Hank Bonneville is sitting on his couch on a Friday afternoon, watching TV. It’s his day off today, which he gives himself every week. After all, it’s tough work being the most successful lawyer in San Francisco. “These idiots don't know what they’re doing,” he thinks to himself, watching the news. “I can’t believe people actually believe them.” At that moment, he checks his watch, it’s 2:30. Leon is getting out of school, so Hank grabs his keys and walks out the front door.
Arriving at West Bay Jr. High, Hank waits for Leon to get in, which he does moments later. Leon Parker is a 14-year-old boy who was in a bad place. He grew up in Bayview, a very bad area of San Francisco. Hank met him when he saw Leon walking home in the pouring rain. After that, Hank started giving Leon rides home every day. After seeing his living conditions, Hank took Leon in. Now they live together. “How was school today? I bet you’re happy It’s Friday,” Hank says. “It was fine,” Leon responded, “I made an A on my math test. And yeah I’m very happy it’s Friday.” When they arrive home Leon beings walking upstairs to one of the many spare bedrooms in the house, but stops himself. “Why do you have such a big house if you live alone?” Leon asked Hank. “I never told you, but I had a family before I took you in” he explains, “my wife, Christina, took my kids and moved down to San Diego. Apparently I was working cases and tinkering with the Mustang out in the garage too much. That was two years ago.” When Hank finished explaining this to Leon, he was clearly sad about what happened. “Oh, okay. I’m sorry.” Leon responds, and continues up the steps.
The next day while at work, Hank receives a call from West Bay Jr. High. The woman on the phone, presumably a secretary of some sort, explains to Hank that he is Leon’s emergency contact, and that Leon is in a great deal of trouble. “What kind of trouble?” Hank asks, wondering what Leon could have done to warrant this. Maybe he was late too many times to school. “Well there is no easy way to say this Mr. Bonneville, but Leon was caught dealing drugs during school today,” Says the woman. Hank is speechless. He would have never expected Leon to do something like this. Hank puts the phone to his face briefly, “I’ll be right there,” and slams the phone back down into place. He grabs his keys and jacket, runs to his car, and rushed to the school to get to the bottom of this.
When he arrives at West Bay, he sloppily parks his car and hustles through the door. When he arrives into the office, he sees Leon sitting silently in handcuffs with a police officer standing over him, and the principal waiting in another chair. “We have the other suspect, the receiver of the drugs, saying it was him,” the principal explains to him, “and we have security footage.” “I would like to see it.” Hank responds. The principal leads him into the security room next door, and plays the footage. In poor quality, it shows Leon and a friend of his walking, when a small, hooded kid comes in from the left, walks past the two, and when he appears again he has a small baggie in his hand, which turned out to be an assortment of oxycodone and hydrocodone. “That’s not clear evidence,” Hank impatiently observes, “you can’t tell what’s happening here.” The principal seems to acknowledge Hank’s claim, but says, “the receiver of the drugs says it’s Leon. It’s a legal issue now.” “I’m a lawyer,” Hank angrily retorts, “I’ll fix this myself.”
Two weeks later, Hank is sitting in the briefing room sorting through his documents one last time. He stands up, walks out the door with his briefcase in hand and is greeted by Leon just outside. “Don’t say anything in there unless they or I ask you to,” Hank says, “I know you’re innocent. You just have to let me prove it.” Leon nodded with submission, knowing that Hank is his last chance. The past two weeks Leon was sitting in a cold jail cell waiting for his trial, that is the last place he wants to return to. Finally, the two proceed into the courtroom. Hank tries his best to convince the judge and his advisors that Leon was not the culprit. But he had one issue; he had very little evidence. Typically he would never touch this case and now, in the middle of the courtroom, he realizes this fact. He takes a seat after a notably short argument, feeling guilty about failing to save Leon. Surely enough, the judge finds Leon guilty of distributing illegal drugs to a fellow minor. Hanks stands up, acknowledges the judge, and walks out, followed by Leon. When they reach the lobby, Hank wrapped Leon in his arms . “I’m sorry,” Hank whispers, “I did everything I could.” Leon tries to speak, but can’t. They let go of each other, and as Leon is taken away by a guard, they give each other silent goodbyes, and a few moments later, the big doors close, leaving Hank standing alone in the cold dark lobby of the courtroom.
Hank sits alone on his couch on a saturday afternoon, his day off. He isn’t watching TV, he’s tired of the media and their exaggerated tales. In the silence, he’s  contemplating about what happened the day before. He misses Leon dearly, but knows he won’t be coming back. But he then realizes something; as much as he cared about Leon, it’s not entirely him that Hank truly misses. It’s having companions to love and cherish, to go through life and experience all that it has to offer, together. He misses his family. He knows that his wife and his divorce isn’t final. There is still hope. That’s why he goes upstairs to the bag that he packed in the last occupied room of the large house, and brings it downstairs, out the door and into the trunk of his car. He locks the front door, gets in the car, starts the engine, and begins the long journey to San Diego.
When Hank arrives to a small town about an hour outside of San Diego, he decides to check his email out of habit, despite just quitting his job. What he found was not an email from his client, but rather from the county jail in San Francisco. It was simply titled, “don’t forget about me.” He opened it up, and it read: 
“Dear Hank,
I have been at the detention center for almost two months now. To keep up with the times, they let us write emails now, so I thought I’d write you. I don’t know if you have moved on, or if you are even in San Fransisco any more. I haven’t heard anything from you. Do you blame yourself for what happened to me? Whether you do or not, I know it wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you. So if you’re feeling guilty, don’t. I would really like to hear from you and see what is going on. Please write me back as soon as you can. -Leon.” 
He was shocked. Hank felt as if Leon read his mind. He was feeling terrible remorse following the events of the past three months. Even though he knew it was a losing case from the beginning, he still managed to find himself guilty. Though much of the grief was pardoned by Leon’s message, Hank still couldn’t yet bring himself to write him back. He felt as though he needs to wait longer, when he is feeling better. He saved the email, finished filling up his gas tank, and left to finish his trip.
When Hank arrives in San Diego, he remembers the address that Christina sent him all those years ago. He arrives at the house that the address led to, a small adobe style house about 5 minutes from Del Mar Beach. When he walked in, he caught his wife Christina dialing a number into the phone. She looked at him, shocked, and to hank’s surprise, she walked over and hugged him. When she showed him the screen of the phone, it was the number he had before she left, but that he had changed. She was trying to reach him for almost a year, but couldn’t. Now they could be together again. Hank greeted his kids finally when they arrived home, and he began work to get settled in his new home. He had one thing left to do though; so he went to his computer, opened up an e-mail draft, and began to write. The title of his email read: “Dear Leon.”