"Before Dawn"

Chapter 12: The Slithering Things

Wesley Price never made it to Yorktown or Buckroe Beach. He's chill-axing in his crib, smoking a joint—that good kush. All six-foot-two and 160 pounds of him is sitting in his pop's old, vinyl recliner with it full extended, his bare feet propped up by the foot rest. He didn't know the recliner was that damn heavy until he dragged it away from the couch and love seat. He had positioned it in front of the partially open sliding glass door leading out to the pool. The spinning blades of an oscillating floor fan is pushing weed-smoke out into the rainy night. He loves the sound of rainfall, and it's coming down like crazy now. More than the reverie that rainfall induced, he loved hearing Dawn Morningside's voice a while ago.

No, Wesley had had no intention of meeting up with friends in Yorktown or Buckroe Beach like he had told Dawn earlier. He simply wanted to lure her out, make up for last time. He felt guilty about not having given her the time-of-day the previous time that had planned to link up. Damn, Mac had shown up and screwed everything up, had put his ass to work. Wasn't like he could have told Beaumont Reynolds otherwise, you know? Big boy is in the hospital now, though. Wesley had heard that the guy's chances were slim-to-none. Wesley Price had never wished death on anyone, but Mac dying is the only thing that'll get him out of his contract with that dude. It is what it is. If Beaumont does happen to pull through, a small part of Wesley will be glad that his did—not!

The lights in the house are bright as hell. Not really, though. Wesley's eyes are highly sensitive to the illumination now, compliments of the weed. He wants to get up and turn some of the lights off, but his body is sooooo limp right now. He only has enough strength to raise the blunt to his mouth and inhale—and exhale. If his parents were home right now, they'd be, like, on his ass about having all these lights on. Wait, if they were home, he wouldn't be smoking weed.

"My parents would trip-out on this," Wesley chuckles, his voice raspy. He takes another hit of the blunt, and holds the smoke in his lungs before blowing it into fan.

His parents. His damn, selfish-ass parents are getting divorced.

"How they gonna do me like this?" Wesley asks himself. Leaned back in the recliner like this, he imagines an unrecognizable therapist is sitting next to him taking notes. The image transforms into Dawn Morningside. "Why are they doing this to me?"

"That's life I guess," imaginary Dawn answers.

Dawn had told him that over and over. Wesley shakes his head, and she disappears. He polishes off his blunt, then fires up another one with practiced ease. He takes a long pull of it, his eyes crossing as he focuses on the red ember at the tip of it.

Wesley remembers the day his parents had broken the news to him. It was nearly a year ago on a Sunday night when his mother had called him down to the kitchen. They had just had dinner an hour ago which made him wonder what was up. He had come downstairs and seen his mom and pops, sitting at the kitchen table holding hands. They had this look on their faces, like they were extremely disappointed in him. Hell, he figured they had found out about his dealings with the kush. But, no, it was way-worse. They had sat him down and broken the news to him about their agreement to divorce, explained to him that they were both there for him no matter what—and that it wasn't his fault.

They both took turns going on about how it wasn't healthy for him—an only child—to have to live with the two of them arguing back-and-forth, and how divorce wasn't the end of the world and blah-blah-blah. Wesley couldn't quite remember how the rest of the conversation or his night had gone other than calling Dawn to tell her about it. From that moment on, he often pondered so many ridiculous reasons for their pending divorce, like he starts to do now.