I am a Shooting Star

It’s 1:31am [West Coast] as I type this. I am supposed to [or want to, at least] be asleep. I wanted to get up at 7am, so, yeah, there goes that plan.

Anyway. I just spent several minutes on our apartment’s porch; the sky was lovely. Stars surrounded me, flickering and simply being. It was a wonderful distraction from the desert cold, which, I must admit, is still nothing compared to SanFran’s nights. I was bummed the moon was blocked out by large monster pines, but the glow was still there, and so were the stars. 

My father came back from retrieving the runaway twenty minutes ago. I laid awake, expecting two sets of footsteps, but only heard the door shut after my father’s.

“Dad?” I called.

He went into his room.

“Dad?” I called, again.

His light turned on, flooding into the hall with a warm glow.

“Dad,” I say, practically shout. What happened? I don’t ask.

I learn that after my father picked him up, they indeed had a talk. “You have rules you have to follow,” my father would have said. Dean does not like these rules, such as going to school, not doing drugs, not using the n-word.

He must’ve left my father the moment the truck was parked in the garage. Off to the police station, where my Father had just brought him and Dean graciously treated the officers on duty [by which I mean he didn’t speak to them. At all].

He left, threatening and promising to go back to these same officers and say his father kicked him out. Again.

There is a possibility my father could be fined. The officers do not like this sort of drama.

I have never once been so thankful to be intoxicated [I drank the rest of the Baileys Irish Crème with dinner]. 

“I don’t want him walking the streets at night,” says my father. He grabs his keys and leaves without another word.

Ten minutes of tossing and I push myself out of bed, walk onto the porch, and look down the street. Is that Dad’s truck? No, that’s nothing you idiot.

“He’s gone. Again,” my father says the moment he comes through the door.

My father is pacing again. And again, I feel nothing.

What I learned: I am a shooting star in an asteroid field.

I guess I should try and sleep now.