Above Everything, You're the One

13. His Past

Connor is returning tomorrow, celebrating his birthday morning with his family so that he can celebrate the birthday night with his friends. We talked for a few minutes a couple of times as he was busy meeting with his father's business partners and preparing for the board meeting he had to attend today alongside his father.

When he told me about it this morning at precisely five a.m, he sounded nervous and couldn't stop stammering. Finally, after a lot of persuading, he managed to calm down, but I know him well enough to say that he must be fretting at the moment, dreading to enter the battle zone, as he kindly put it.

I hope everything goes well, and he'd come out of it with his confidence intact and not shattered into many small fragments.

After finishing the last class for the day, I sit under the tree to shade myself from the unbearable sun, which has decided to be extremely hot to the point I can feel the part of my body that is exposed burn. I stretch against the tree, take out my sketch pad and a pencil from the bag and flip it open to the last sketch I have drawn since the previous night. It's a new assignment given by my art professor to improve and bring a change in our painting style. As she said, "If you cannot sketch properly, you cannot paint," which is rather ludicrous, but I have no other choice than to comply, given her superiority as a professor.

About twenty minutes later, as I pack my bags, ready to leave the place and get some rest, my phone vibrates in my pocket. Retrieving it, I see it's from James.

"Hey, James! How are you?" I smile.

"Hazel," his somber voice snaps my full attention, all the playfulness leaving me at once. "It's Evan."

I felt like an invisible force knocked me in the stomach with those two words, robbing me of all the oxygen in my body and leaving me completely and utterly empty.

≪≫≪≫

Evan was arrested last night at a local bar, accused of attacking a man brutally and drug trafficking.

With some proof and facts, James had managed to prove that Evan was not selling drugs as, luckily, he didn't have any when he was arrested. However, he was under the heavy influence, so he was under rigorous investigation; not to mention, he beat up a man in his late forties in the most brutal way.

I was shocked when I saw the man at the hospital. His whole face was swollen with a misplaced jaw and two broken legs. Of course, the wounds may heal with medicines and time, but I hardly doubt the scars will be gone completely.

I left immediately after James had called me about five hours ago, going directly to the sheriff's station to see Evan. They didn't allow me to see him as he was being interrogated by the officer who had arrested him last night. I stand beside James, arguing with another sheriff, asking him to release Evan for he is not at fault in this matter as he beat up that man to protect a small girl.

"For the love of God, I am completely aware you see these types of cases almost regularly, so you should know better than anyone else that my son is not at fault, here, sheriff. He was protecting a small child from that man's abuse, who, I am sure you know very well, would have been raped and trafficked or killed had my son not intervened. So how can you lock him up for saving someone's life?"

The sheriff seemed tired from exhaustion, large dark circles under his eyes showing a clear indication of his fatigue. He rubbed at them to remove the remnants of his weariness and, in a sad, subdued voice, said, "I understand your case, Mr. Thomson. But your son is not only charged with abusing a man but also for selling drugs. Might I add, he was under a heavy influence last night, which we cannot overlook because he saved a girl? As a sheriff, I am grateful and happy that he was a responsible citizen for helping out a child. While on the same account, I cannot release him until all the charges are cleared and we are sure he is of no danger to innocent lives. Drug trafficking is a serious case. You must know that."