Night Changes (Soon To Be EDITED)

It's 3am and I Can't Sleep

I knew without any doubt that there would be no way I could sleep if I didn't go with Zane and find out what happened. Marcus had always been a little on the rebellious side. As a kid, he'd stay out ten minutes after curfew just to piss his parents off. When we got older and into our preteen years, he would stay over at my house whenever he could and not tell his parents or leave the neighborhood in general and only tell Zane and me where he was headed. There had never been any signs of anything more than a phase in Mark, and I could only pray that when I met his beautiful blue eyes through the holding cell bars, I would be burdened with the sight of seeing fear in them.

My mom took over my shift with the baby for the night without a problem, and some part of me was relieved my dad was still at work. I knew he wasn't exactly fond of my decision to keep the baby and legally adopt it in a couple months; he believed Liam was no more than a road block to my future. He would lose it if he knew I was leaving him with Mom so I could go with Zane to bail the baby boy's father out of jail.

"Does my dad know he's there?" I asked, prying my eyes from the brightly lit city streets and to the boy beside me. He shrugged a shoulder, keeping his full attention on the road.

"I don't think so." he whispered. "But the officer that called knows your father, because he made sure to let me know how lucky Marcus was that your father cared about him."

I nodded, not finding enough courage to say anything else. Zane had closed himself off so much on the ride here that I couldn't catch a glimpse of any emotion in his eyes.

He slowed the car to a stop in an empty spot in the parking lot of the station, his fingers dancing along the clutch. "Thank you for coming."

"I didn't think you should have to handle this on your own." I answered without hesitation.

The right side of his mouth curled into a tight smile before he pulled the keys from the ignition and climbed out of the car. By the time I got out myself and joined him, he was leaning into the bumper, hands clasped as he stretched them behind his head.

"It's freezing out here, why the hell didn't you bring a jacket?" Zane started to slip out of his sweatshirt, but I held my hand up in a motion for him to stop.

"You don't need to do that, Zai. This isn't a chickflick." I responded with a laugh. He rolled his eyes and forced me into his sweatshirt before I could protest, ruffling my hair like an owner might do to a puppy as we continued up the street to the front of the dark and seemingly deserted building.

Our eyes both fell on my dad the second we walked through the door. My instincts told me to duck behind Zane and pray he wouldn't see me; my heart and head knew better. There was no way he wouldn't be able to see me, I was right in front of him.

Rather than get lost in my own thoughts, I sat in one of the seat facing the dozing woman at the front desk. I found myself thinking about how perfectly Zane's hoodie fit. I had worn Mark's like they were my own for years, but I had always floated in them, especially heading into middle school. He had grown and filled out so much that his sweatshirts and jackets were twice the size and tended to swallow me whole. Zane's wasn't too tight, as some of mine were, but hung off my body loosely; it just wasn't so loose that I got lost in it. I could actually stick my arms through the sleeves and see them if I rolled them up a little.

I heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor and didn't have to look up to know who it was. "Dad."

"Why are you out this late?" he got straight to the point. "And why are you wearing that? Are you sleeping with Matthew?"