Less than Perfect by S. J. Evans (love letters to the dead txt) 📕

She tried to deliberate between any possible answer she could to those questions, but she couldn’t resolve anything. The questions were unsolvable in her own mind—she needed to find the answers out from Johnny, indirectly.
She thought of the many times Johnny had freaked out when she had gone into his office for something, and that’s when she got an idea to figure out the truth. He had gotten angry all of those times not because he wanted his space, but because he was hiding something, and she was going to find out what that was.
Building up the courage, she mounted the stairs and ventured down the hall to the “forbidden” office. She had time before he would get home and that was her only chance at it.
Twisting the doorknob, she sucked in a breath, hoping that the door was unlocked. To her surprise, it was. She let out the breath and closed her eyes for a moment, her nerves jumping to high alert just as they always did when she did something that could jeopardize her safety. He’s not here; he’s not going to see me

. She reminded herself, saying the words repeatedly in her head.
She ducked into the room and carefully shut the door behind her, as if he really was home. She pressed her back against the door and took a deep breath. All I have to do is find something incriminating and then I can turn it into the police

, She told herself, stifling laughter as she thought of how much she was playing the seeking game. Pull yourself together, Skye, it’s not like he’s some sort of criminal, he’s just a man with a bad temper who likes to take it out on teenage girls

.
Her body was objecting as she walked over to his desk, shying her away from it. She fought against part of herself and built up the courage to take a peek into his drawers, her shaking hands grasping the handle and pulling it open.
In the first drawer she searched through, there was nothing but papers about his job. In the second, notepads full of appointments and bills. There wasn’t anything incriminating, anything that would make people question his line of work or his relationship with Skye. He looked proven innocent.
Drawer number three spoke otherwise, though. “What?” She gasped when she opened the drawer three down on the left side of the desk. Her eyes bulged, and, for a moment, she didn’t breathe. Her mind was thrown into a whirlwind and she had to pry her eyes off of the thing in front of her to even breathe again.
Hands shaking erratically, she picked up the photograph in both hands and studied it, her eyebrows furrowing with confusion. “What are you doing with these, Johnny?” She whispered, her voice retracting on the words. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing; it was all too confusing and surprising to be real.
In her hands was a picture of her when she was five-years-old and playing on the playground with Leah. She looked very happy, not scared or sad, really happy

. After having picked up that photo she uncovered many more, plenty of her life growing up. And with every different photograph she picked up, her heart started beating a little quicker.
The same question kept replaying itself over and over again in her mind, why did he have these photos?

She couldn’t think about the fact that he could’ve known her as a child, the fact that he could’ve been watching her and Leah for years. It frightened her, chilling her every bone.
Finally, getting to the bottom of the drawer—about twenty photos bunched in her arms—she came to something even more surprising. A photograph of a young man carrying a briefcase with the words Skye’s father

written on it, rested, staring back at her. She dropped all of the other photos and gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Dad?” She cried in a hushed whisper. “How did he know you?” Her voice croaked, choking on her own tears. Her heart had slammed itself in the pit of her stomach and she wanted to cry. Was the man in the picture really her father? Could Johnny possibly no more about her life than she does? “This can’t be possible,” she breathed, picking up the photograph in her hands and tracing her finger over the man’s face.
Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she thought about the possibility that she knew someone who could show her to her father, the real one. This, this could be my father

. Her lips slid into a crooked smile as she thought of finally seeing him. Yes, he had left her before she was born, but she needed to meet him one day, she needed to find out if he was really all that bad of a guy.
Setting the photograph onto the desk she wiped away her tears and sniffled, shaking her head a little. She needed to clear her head, that’s what she needed to do. Johnny not only had photos of her and her mom but he also had a photo of her father.
A piece of paperwork caught her eye when she glanced down into the drawer. It must have been hidden under the photograph. On the piece of paperwork three names stood out to her: Derik Ryan Pembroke. Was that his name?

She tried to recall if Leah had ever given her his name, but she figured she hadn’t. My father. Derik Ryan Pembroke. It has to be.

She snapped herself back into reality when she studied the paper. It was a bunch of information about where this man, Derik, worked. He was a lawyer who lived in Wyoming and ran his own organization called, Hope in a Box

, an organization that gave to the needy and orphaned.
Skye would have found it funny that the same man that could have left her before she was even born was now running an organization where orphaned kids were involved if she hadn’t been so surprised. She couldn’t get over the fact that Johnny may have been looking into her life since she was young; and he wasn’t only looking into her, but also, Leah and her biological father. It was too unbelievable but at the same time it was believable. The thing she didn’t get was why he had done it if he really doesn’t even care about the people. He didn’t love Leah, and he sure didn’t care about Skye as anything more than just a toy. Johnny was suddenly even more frightening than before.
She tried to make sense of the whole situation, but she couldn’t. Making sense of the situation was almost the last thing she could see herself doing. It wasn’t going to make sense unless she had more information, but if Johnny found out that she even knew about it all he would blow up on her.
A loud thudding sound crashed beyond the barrier of the door and shook her from her daze. She hastily ducked down and scrambled to pick all of the pictures up, her dainty hands thrashing around the floor for them. “Why is he back so soon?” She panicked, feeling her heartbeat instantly fly into a quick pace. Her heart was pounding so loud that she thought it just may explode, threatening pressure against her lungs.
She heard footsteps in the hallway and instantly sucked in a breath, snapping her head back to the door. She gathered all of the photos from the ground and shoved them in the drawer—carelessly forgetting the one on the desk—as she jumped to her feet and ran behind where the office door would open.
Her breathing was loud and choked up, just as if all of the air in her lungs was being sucked out from her. She doubled over, gasping as she pressed her hands against her legs. Fear was taking over her body and causing her to fall into overdrive, just as it had done when she was with Bryan that night many days earlier.
Pulling herself straight up, she glanced over at the desk and saw the one picture of Derik that she had left out. No

, she froze, not that picture.

Please Johnny, don’t come in here.

It almost seemed as a lost cause trying to hope that he wouldn’t go in the room, he always went straight to his office when he got home from anything, and it almost screamed at her that that was exactly what he was going to do at the moment.
The sound of the footsteps stopped just outside the door and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that he wouldn’t turn the knob and enter the room. She held her breath as the knob rattled, and all of her hopes fell apart.
Johnny opened the door, opening it so that she had to press herself hard against the wall to keep away from it, and walked within her sightline. He was whistling something under his breath, but when he looked towards the desk, he stopped.
He saw it, oh no, he saw it!

She panicked, keeping her eyes closed as tight as she could. She didn’t want to see him when he realized that she was in his office; this time she probably wouldn’t get out alive.
He looked side to side before taking a few steps forward and handling the photograph, twirling it between his fingers. Anger pulsed through his veins when he clearly got the picture that Skye was in the room. His jaw tightened and he clenched his teeth as he slipped the photograph back into the bottom of the third drawer; and it was only then when she remembered that she had left the drawer wide open too.
He slammed the drawer shut and turned around, perching himself up against the desk and regarding Skye’s terrified presence with a smirk, despite his own anger. He played off of her fear, and the fact that she couldn’t even open her eyes to see if he was watching was a dead giveaway that she was afraid. She looked as pale as snow, all of the color from her face was gone. She barely even looked as though