Much Love, Your Father

My Dearest Skylar

I know we haven't met. Nor have we spent any time together. As much as I didn't want to, I have had to watch you grow up, silently and from a far.

I am also sorry to drop such a bomb shell on you as this, however, if you are reading this letter we will sadly never get the opporunity to meet face to face as I am most likely dead.

I freeze for a few seconds, no longer chuckling at the thought of this being a prank. I scan down to the bottom of the letter to see what name is at the bottom. I stare at the name for a bit too long before deciding to carry on reading.

I have sent a memory stick with this note as writing a letter would have taken forever. The memory stick will also allow for you to get to know me face to face.

I know I have no rights when coming to you, however, I think you have the right to know who I am.

The one thing I do need you to do is, once you have read this letter and have watched the video, to destroy it. It is imperative that you do.

No-one must know that I've sent you anything.

I will explain everything to you in the video.

Much love,

Chase Argent - your father.

I can't seem to do anything but stare at the letter in my hand as a tear falls from my eye.

This has to be some kind of sick joke. Right? Like what the fuck!

I turn around and grab my phone from my bedside table, about to dial Nathan and shit him out for playing such a distasteful joke. All my friends know how my father is a sensitive subject for me.

I stare at my thumb hovering over the tiny green call button.

Nathan's not that cruel. He can't be.

My eyes shift from my thumb back to the letter and I start re-reading it. Much slower. My thumb, still over the call button.

New tears start falling as I read each and every word on the page. I realize that the handwriting is not Nathan's and with that my thumb slides across the screen and presses down on the tiny red, cancel button. I then in a panic scroll to find my mother's number and begin texting her.

"Mom. You need to come home. Now!"

I read the message I'm about to send when memories of all the times I've tried to ask her about my father come flooding back. How agitated she would get and how she would cut me off and dismiss my questions as quickly as she could.

I look again at the letter.

" No-one must know I've sent you anything." I re-read the line on the letter.

I look back at my phone. At my message.

"No-one must know." I unconsciously say out a loud.

Deleting the message, I then put my phone down, checking the time as I do. I have some time.

I climb off my bed to pick up my laptop and bring it back to the bed with me. Pushing all the tape, box remnants and envelope aside. I place my laptop in front of me and open the explore window. I clip the stick into a USB slot and wait for it to be acknowledged.

A drive with the name Skylar pops up in the menu and I double click on it.

The only item in the folder was a single video clip, with a thumbnail of a man looking at me.

The man was handsome with very strong facial features. Attractive. A long solid straight nose, a straight pink set of lips. Really bright blue eyes. All framed within a short, neatly cut salt and pepper hair do.

I open the video and immediately press pause to get a bigger view of the man and then look over and across the room to the full length mirror hanging on the inside of my open cupboard door.

I get up, walk closer to it and begin studying my face. I look back over to the man on my laptop screen and then back at my reflection.

I look a lot like my mother, with long, wavy, bright copper hair. Smooth, high cheekbones and a 'V' shaped face. My dark eyebrows seem to resemble the strong brow of the man on the screen. So does my eye color. His are as electric as mine. Whereas my mother's are pale in comparison. As much as I am my mother's daughter, there are similarities between that man frozen on my screen and I.

I look at myself once more before I wipe the tears from my face and head once again to my bed. This time to play the video of this Chase Argent man claiming to be my father.

Between my mother's privacy policy and the no-one must know line from the letter. My sense of privacy begins to take on a sense of secrecy, and so I lift my earphones, cupped around my neck and put them on and plug them into my laptop.

For a few seconds longer, I take in the face of the handsome stranger on the screen. Then click play. My stomach, now turning with nervousness as the media player begins to play the video.

"Hello Skylar. My name is Chase Argent and I am your father. I'm sorry that it takes my death for me to reach out to you but trust me, there is a very good reason for it." 

I hold my breath as the husky yet warm and friendly voice of this stranger fills my ears. There seems to be less urgency in his voice compared to his written word. He takes his time and smiles a lot as he speaks. Speaks to me and me alone.

Indeed. Face to face with my father after so many years of not knowing. Not seeing. Not hearing. In this video I have him all to myself as well as his undivided attention. Something I think I would cherish for a long time to come.