HAWKINS, Jared Arthur

[jared arthur hawkins]

JARED ARTHUR HAWKINS

FULL NAME: Jared Arthur Hawkins.
NICKNAMES: None
AGE: thirty-two
GENDER: Male.
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single (divorced).
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: A Former Geologist for a park agency in California, he’s now researching natural disasters.

HAIR: Dark blonde and kind of on the floppy side of “short”. Basically it grows until his mom shows up and reminds him that it needs cutting.
EYES: Blue.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: Only a few that aren’t worth talking about from childhood scrapes.
TATTOOS: None – but he considered prison ink if he was going to go that way.
PIERCINGS: None
PLAY-BY: Garrett Hedlund!

LIKES: Hiking, being outdoors, omelettes, boxing gyms, banana milkshakes, dystopian novels, action movies, his sobriety chip, camping, bonfires, strong coffee, studying the earth’s history, Asian food, a good sleep pattern, old style carnival attractions, house plants, old clothes (extra comfy), having a cleaner (he’s far too messy alone), black dogs, old bars.
DISLIKES: His hometown, who he was becoming before New York, horror movies, talking about his past, small rooms filled with people, women who try too hard with their appearance, complaining all the time, tough meat, extra packing with parcels, depressing country music, people who live their lives through phone screens, fish tacos.
FEARS: Police arresting him, large crowds in small spaces, drowning.
SECRETS: No one in New York knows about his life in Minnesota. They don’t know how he was almost put on trial for the murder of his best friend, how his marriage fell apart because of it, and why he’s now sober after spiralling through all the bad stuff that happened there.
PERSONALITY: Jared prefers to be outdoors rather than in. He’s something of a conservationist in his ways, but that mostly comes from working his career for years and now his research. He’s curious but scientific in his approach to all things. He’ll find logic where most people won’t. A quiet man, he’d rather not be the centre of attention or find himself in a too crowded room. He’s distrusting of certain professions now, especially law enforcement, after his experience in Minnesota. Jared knows not all of them will be the same but he went through a trauma that can’t be erased. He’s slow to open up, keeps his small talk to a minimum, and generally prefers to stay in small company. He’s guarded. unsure of who to trust or rely on anymore. He carries a lot on his shoulders, and frankly, he’s scared of losing his temper even though it’s rarely ever happened in his life. He’s been in love and been heartbroken not too long ago. It makes attraction and dating rather complicated. He doesn’t want to live in his past, but he’s afraid of losing everything again; including someone he might just happen to give his heart to.

MOTHER: Angie Joyce Hawkins, 65.
FATHER: Travis William Hawkins, 67.
SIBLINGS: Gracie May Hawkins-Roy, 34.
OTHERS: Dustin Harris, ex-best friend, 33.
Rene Eliza Hayes, 32, ex wife.
PETS: Ford, a cross between a Labrador and a collie, nine months old!
HOMETOWN: Mankato, Minnesota.
HISTORY: As a journalist and a local school teacher, Angie and Travis had set up a comfortable nest for themselves after settling down in Mankato after college. They got married and spent a few years making a little cash fund before they had their family. A daughter, and then a son.

Jared’s childhood was fairly typical. A nice home, loving family, and like most kids he skinned his knees and went to school. He lived an average life filled with average happenings. He spent time with family, time with friends, and fought like crazy with his sister most of the time. He also met Dustin when he was in the third grade. Dustin was a new kid and Jared felt a kinship with him. They were fast friends, and grew up practically glued at the hip. Nothing could come between them.

Jared was a science kid at school. He had the logical answers, loved working on projects and reading up on experiments and the history of the sciences. Dustin dragged him away from that to try his hand at basketball. Both boys made the school team, and while Jared was a quieter kid, Dustin thrived with high school popularity. Still, he never left Jared behind. Jared considered himself cool by association more than anything, yet he was at the games, the parties, the dances. He was with the popular crowd if only hovering on the fringes of them. He had never been overly comfortable in a crowd, so he kept Dustin and only a few others as his closest friends. Everyone else was just taking up room he’d have preferred to remain empty.

The two best buds even went off to college together. Jared was studying Geology and Dustin wanted to be a successful businessman one day. It was at college that Dustin introduced Jared to Rene Hayes. She was in Dustin’s business class, but he thought she was a good match for his quiet bestie. Jared and Rene definitely hit it off, which was fantastic because that meant Dustin got to date her roomie, Jill, and then it was like this dynamic foursome that just happened to be in all the best places, with the best seats, and the perfect views. Dustin was so charismatic he could talk them in to anywhere, and often it was Jared who got them all back to an apartment before someone passed out on a bar stool.

Jared and Rene married out of college – just like his parents had – and Dustin was his best man. He wasn’t with Jill anymore, but instead was dating another girl from their school, Rosemary. Everything was good, and while Jared and Rene settled down in a house back in Mankato, Dustin and Rosemary continued to date long distance since she was still finishing up school. Jared got a job at a local science lab as a geologist. He was specialised into surveying the land and collecting data. As he put it; “It’s all really boring unless you’re a natural science nerd.” Dustin had a promising start with a local company that sold insurance. He was doing really well for himself and told Jared that his plan was to have his own business by the time he was thirty; though he didn’t have a plan for it just yet.

Rene and Jared were happy in their marriage, but in no rush to have children. Most of the time Dustin was at their place sleeping off a hangover on the weekends or joining them for dinner through the week. No one minded since they were all such good friends. Jared tried to get Dustin to settle down a little more. It was like he was still clinging to the college days when nothing mattered and they could live it up. Dustin earned a solid wage each month, but Jared still lent him money to pay off simple bills and put gas in his car. Dustin would blow it all on boy’s toys and gadgets no one even needed. Rosemary eventually moved to the town and Jared home living with her might settle his best friend down.

Instead, he felt like Dustin was just sneaking around more. Sure, they’d hit up the bar to “get away from” the women for a Friday night, but with Dustin engaged to Rosemary, Jared felt like things were off. He asked him about his business plan, how it was coming along and what ideas he had, but Dustin shrugged him off, accused him of nagging. All Jared wanted was for his best friend to be comfortable and happy. He could sense that he wasn’t but didn’t know how to fix any of that since Dustin was never really the type to have a heart to heart.

When he went missing at the bar one Friday, Jared searched for him and found him hitting second base with a barmaid round the back. He flipped, big time, shouting at Dustin. He called him reckless and stupid, and asked him what the hell he was doing. Dustin wasn’t even drunk to use that as an excuse. The two ended up in a fist fight in the parking lot while Jared tried to make Dustin tell him what was going on in his head. For all his foolish behaviour, Dustin was still his best friend and he didn’t want him to ruin his life. Yet, punches were thrown, blood was drawn, and when Jared hit the tarmac as someone else pulled Dustin away, he felt something snap in his heart. Like the thread that connected the two of them had suddenly been cut.

Jared left, but he didn’t go straight home. He needed to think. If he told Rene what had really happened she would want to call Rosemary immediately. He knew Dustin had done wrong, but maybe he deserved the chance to tell his soon-to-be-wife first. He ended up walking around the town for most of the night, calling to his sister’s house to clean himself up before going home. She wasn’t best impressed with the late night visit, but her brother had never been the violent type so she knew something bad had happened for him to fight – especially with Dustin.

Jared tried calling Dustin the next day but everything went to voicemail. He lied to Rene and said there had been a bar scuffle and that he’d been caught up in it with Dustin while trying to diffuse it. She called him crazy for getting involved, but left it at that. Rosemary called later to see if Dustin was there, but Jared had Rene pass on the message that he had stayed at the bar once he had gone. Dustin was nowhere to be found. After the weekend, Rosemary called the cops and they started an investigation.

They found footage of the fight, and the two parting ways, but then Dustin left the bar an hour later and headed in a direction another camera put Jared at. When questioned Jared insisted that he didn’t see Dustin after the fight, but he had walked around. It was deemed suspicious that Jared had lied to his wife about the fight, not at all convinced by Jared’s story of protecting his wife, Dustin and Rosemary from getting hurt. With no sign of Dustin it was literally like he just vanished into thin air, but the police had a different theory. One that painted Jared for murder. Their evidence was poor, but it was enough to make an arrest. Jared protested his innocence the whole time, but the town was divided. His family remained loyal to him, but even Rene began to have doubts. She couldn’t get over the lie about the fight and seemed to let that be the basis for her distrust all of a sudden. There was no body, but there had been a fight, and they found his cell phone dumped up some side street with no battery and a smashed screen.

Jared spent eighteen months in the county jail awaiting his trial. They wanted him done for second degree murder, and his lawyers kept saying that the prosecution could add more charges before the court date. Two weeks before he was due in court, Rene filed for divorce and then, out of the blue, the police received shocking evidence that meant they had to release Jared. That evidence was Dustin himself. He walked into the station and told them Jared didn’t kill him; simple as that. He admitted to running away, to freaking out because nothing in his life was going to plan and everything Jared said was true. He had wanted some kind of payback on Jared and thought he could sweat it out with the police potentially eyeing him for a felony. However, running away had solved nothing, and Dustin came back to fix things up. But it was too late for that.

Rosemary, of course, was livid. They had been engaged to be married and he had just vanished without a trace?! Jared wasn’t on talking terms either. He had almost lost his mind in jail, not adapting at all well and being watched by the metal health team on several occasions. He pointed out that Dustin had ruined his life. He had lost his job, his wife, his home…everything because his best friend hadn’t wanted to grow up like the rest of them. Dustin said he was sorry, but Jared wasn’t having any of it.

He moved back in with his parents, but in their hometown his name was ruined. Dustin took off again the moment he knew there was no one going to greet him with open arms. That didn’t exactly help Jared much since the wild conspiracy lovers in the town began to whisper about if it was ever really Dustin who came back or someone else. It was all just bullshit, and Jared turned to the bottle to numb himself. Rene tried to patch things up but her initial doubt in him, plus the feelings of betrayal and anger Jared felt all the time now didn’t give them a chance. It was bottle after bottle, day after day. Then, in a drunken haze, he realised that this was stupid. He had done nothing wrong. He had been screwed over, and he would screw them back. Compensation came quickly once he filed a complaint and it was enough to make a fresh start. He did so just as soon as he was collecting his sobriety chips. He never considered himself an alcoholic, but he knew it was getting there. He didn’t want that temptation in his life so he decided to go completely clean, and then start afresh.

One of his old bosses contacted him about a research team getting together in New York. Jared had always been interested in natural disasters and they were going to be looking into the patterns and history of them. If he was interested, he’d offer up a reference for him. It was an offer he jumped on, and within a week he was saying goodbye to his family and giving the finger to the rest of town as he drove on out of it.

Settled now in New York, he still carries the scars of his past. If his best friend of two decades could betray him, who else will?

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: Hiding behind Jupiter.
SAMPLE:

Whoosh!

[kim]