The Stranger I Met

He Needs Me

18 tapes!

35-40 minutes each!

And I had decided to watch them ALL.

After starting it once, I couldn't make myself shift from my spot on the floor and take in every single pixel of the videos. I wanted to rewatch, every single one of them but the curiousity of reaching the end kept me going forward in the memory lane.

Jason didn't leave my side for even a second and kept holding me throughout as all my emotions were on peak. When I laughed, I snorted like someone suffering from oxygen deficiency, when I cried it got me completely choked up, blocking the passage of air.

The satisfaction I found when I saw dad smile without a worry in the world was the best emotion but it wouldn't stay too long as sadness would creep over me, drowning me in my tears all over again.

Jenna had to bring lunch in my room as Jason refused to separate from me or bring me down to eat. She too sat with me for a few hours, holding my hand and patting my head affectionately.

I had no idea when I fell asleep but when I woke up the next day, it was five in morning and the sun was yet to make an appearance. The TV screen was off, Jason was gone and I was cold in his absence. I didn't let it get to me as the realization made itself felt that I hadn't finished all the tapes.

The video player was still in the same place, so I took out the fifteenth tape and settled down in the exact spot on the floor after pushing play.

The tapes answered all of my queries about the loopholes that kept replaying through my mind. Dad and my relationship, his friendship with Sebastian, Aunt May and Jenna being the only two women in my life to brought me up until the contract happened and my mom's hatred towards me.

Even though I didn't want to believe it, her absence in every single one of the videos made me think of it as a possibility and the time when she accidentally got into the frame, dad asked her to give me a kiss, she simply picked up her work material and left, with a small limp in her steps which was almost invisible if I hadn't known about it.

But somewhere in my heart, I still didn't want to come to terms with it. But I did accept the fact in a heartbeat about how close I was to my dad, the dreams that kept making an appearance of me and him time to time were true and were stored in someplace back in my mind.

Another question that remained unanswered was how the beginning of my childhood was related with Jason and the Lake House. The tapes answered them as well.

Except for some of the end ones, all of them were recorded at the Lake House, with numerous shots of Jason and I together. We would bath, play , splash water on each other, fight, laugh. His eyes were still as striking and his hair the same shade. Not remembering any of it was what hurt me the most.

The last two years with my dad until I got five were recorded at various locations in our town. Sometimes Jenna or Aunt May would be there, but mostly it would be just dad and I.

Jason had walked in my room as soon as I had started the fifteenth tape and without any questions, sat down next to me, pulling me into his lap, just like the day before.

" And that's how you bake a cookie, baby girl." Dad exclaims in the seventeenth tape, holding a perfectly burnt chocolate cookie in his hand and offering it to me. My five year old self scrutinizes it with a frown before picking up a cookie dough from the table and nibbling on it. " I prefer this one, Dada."

Dad bursts into fits of laughter and looks at the camera. " That is what happens when you have a cute little smartass as your daughter, Aurora."  Little Aurora takes a loud gasp in the background.