Owen had been out just a bit too long past his curfew for parole. Now many times – since he was a year in – his parole officer wouldn’t bother to check in. But it still didn’t make Owen any less nervous to be late coming home. He wanted to do good and succeed, yet lately he had felt distracted. Forgiveness from Quinn and Rory was all he had ever wanted for the past six years and finally achieving such a blessing to his sanity was humbling. And yet now he was late. Late to go home. And continue this tedious strain of a curfew for the next two and a half years. It was a solid reminder for every time he got too comfortable. Being reminded of parole was humbling but not in a positive way. For it reminded him of the best friend that wasn’t there anymore. The best friend he lost from his decisions. Yet as he rushed home, Owen watched as a bar door kicked open, two men stumbling out. He watched as one argued off, angrily drunk whilst the other used the brick wall to brace themselves, clearly winded from whatever scuffle happened behind doors. As Owen approached, despite his fear of screwing up, he could vaguely remember the face. And yet he couldn’t quite place where he had seen him before; not yet. Without any clue if this man was the antagonist or the victim, Owen could just offer out some help on a hunch. “–Hey man, you wanna go get all that cleaned up? Looks like a nasty amount of blood.” No matter how deep a grave Owen could dig for himself, his will to help always got the best of him.
Christian glanced up, rubbing his eye gently. It was sore, tender to the touch and he knew it wasn’t going to look pretty in the morning. His gaze landed on the man in front of him and Christian immediately recognized his face. “Uh... yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he said, frowning at the amount of blood that was still slowly pooling in his mouth. He was embarrassed, really. It wasn’t like Christian to get into any sort of trouble like this, and to make matters worse he definitely looked a bit roughed up compared to the other guy. “Owen, right? We met at the farmer’s market...”












