Ever wondered what caused the special connection between Bobby and Evelyn? Here's my take on it. This is a flashback chapter that I'm excited to write as the idea is stuck in my head. I don't own four brothers.
There are moments in life that defines us. Moments that are so huge that they change who you are. In some cases they make you become the person you always wanted to be. These moments can make you step up, or down, depending on how bad you want it, depending on who you want to be. That was what happened one night when Evelyn didn't come home from work.
When Evelyn didn't come home after work he didn't worry. She sometimes worked late, even though she had cut dowm on the hours since she adopted him. But when the hours passed he started to wonder, she had never been this late before. He called the number she had left on the fridge for him, in case he needed something she had said. He talked to someone at her office who said that she had been called away on an emergency. That wasn't strange, Bobby knew 'emergencies' happened frequently, but it felt wrong. After the years he had spent looking after himself he had developed a kind of sixth sense. It was a form of survival really, to trust yourself enough to know when shit was about to go down. This feeling in his stomach was usually an indication that he needed to get the fuck out of there, but this time it was different.
He called her office again, claiming an emergency and that he had to get a hold of Evelyn straight away. He was in luck. The woman he was talking too knew the rules and didn't want to tell him anything, but he managed to convince her that it was exstremely urgent. A part of him scoffed at the social workers, no wonder so many kids ended up dead while in their care, but for the first time their incompetence worked in his favor. After promising to wait outside the house for Evelyn and not the enter the building he hung up and didn't hesitate to grab Evelyn's car keys. He didn't have his license yet but that didn't matter. He'd known how to drive since he was 12.
As luck would have it Evelyn had gotten a ride to work this morning with Sam. His lips pulled up slightly when he thought of the older man and his crush on Evelyn. At first he'd been exstremely hostile towards the older man, not knowing his intentions and not wanting to see Evelyn hurt, but as time had passed he had come to realize that he only wanted what was best for her, and that was something Bobby could relate to.
Driving down the street he looked at the note with the adress scribbled down on it. He knew the area fairly well and he didn't have any problem finding the house. Sam's car was parked outside and he debated on whether to park behind it or down the street. His instincts screamed at him to be careful and he knew better than to ignore them, so he parked around the corner and made his way to the house on foot. He ignored the door and instead opted for the window. Looking inside he didn't see anything, and with a sigh of frustration he realized that the other windows were too high up. That left the door.
The door slid open without any noise and he didn't hesitate before he quickly slid inside. The door clicked shut behind him. He looked around and took in the shit that was on every available surface. Yeah this was no dream house that's for sure. A sound made him freeze and he listened intently. It was Evelyn, but her voice sounded like nothing he had ever heard before. He walked as quickly as he dared towards her voice, stopping outside a room. The door was open and with a carefulness he didn't know he possessed he looked around the corner. What he saw shocked him. Not because he hadn't seen things like that before, but because despite the fact that he was always prepared for the worst, he wasn't prepared to see a kid laying on the floor covered in stab wounds. He was dead. Bobby knew that from one look at him and he shifted his eyes to Evelyn. She seemed to be unharmed. His blood boiled when he saw the teartracks on her cheeks. Next to her was Sam who also seemed to be unharmed, other than the fact that he was visibly shook up. Bobby didn't blame him, it wasn't everyday you saw a kid who had been stabbed to death. If you didn't live on the streets of course, then that sight was almost everyday, in various forms.
His eyes turned to the man he had noticed straight away when he looked into the room. A closer look told him what he already suspected. He was high, or drunk. And he was holding a knife in his hand. He heard Evelyn's soft voice try to reason with him, but he could already tell it wasn't going to work. He was too far gone in his own world.
Bobby tried to calculate the distance between them. Would he be fast enough so that he didn't have time to strike out at Evelyn?
The same time he moved so did Sam. He had come to the same conclusion Bobby had, and decided that he had to act before the man did. It all seemed to move in slow motion then. Sam jumped forward and being closer to the man than Bobby was he reached him first. Sam wasn't young anymore and he didn't move fast enough. Only a few seconds had gone by since Bobby first looked into the room but later he would still wonder if he could have been faster, if he could have changed what happened. He reached them a few seconds after Sam had charged but that was all it took. He heard the gasp Evelyn let out, heard the groan Sam gave off and he saw the knife make it's way into Sam's stomach.
He let instinct guide him and his fists flew. He more felt than heard the crunch beneath his hands when something broke underneath them. The rage boiled over and his arms kept moving and it felt like déjà vu. He had been here before, but this time he wasn't fighting for himself. He kept hitting long after the body underneath him had stilled, kept trying to get back to it even after the paramedics tried to drag him away. The sound of Evelyn's voice finally got through to him and he allowed himself to be lifted off the body underneath him. He was restrained and handed off to a cop while the paramedics worked on the man who had killed his own child in a fit of rage.
His black eyes left them to look over at Evelyn who was crying silently next to the still body of Sam. The hand one of the paramedics placed on Evelyn's shoulder told Bobby he was gone. The phone on the floor next to her, now laying in a pool of Sam's blood told him that she had been the one to call 911.
She looked up and met his eyes. She got up on shaking knees and paying no attention to the blood her hands was covered in she walked over and told the cop holding him to release him. After a moments hesiatation he did so, and Bobby waited, unsure of what was going to come now. Evelyn fell against him, and he caught her.
Later that night he heard her cry softly. They had finally gotten home. He had driven them in her car, she hadn't questioned it. He found her sitting on the couch, her hands on her face and a crushed look in her eyes. The heart he wasn't sure he had clenched painfully at the sight. He wasn't sure what to do, this wasn't something he was used to handling, but he knew there was no one else. And he wanted to help her, like she had helped him.
Evelyn would never know how much it took for him to sit next to her on the couch. He wasn't that kind of guy, he hadn't been for a long time, but for her he could try. He was so unsure when he reached his arm out and placed it around her, but when she leaned against him his confidence grew. She sobbed and he continued to hold her.
"That poor boy… And Sam…" The whisper tugged at his heart, the tears in her voice causing his blood to boil again but he tried to push it down.
"I tried" In a way it felt like he had failed her and it was reflected in his own whisper against her head.
"I know you did honey. It's not your fault, you have to know that. I just, I just don't see the point, what is the point of all this pain, all this suffering, all that boy went through".
In a broken voice she told him about how they had gotten a call that something wasn't right in that home and how she had decided to go straight away, and how Sam wouldn't let her go alone. There was no suspicion of anything more serious so they didn't contact the police for an escort there. It was a simple check up. When they arrived the man had invited them in, they had both hesitated, seeing that the man was drunk, but the welfare of the child had prompted them to search for him. When they found him he was already dead.
"Does it even matter? We try so hard to help, but it's just so much evil…"
Bobby had been silent but now he spoke. He wanted her to know that she mattered, that her work mattered. That he had never met anyone so good and so caring as her. He wanted her to know that he thought she was a saint, an angel straight from heaven. But he wasn't ready to voice all that yet. "It mattered to me".
She looked at him then, and he saw something he had never seen when anyone looked at him before. Pride. She was proud of him? Was she really?
She didn't answer, instead she hugged him like he had given her a meaning again. Like he had reminded her just what she could do. He tensed a little bit at the touch but soon relaxed.
"Thank you Bobby"
"For what?"
"For reminding me" She looked up at him, that motherly look of love in her eyes "and for saving me".
The words were like cooling balm on a burn. Maybe for the first time ever Bobby felt proud, like he'd finally done something right. Like he had finally begun to pay her back for everything she had done for him. Slightly incomfortable with the closeness he nudged her lightly with his elbow and smiled at her. "I'll always save ya".
Uh uh I feel sad just writing the end to this. Anyway I wanted to show some of what made Bobby and Evelyn grow so close. Evelyn is kind of out of character I think, but I think that working with what she did you sometimes have doubts and feel like you're not making a difference. Especially after something so meaningless. According to me this was the moment where Bobby started to grow into his role. Hope you liked it!