Unforeseen Circumstances: Day 9

Word Count: 54,050

Summary of Events:

After being questioned by the police at the station, Weston called his father for a ride home, and on the ride explained the full incident to his father, who listened silently, looking unimpressed, but assuring Weston once he'd finished that he believed Weston and wouldn't punish him. The following morning as they were cleaning up breakfast, Darryl's father Shaw came to the door to talk with Weston's father about both the altercation at the auction and the incident at the grocery store, believing Weston to be in the wrong in both circumstances and needing to apologise. Shaw also claimed that Darryl had told him Weston and Shawn were no longer friends, but Weston's father wasn't persuaded to believe it…

Excerpt of the Day:

“I don’t believe Weston and Shawn have had a falling out,” Dad replied. “After all, Weston was over at Shawn’s on Monday for the same amount of time as always, and they made arrangements to go canoeing together later this week. Additionally, I can’t say that the wild differences between what I’ve heard from Weston and you’ve heard from Darryl are particularly comforting.”

“No, I can’t say that I like that either,” Shaw agreed. “After all, you’ve never been the sort of person to make up stories, thus I find it quite shocking that Weston would be going about creating all sorts of unbelievable tales like these.”

“I find Weston’s accounts of things to be significantly more believable than the accounts you’ve shared with me from Darryl,” Dad replied, his voice sharp with displeasure. “I don’t have any reason to believe that Weston is the one making up tall tales.”

“You’re my best friend,” Shaw declared. “And here you are disparaging my son.”

“You’re doing the same thing to my son,” Dad contended.

“Darryl has been trying to make friends with Weston for years,” Shaw replied defensively. “But Weston has continually and rather inexplicably rebuffed his every effort until just a few months ago, and now already he seems to be regressing to his previous position.”

Dad sighed, sounding on the verge of exasperation. “Should I get Weston to go with you and apologise to Darryl?”

“Yes,” Shaw replied, sounding almost arrogantly pleased, as if he’d been waiting for Dad to make that offer for some time.

Having not had his indignation allayed by anything that’d been said since it’d been roused within himself, Weston stalked immediately and briskly from the kitchen, startling Dad slightly when he appeared before Dad could even utter a sound that might’ve become his name.

Weston crossed his arms and glared at Shaw, who looked at Weston with an expression of displeasure that seemed to have the same hint of arrogance to it as his last comment had.

“I’m not entirely confident that he’ll apologise,” Shaw said sceptically.

Although Weston didn’t shift his gaze from Shaw’s face, he could see Dad in his peripheral vision, and he could feel that Dad was fixing him with a sharply pointed gaze.

“He will,” Dad said sternly.

Weston knew by Dad’s tone and gaze that he was going to have to manufacture as much sincerity as he could muster in order to not be sent back to apologise over again, for as many times as it would take for him to at least appear appropriately sincere, and Weston had no intentions of seeing any more of Darryl than he absolutely had to.