Seen

13.

The gun was now pointed at my dad. The cop and Jake had already jumped up out of their seats but didn't attempt to approach me.

My father was surprisingly the only one still seated. But it was the way he was sitting that urged me to pull the trigger.

He was being so casual and collected, leaning back in his chair as if watching a television. He didn't even flinch. Then finally, he spoke with, "Go ahead," he shrugged as he went on, "aren't you gonna shoot? Whatcha waiting for? Pull it."

His remark set me off extremely. I held the gun in his direction for a moment before pointing it up towards the ceiling and firing a single shot.

The sudden booming sound made me jump. The vibrations jumped around in my head.

Jake was looking dead at me and I looked straight back. His desperate, begging expression forced me into saying, "Sorry...I uh...don't know what I was thinking. Here."

I gestured the gun towards the cop. He flinched a bit, nervously looked around, then slowly stepped towards me and quickly snatched the weapon from my hands.

After the gun was removed, I put my fists together and held them out.

"Um...I'm not going to arrest you. We all have ya know, urges I guess. Sometimes to do crazy things we don't really want to do."

He was clearly choosing his words very carefully. After seeing what I had just attempted, he wasn't sure what I'd try next. Hell if I knew either but even though, his words weren't entirely thought through because I kind of wanted to do it.

I glared up and noticed that when I had the bright idea to shoot the ceiling, it had made a decent sized hole. After staring at it awhile, it started to remind me of the hole made in our family, growing larger by the second.

Glaring around the room at all the different faces and expressions, I figured I was now ready to take all of this seriously.

When I slowly sat back down, my dads face lit up slightly but he refused to smile. We sat and discussed the matter for about three hours and I think we actually bonded over a laugh or two in the process.

I just kept reminding myself that he could never again, truly be my father. When I look at him now, all I see is a familiar stranger.