Standing By

Neighbors and Friends

(Tim)

I have never felt as grateful as I did when I walked out of that police station that evening.  A little worse for wear, but I had survived the day from hell.  And to boot, I had my friends with me.  My Home Free friends.  My true friends.  Who had picked their butts up on Christmas Day to help me.  I may be in deep legal shit, but at least I had Chance and Austin beside me.

    "Um," Chance muttered, jiggling his keys in his pocket.  "Where're we going?"

    As much as I hated to return home to where it had all gone down, I didn't really have any better alternatives.  Hotels would have to be bustling today anyway.  "My house, I guess," I said unhappily.  "I can provide directions."

    "Austin, you want to follow us?" Chance asked him, garnering a nod.

    "Yeah, that'll be fine," he said.

    Oddly enough, as long as Chance and I had been friends, I'd so rarely been in Chance's car that I wasn't even sure what it looked like.  I hung back for a second, waiting to see where he'd go.  Blue Ford, Alabama license plates.  Duhh.  I might have connected the two if I'd had a brain that was working right.

    I climbed in, giving instructions.  "We're going to take Old Hickory Boulevard down to Franklin—whoa!" I exclaimed, nearly sitting on a bunch of paper plates filled with food.  I eyed them hungrily.  All I'd had today were the Fritos and snack chips I'd had hours and hours ago.  I'd been served some sort of dinner back in the jail cell, but I had been so depressed I hadn't even wanted anything back then.  Now my appetite was back in full force.  I peeled back the aluminum foil.  Mmm.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, green beans, stuffing, cranberry preserves, a slightly smushed-up roll.

    Chance watched me salivating over the food and grinned.  "My sister-in-law made plates to take with me.  I got a couple here.  One is for you."

    "Oh my God, Chance, you are the best!" I gushed.  Not above eating cold food, I picked up the roll and ate it hungrily.

    "Down Old Hickory Boulevard to Franklin?" he asked, switching the car into gear.

    "Yep, Old Hickory Boulevard to Franklin Road, then take a left," I affirmed, wondering if I could eat turkey with my fingers.  I decided I didn't care much about manners anymore and went for it, Chance chuckling at me.

    "This is divine," I was saying around a bite.  "So far today, I've eaten Fritos and snack chips.  Nothing anywhere this good."

    Chance grinned.  "Got pie too, on the last plate there."

    "Mmm," I murmured my appreciation as I started in on the green beans.  I was just trying to gage how to manage the the potatoes when I gestured to the right.  "Go down here, take this all the way past the roundabout. Right onto Dogwood, left onto Pine Street."

    "Roundabout, right, left," Chance muttered, navigating the subdivision like a pro.  We pulled into my driveway a minute later, Austin right behind us.

    My eyes immediately zeroed in on the porch, where Jenika had stood watching Ruiz arrest me on her word, her word alone, watching me with cold eyes as he took me, me crying out to her, begging her to tell the truth, to not do this.  And she wouldn't—she'd refused to set the record straight—at my expense.  She was willing to hurt me, ready to watch me be arrested.

    Getting out of the car, walking on the sidewalk I'd been arrested on, my chest started to close on me, crushing under the weight of her accusations, of the memories I'd never be able to erase, of her aloofness, the hurt that was nearly too much to bear.  I stumbled as my vision clouded under the increasing sense of panic.