf.” Colby eyed me curiously.
If that was true, I knew what he looked like moments after this picture - riding a wave instead of waiting for one. His muscles would strain and flex, doing what they were made to do, and his face would soften as his mind went blank.
We didn't know his name.
We didn't know where he lived.
We didn't know why he left.
There was only one thing we were sure of.
This man was our father.
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Callie
We didn't find anything else that would give us clues as to who the man was.
Kat had proven time and time again that she wasn't going to share what she knew.
We were at a dead end.
Colby did better moving forward than I did. He started looking toward graduation, working harder than ever to keep his grades up and training non-stop to head into his first college soccer season in the best shape of his life. I had less to distract me.
