Tested

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

   I left the large tour bus to meet my dad. In this made up reality that God created for the test I apparently know my dad very well; however in my own mind I have never met him before, so I was honestly nervous and slightly scared.

   I see him and see a man in about his fifties that looks like a larger, wrinkled, balding, “road worn” me. I can see that I get my body build from him, since we were similar in body and face shape. His eyes were slightly darker than mine, but looked more experienced that mine. He was tanner than me, and his voice was deeper and slightly hoarse.

   “Hi son,” he said seeming somewhat excited, “I saw the show last night. Thanks for the ticket you got for me, the show was great.”

   “Thanks. Hey I’ll be right back. I need to go back into the bus for something,” I said as I went in without waiting for his response.

   “Hey Lily…” I said to her as she finished putting her clothes back on.

   “Yeah babe?” she replied.

   “So,” I began, “my dad is there, where’s my mom and brother?” I wondered if they would be a part of this testing as well.

   “You forgot? You’ve been acting weird lately. Are you okay?” she asked feeling slightly concerned, but a bit more upset with me for possibly not having my act straight.

   “Yeah I’m fine. Just…please answer the question,” I replied impatiently.

   “You left them, remember? I told you it was them or us, and you chose us. Your  family kept trying to shove all that ‘Jesus loves you’ stuff in our face and they were always telling you what to do, and I was sick of it. You didn’t like leaving them, but you got over it after we straightened you out.” They made me leave my family too? This band was really messing with me. I looked at Yafeh who was obviously still upset about last night, but not upset with me and was concerned for me as I heard all of that. She even walked up to me and kissed my cheek to make me feel better, which it did.

   “Oh yeah, I remember now,” I said lying, “I’m just tired I guess, forgot how to remember,” I said laughing trying to get her to believe me, which she did.

   “Okay,” she laughed, “as long as you know that tonight I want an encore of last night. That was way too amazing to only happen once. Now go have lunch with your dad before he gets impatient. You know how he gets when he gets impatient.” Actually I didn’t, but I was hoping I wouldn’t find out.

   I go back out to see my dad looking kind of impatient, of course. He looked at me sternly and started to get on to me.

   “You knew we were having this lunch, so why weren’t you ready earlier?” he started getting on to me, “Instead you make me wait out here in this sun, and it’s really hot out here. What’s going through your head boy?!” he said as he gave me an aggressive slap in the back of my head, which actually kind of hurt. He was a big man, so caused me to even stagger forward a bit.

   “I’m sorry; I had to talk to Lily for a minute. Calm down dad,” I said trying to get him to stop. After I said this he let in a few deep breathes and calmed himself down.

   “I‘m sorry, but you know I hate waiting on you. Anyways, where are we eating?” he asked trying to change the subject.

   “I’m good with whatever you want. I’m just really hungry so I’ll eat just about anything,” I said following his lead in changing the subject.

   “Well there’s that Italian place that just a couple blocks from here, so we could walk there. Let’s go,” he said as he started walking. I followed him since I don’t know where I’m going. In the made up reality I did, but in my mind I had no clue.