Back To Our Roots, Book One

XXXIX. One Misstep And You're Fucked

When Wes woke up, it was around midnight. The light in his room was still on.

He sat up, wondering what woke him. Then he saw a police officer standing by the door and jumped, moving backwards.

"Show me your warrant," he said shakily.

He pulled it out, showing him. He was still standing by the door. "Look, kid–"

"I'm not a kid, don't speak to me like one. Why are you here?"

"I'd say child abuse, but it'd clear you don't like being called a child. So minor abuse."

"That's ridiculous," Wes said.

"I'm not spending the last minutes of my Christmas arguing with you. They need you upstairs."

Wes shook his head, standing up. He grabbed the bag he had brought from Dalton and his phone, changing the bandage on his face before heading up. He had a feeling he wouldn't be back for a while.

He walked out where a couple of police were standing. "Okay, there's been a mistake here," he said.

"Why else are you beaten up and your bathroom is covered in blood?"

"You don't understand, they aren't criminals. They're hardly doing anything wrong, they can't go to the same place as a murderer!"

"-the second one will fiercely defend them no matter what. Find out which kind the kid is, and take their angle on their parents. With the second kind, never suggest their parents are doing anything wrong. They'll absolutely shut down."

"Wes, nothing's set in stone right now. We're just trying to get all the facts before anything happens. Like you, we don't want them to be sentenced unjustly either," Nathan told him. "It'd help if you could honestly answer some questions so whatever happens to them is entirely fair."

Wes actually seemed to relax, which shocked the other people in the room. This guy was a trainee, he didn't even work with them yet. 

"Yeah, I can do that," Wes agreed.

Someone pulled out a pad of paper to record his answers.

"Okay, well, how long has this been going on?"

"Um..." Wes bit his lip, trying to remember. "I think I was six, I told them that I thought I liked guys the way I should feel about girls."

"So this was all because you're gay?"

"Well, and disrespectful. But it started because I'm gay."

"What did they do when you told them?"

"My dad whipped my back until it was raw."

There was a silence, as if they had stopped breathing.

"Okay," the person recording said, voice strangled.

"And you were six?"

"Mhm."

"Have they whipped you again?"

"My dad only whips me when I say anything about me being gay. He didn't last night, though, which is curious. But usually my mom just hits me, or kicks me when I fall down."

"And that," the officer gestured to his own cheek, "what's that from?"

"Her wedding ring."

"I'm sorry, how do you not want them in jail?" one of the officers asked, baffled. "They broke the law and have been hurting you for years just because you like guys."

"How can you say that? You don't know them, you don't know the whole story! You're doing the actual textbook definition of judging a book by it's cover!"

Wes scoffed, shaking his head. He walked over to the door, opening it.

"Where are you going?"

"Dalton. If you're just using this against them, I'm done."

"It's past your curfew."

Wes was already walking out the door. "You can't get ticketed for being past curfew when you're going home," he called over his shoulder.

Nathan sighed, turning to the officer who had asked Wes how he didn't want his parents in jail. "Why would you say that?"

"I didn't know it would set him off!"

"Okay, there are two types of kids abused by their guardians. The ones who hate them and would stab them if they got the chance, and the ones who will fiercely defend them. Wes is the second kind, in case you didn't notice. When talking about them, you have to take his side or he'll completely shut down."

They were all silent for a minute.

Jameson shook his head. "These schools are getting better with time, aren't they? I was never taught that."

"I didn't learn it in school. I learned it from a friend, who knows quite a bit on the matter."

"How do they know that?"

"Takes one to know one."