ALIN

My whole body was shaking after the phone call. It was from uncle Len. He works with my father at the diner where he said was an accident in which my father was injured. I didn’t wait for him to tell me about the details and just notified him that I was coming there. My father was never so careless to cause any kind of accident in the kitchen, then what the hell happened?

With all these crazy thoughts going inside my head, I kept on giving directions to Sebian. He drove as fast as he can without causing any trouble. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he took left and right turns. I don’t even know why he was doing this. He didn’t have to help me; he could have just finished his shopping and left the mart. I don’t know what I would have done then though, ran to the diner maybe but it was none of his concern.

We finally reached in front of Lessi’s and I ran inside. My father was sitting on a chair with a few bruises on his face and his right palm was profusely bleeding. He was moaning in pain but when he saw me an assuring smile spreaded on his face. “What happened daddy?” I went near him and crouched down. I held his face and inspected it, looked like someone had hit him hard. “It’s nothing kiddo, I am fine,” he tried to widen his smile through the pain. Seeing him in this condition I couldn’t stop my tears from falling. “A group of people came, they were drunk and made a mess of this place,” uncle Len said.

I averted my eyes and looked around to notice tumbled chairs, a few broken plates and other things on the floor. Uncle Len had a cut on his forehead too. “We tried to stop them but they started hitting us,” he spoke again. I looked at my father again. “Come on daddy; let’s get you to the hospital.” “No kiddo, it’s not that serious, let’s just go home” my father insisted. “Yeah, take him home and let him rest. He will be better in no time.” Uncle Len said, patting on my father’s shoulder with a big smile. “You also come with us, uncle Len.” “I can’t Aly. I have to clean up here first and then I will leave. You take Rob and go.” “Then let us help you with the cleaning and then all of us can leave together.” Sebian, who was silently standing behind me all this time finally spoke. “Yeah, let’s do that. Dad, you wait here for a bit, we will finish up soon and then go home together.”

It was already dark outside by the time we were done at the diner. “Okay, all done, let’s head back now.” Sebian told while he exhaustedly sat on a chair drinking water from a bottle. Looking at him now I am thinking, how did things came to this? Sebian came here with me and was now helping me out with the diner. If I was not witnessing this myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. Suddenly he looked at me and seeing me looking at him gave me a smile. It was neither sly nor evil but a genuine, reassuring one conveying that everything is alright. I felt a different kind of calmness inside me after looking at him.

After dropping uncle Len when we were on the way to our home, my father tried to make small talks with Sebian. “So you say you’re staying here with Mrs. Reece, son.” “Yes sir.” Sebian answered. “How come I’ve never seen you then? Mrs. Reece and we have been neighbours for ages and I’ve never seen you!” “He recently moved here dad, so maybe you didn’t noticed him.” I interfered, seeing that Sebian was running out of answers.

I knew Sebian was being uncomfortable by my father’s questions but he still answered them politely. I have to make a note to say sorry to him about all that had happened today. Maybe he is not as bad as I thought he would be. Just because I don’t like the people he hangs out with doesn’t mean he was like them as well. All this time whenever he talked with me, it was never unreasonable.

He parked his car in front of my house instead of his. He got out and came to help my father out of the car. We both supported my father to climb the stairs to the door and then my mother helped to take him inside. I remained there at the door beside Sebian. “Thank you,” I told him with a smile. He smiled back. “It’s okay. Just make sure to help me out with the project. Also, can I have your number, so that I can know in advance when you will be ditching me?” he teased me. We exchanged numbers and after telling me ‘Bye’ with a smile on his face, he left.