°°° First Light °°°

The sound of his mom's argument downstairs filled his ears. He ran out of his room, a bit alerted, and took a peek. It was another argument with her boyfriend, Boris Romanoff.

"Mom?" he called out with concern, interrupting the argument, hoping to end it.

"Go to your room, Sean!" his mother yelled at him angrily. Whatever Boris had done, she wasn’t willing to let it slide.

Sean stood still for a moment, then reluctantly turned back and walked into his room, slamming the door shut.

He heard the argument cease momentarily, and then, as expected, the topic suddenly changed to him.

Boris and Sean had never really been on the same page. His mom, Kate, always wrote it off as a phase, a natural occurrence in teens with divorced parents. Accepting the change is always hard, but in truth, that was not the case.

Sean felt hated by Boris, and he reciprocated the feeling. Boris had always treated him like a "not part of the plan" kid. The looks Boris gave him; his constant refusal to be on the same page with Sean on anything and everything Sean wasn’t weak, but he was constantly bullied by Boris in indiscernible ways. He’d always wanted to get his mother to trust him so he could show her what a bad choice Boris was.

He’d tried to complain numerous times, tried to show her Boris’s true nature, but she never took him seriously. He figured it was because of his "dependent" status. Ever since he figured it out, he’s been forging a path to independence.

Sean sighed in defeat as Boris changed the topic, trying to complain about him and his "disrespectful" attitude, but as soon as Sean had gotten to the footboard of his bed, his mother’s voice was sky-rocketing again. Curse words swam into his ears like metal to a magnet. Whatever Boris had done, Kate didn’t seem like she was ready to let it slide.

Sean let go of his body and crashed into his bed. He grabbed his earphones and blocked both ears; hip-hop beats were blasting out of the speakers.

He closed his eyes, his attention drifting away from his mother and her argument, away from the song he was listening to. His mind drifted aimlessly in a pool of thoughts without staying long enough on anything to consider it thinking. He was about to drift off to sleep when he felt a vibration in his pocket.

He jerked out of his near-sleep state and sat up. Rubbing his eyes, he took out the phone and looked at its screen.

A smile appeared on his frustrated face, and he picked up the call.

"Hello," he said, lying back down.

"Sean, it's been a while," came the reply from the phone’s speaker.

"Dude, we literally just spoke like two days ago," Sean laughed heartily. "What planet are you on?"

"Heheh," the caller laughed. "I know, I know." "I just watched this movie recently, and there were two friends that couldn’t go half a day without speaking to each other, heh."

"That is just dumb," Sean said to himself. "So, what’s up, Jason?"

"What do you mean, ‘what’s up'?" "Are you trying to say I can’t just call my buddy without reason?" the caller, Jason, said, feigning an upset tone.

"Haha!" Sean laughed. "Alright, bro, I’m sorry for assuming." "Am I forgiven?"

"Only if you promise to come visit next week," Jason replied, excited by his own suggestion.

"Next week? "Bro, you live like two states away."

"And we’ll be moving to Canada in a month," Jason interrupted in low spirits.

Silence descended for a moment. Jason was the only friend Sean had—the only real friend he had. They had met at the Tristate martial arts summer camp in Milford, Pennsylvania.

Sean’s dad had taken him there every year since he was six. On his fourth birthday, when he was ten, Sean and Jason met. Jason was the new kid. No friends; constantly bullied. Sean had broken the noses of three kids who had made Jason a punching bag one evening. Both their dads had to come for them the next morning and get acquainted. They’d been friends ever since. Every chance they had, they’d convince their dads to send them to martial arts classes—the same class each time. Sleepovers at Jason’s became a weekly ritual until they left Maryland for Pittsburgh.

Now in Kentucky, they barely see each other, especially after the death of Sean’s dad a year and a half ago. Moving to Canada made it seem as though the universe was trying to keep them apart.

"Hey, are you still there?" Jason broke the silence.

"Yeah," the distracted Sean replied, trying to digest the news. "But why the move?" It’s… it’s… I… I mean, you guys have only been in Kentucky for like, a month. I don’t know... two years. Why…"

"It’s my dad," Jason stopped the stammering Sean. "He got another promotion, and this time..."

"It requires moving a continent away," Sean finished the statement for him, sadness entwined with his voice.

"Yeah," Jason sighed, sharing in his sadness.

"It’s... alright." I… I’ll try convincing my mom to let me come around. A week from school... "I think the break is well deserved," Sean tried to change the gloomy atmosphere. "I… I’ll make out time... "Next week will be all of us," he said with a smile of confidence.

"You make this sound as if it’s the last chance we’ll get to see each other," Jason laughed. His voice had cracked from the tears he was pressing down. He had come to see Sean as the elder brother he never had. Sean was family, and Canada was... so not what he saw coming. He always knew they’d have to part ways eventually, but never in a million years would he have thought that time was now.

"Heh… "Don’t tell me you are crying right now, bro," Sean laughed.

"No, no, I’m not," Jason sniffed and laughed.

Silence descended once again as memories flooded both their minds.

"This… this feels weird… like a Romeo and Juliet cosplay ruined," Sean said with a brief chuckle.

"Yeah. All the silence. Heheh." When Jason replied, his voice showed how spirited he’d become. "Speaking of which... well, I'm not sure they are related... Anyways, have you finally gotten a girl?" Jason asked, changing the topic.

"You know I haven’t," Sean said, turning over and lying on his stomach.

"What are you waiting for?" "Dude your mates are..."

"Not me," Sean cut in. "Besides, I’m not ready for that."

"Or you are still waiting for the perfect girl," Jason laughed.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, bruv," Sean replied and stood up, feeling a bit uncomfortable. "I’ll talk to you later; I need to get ready." "Next week is only two days away," he said, redirecting the conversation back to the move.

"Yeah, later, bro," Jason replied and ended the call.

Sean walked to his reading table beside his room’s only window. He dropped the cellphone on it and sank into his black leather seat.

His mind roamed for a while, and after more than two minutes of silent calculations, he pulled open the top drawer of his reading table. He stared at it for a moment, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t going to regret his next actions.

He dipped his hand into the drawer and tapped around the roof of the drawer. His strained face relaxed as he found what he was looking for. A moment later, he pulled out a brown bag. It was a bag of chips, one of the last things his dad bought for him on his birthday and in his life. He had been saving up for a rainy day ever since. It had been well over a year since then.

Knowing his mom wasn’t going to want him to leave and knowing she would use money as an excuse, the money he’d saved up would bring him much closer to Kentucky than a plane ticket would. His mother wasn’t going to let him travel by air, and traveling by train was going to cost a lot. The cash was the only card he had to use against her.