"Before Dawn"

Chapter 8: The Wait

Dawn is in her cluttered, happy-place—her bedroom. But she isn't happy at all, nor is she sad. She's restless, and her damn foot still hurts. She has some serious anxiety going on, too. She's not in the mood for Netflix, she's not even in the mood to listen to tunes and instead prefers the silence. She's showered and in her PJs—gym shorts and an old t-shirt—lying on her bed with a throw draped across her lower-half. Her .22 caliber pistol and sheathed wakizashis are cleaned up and resting next to her.

She's staring up at the ceiling, waiting for her father to come barging into her room. She knows she's probably going to get whatever ass remained after Martha's chewing finished off by him. She knows the drill. He'll bang on her bedroom door pretty-damn hard and when the time comes he'll do so with a preceding 'daughter'—and then he'll say 'come downstairs' where the ass-chewing will commence in their den.

She hopes Cat hasn't said jack-shit to her dad about her sneaking down to Martha's basement to listen in on them. He hadn't even texted a reply yet to her request to not say jack-shit, and he probably won't—which means he's definitely going to say jack-shit. Probably drop by and tell her dad in person. He was a face-to-face, selective dime-dropper with certain things. So annoying. Like that time when she was twelve-going-on-twenty, and he had caught her—in Martha's basement of all places—messing around with pistols. Cat himself was furious, going on about how she could have shot somebody or even herself. Dawn, a smart-ass even then, had asked him how's she going to shoot somebody when ain't nobody in the basement...plus she couldn't have shot herself because the guns weren't even loaded. Cat had assured her that she missed the entire point, and that her dad would break it down to her. Her dad had really broken it down to her after he took a belt to that ass, promising her that she'd never be too old for fatherly love. The crazy thing about it all was her father, a lover of oldies but goodies—especially soul and blues—just-so-happened to have James Brown's "Papa Don't Take No Mess playing". Was that by design?

Please don't say anything to him, Cat.

Dawn checks her iPhone for any text messages from Cat as she'd been doing off-and-on. She's hoping for a courtesy text of some kind from him to let her know that he'd passed the word to her dad if he felt the need to rat her out. Why would he do that, though? He'd never done that. So, all she can do is wait for her dad to come to the door—and she has a plan to deflect all of his anger from her.

Dawn will let him speak his peace, vent, get allllll of his anger and frustration out of him. She'll sit, and simply listen. She'll have to be extra patient because he's been drinking whiskey since they got back to the house, taking the edge off. He's super long-winded with his lectures when whisky is involved. Regardless, she always waits for openings to interject and make her points, justify her actions—even when she knows she's wrong. Admittedly she simply loves to have the last word in any verbal conflict with her father or anyone else. Her last words to him this time once he's done whisky-ranting about her dropping-of-eaves will be, "Now that you've got that out of your system...what are you hiding from me about mom?"

Dawn gets a notification chime on her iPhone. She sits up and checks it, expecting a reply from Cat. It isn't Cat. It's Wesley Price with, WHATCHA' DOIN'???

Dawn taps the keyboard and answers with, NOTHING.

Two seconds later, Wesley with HIT ME UP!

Dawn doesn't really want to talk with Westly right now, but what else is she doing? She calls him.

"Wa-sup, baby-girl," Wesley said.

"Just me," Dawn said. She could hear music in the background. She listens harder, hears Future's "Used to This".

"You're thinking about me, huh, baby-girl? Must be why you can't sleep."