When he heard Uncle Frank coming back into the room to go to sleep, Dwayne rolled over and faced the wall away from his uncle. "I know you aren't asleep." Dwayne said nothing. "Fine, you don't have to talk to me, but I know you're awake."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night Frank." Dwayne got up and walked over to his dresser. He pulled out a red shirt and pair of boxer shorts that read SAVE PLUTO. He changed into them, and went back to his bed. He pulled down the covers, and then lifted them up over his head even though it was one of the hottest nights that summer. He tried to sleep, but considering the days events he couldn't at first. Eventually, he fell in to a half sleep, and everything that had happened that day, everything that his Uncle, Olive, Joanna and everyone else had said kept playing over and over again in his mind. Suddenly it became too much, and he woke up with a start, sweating. Silently he got up and pulled a pair of sweatpants on over his boxers. He tugged on a pair of socks and shoes, and went out of his bedroom window again, being as quiet and careful as he could.
Once he was out, he walked over to a park. This was his midnight refuge when he felt that he needed to be completely alone. He sat on a bench in the middle of the park, feeling the summer breeze blowing his hair slightly, he already felt a little more comfortable. Was it an hour? Or only five minutes that he sat there, completely blank, nothing at all was going through his head, and he felt complete bliss when it was like that. "Hey, do I know you from somewhere?"
"HOLY FUCK!" Dwayne jumped about a foot in the air.
"God, no need to freak out on me." Dwayne found himself standing face to face with Cody's girlfriend Melanie.
"Well it's nit nice to sneak up on people you don't know and scaring the shit out of them." Dwayne was angry. This was supposed to be his time to be alone, his time to have nothing bothering him, and she had ruined that. Now he would never be able to sleep that night and he knew it.
"Sorry, I just, I just recognized you from the tennis courts, and I though that I would come and see if you were ok, seeing as not too many people spend the early morning hours sitting on park benches. I can go if you want."
"Please do," Dwayne stood up looked at her. She looked surprised that he didn't want her to stay.
"Ok then, well, I'm Melanie." she was confused about this boy. She knew she was gorgeous, and until now, she had never met a guy who didn't want her.
"Honestly, I don't give a fuck." She looked at him strangely and then walked away. He sat back down, angry at himself for even saying a word to her, no matter how cruel. She was the kind of person that he had been told again and again to avoid, so that's just what he intended to do. He didn't care how pretty her blue eyes were, or how perfectly her smile went with her shiny blonde hair and well put together facial features. Dwayne stretched his long legs out in front of him and slouched lower on to the bench, sitting there for about ten minutes. Then he realized that this was going nowhere, his peace had been robbed from him by that little princess. He walked back home and crawled back through his bedroom window. There he ended up looking straight into his uncle's eyes.
"Twice in one day, wow. I must say that I expected you to have slightly more self control then that." Dwayne sat on his bed as his uncle chastised him.
"It's not what you think; I was just out clearing my head in the park."
"Ok, but that still means that you were outside past curfew." Frank looked at him seriously. "Are you looking to get arrested Dwayne? Or do you just like breaking the law?"
"Oh fuck you. What are you going to do? Tell mom and that man Olive calls father?" Dwayne was still unhappy, and his uncle was not helping at all.
"Dwayne, you are seriously fucked up. If you aren't willing to try and help yourself then I may have to intervene." Frank looked seriously at his nephew.
"Intervene how?" Dwayne was a little frightened, but he tried his hardest not to show it. He took of the sweatpants, and crawled back under the covers, this time he pulled them only up to his waist. He and his uncle weren't through conversing yet.
"I don't know. I could tell your mother, or I could try to get you a therapist, would you be willing to see a therapist Dwayne? I wouldn't have to tell anyone, I have a good one myself, so I can have you go and see him, and we can get your real father's permission if that would be better."
"I don't want to see a therapist, just give me a couple weeks; I'm going to try to fix this on my own, don't tell anyone just yet, ok?" Dwayne's voice softened as he knew that Frank meant business. He knew that he was going to try to fix things, he just doubted that he's be able to. He looked into his uncles eyes, and he saw that Frank really was trying to help him.
"I can do that, yeah, but I really do think that you should change this behavior around. Think about Olive. When she finds out, and eventually, she will find out, you are going to lose her forever as a sister. She can't look up to a brother who has a problem like yours." Frank stared at Dwayne hard.
"I know, I know but its so fucking hard, you don't understand. I am going to try, I really am, I really am." Dwayne sighed, he buried his head in his hand. Frank got into his bed, and immediately fell asleep. The last gestures from Dwayne had assured him that he really was going to try and turn things around. On the other side of the room, Dwayne lay looking up at the ceiling. He waited until he was positive that his uncle was asleep, and then he let loose. Tears fell down his cheeks and dripped onto to his red shirt. For a few minutes he stayed like that, just crying in the dark about his own faults, and how they were tearing his family apart. Then he got up and turned his bedside lamp on. He pulled a piece of lined paper and a pen out from his desk, and started writing. Roughly thirty minutes later he took the paper, put it under his pillow, shut of his light, and fell in to a restless, nightmare filled sleep.
He didn't wake up the next morning until almost noon. When he finally tumbled out of bed, he walked into the kitchen. When he looked at the digital clock on the microwave, he was quite shocked, his family never let him sleep past in the summer, and not past 11 on the weekends. "Why didn't anyone wake me up?" Dwayne asked Olive.
"Uncle Frank said that you weren't feeling good last night and to let you sleep. Mom was going to wake you up if you were still out at one though. How are you feeling?" Dwayne grabbed a breakfast bar from the box in the cupboard and sat sideways in one of the chairs at the table. Olive sat down in the one next to him, and looked up at him.
"I'm fine." He just sat there, eating his breakfast, and staring blankly at the wall on the opposite side of the room. Since he wasn't making much conversation, Olive got up and walked back in to her room. A few minutes later, Sheryl walked into the room.
"Oh honey, hey, how are you feeling?" she asked and walked over to him.
"Oh, I'm fine, a lot better now actually." Dwayne forced a small smile on to his face. "Just a little tired still."
"Ok, well if you don't feel up to taking Olive to tennis today I think it could be arranged for one of us to get her there."
"No, no I'll be fine by then, I'll take her." Dwayne knew that he had to be the one taking her, simply because he had to meet up with that bastard Cody. After breakfast, he walked into the bathroom, showered, brushed his teeth, then he got dressed for the day and read until it was time to get going.