It was midnight when she finally got home. Such a regular occurrence disrupted Divos sleep, like always. His mother was out again with yet another guy. It seemed like there was a new one every night. How many people were there in the town of Sea Salt Bay anyway? She must've gone through most of the town already. It wouldn't surprise him the least if she was on her second round through. The truth was though that Divo knew not what his mother did every night. What he did know was that she would always come home blind drunk. Sometimes he would discover her passed out on the front lawn every other morning. Occasionally Divos mother sported a black eye. Whenever he expressed any concerned though she would screech at him to back off. She would even throw a bottle if she was holding one. Such was life at home for Divo. In such an environment he had no choice but to grow up before his time. To always be responsible for anything and everything. To always be the straight thinking one. If he wasn't going to take on that role then who would? There was nobody else. His father was long gone. In fact he had no idea who his father was. There's a good chance that he will never know. Divo has long since made his peace with that outcome though, for he was his own man.

After that grand confrontation between Charles and Chet at school that day, the future of the Salt Bay Turbos seemed bleak. They may not even be the Salt Bay Turbos anymore. Charles could do with them whatever he liked. He had them all by their "collective balls" after all. Even before that, when Chet lost his cool and decked Switch. He had never seen the boss act out like that before. He must've still been shaken up by his fight with Rolo. Divo, for the life of him, just couldn't fathom why everything went so wrong. No catalyst came to mind, no matter how much he thought about it. The anxiety of it all kept him from falling back to sleep. 

He could still hear his mother shambling along the hallway outside his bedroom door. She walked sideways into the hallway walls every couple of steps or so. She was either on her way to the bathroom or to her bedroom. Divo prayed that it was the former. Vomit and piss stains were hard to clean out of woolen quilts. But if he didn't do it, then nobody did. 

Divo sat up in his bed resolutely. He just didn't care anymore. A lifetime of doing right by the people around him has gifted him with naught to show for it. Just a drunken whore of a mother and a broken gang which just so happened to be controlled by an asshole because it was led by an idiot. Divo felt so mad angry about what Chet did. They were a gang yeah but that little conspiracy he pulled on his own was way over the line. At the end of the day though, Divo realised, it was because Chet tried to beat Charles at his own game. It was all because Chet wanted to be like Charles, simple as that. A greedy and manipulative little weasel who had not a single real friend in the world. That's what Chet wanted to be. The saddest thing of all though, was that Chet used to be so much more. Divo shook his head in disappointment.

He heard what sounded like a door open and close down the hallway. It was fairly closeby so it must've been the bathroom. A moment later, he heard those familiar sounds of heaving and retching. Divo silently thanked whatever maker there was that his wretch of a mother drunkenly shambled her way into the bathroom this time. An easier mess to clean. Of course he did try to help her on many occasions but again, she would swat him away and screech. Her screeching was unintelligible most of the time but sometimes he could make out ramblings about his father. Of how he looked exactly like him and how much it pissed her off because he was an asshole, apparently. She was a difficult woman to deal with, no doubt. But who else was there? Only another year until he was free. 

At the moment though, he no longer cared about anything. Possible curfew be damned. He needed to be somewhere that reminded him of the good times. There was only one place he could think of though. And that was underneath the boardwalk. There was a chance that eh would encounter a couple of the other guys down there as well. He doubted it though. That suited him just fine. He needed to be alone. His mood was chaotic and his thoughts led him to dark places. A breath of fresh air and a trip down memory lane would do him a world of good, Divo surmised. 

And so he opened his bedroom window and climbed out into the backyard. His house was only a few blocks away from the bay in one of the poorer and more modest suburbs. Despite it all though, he was glad that he lived in an area that was relatively close to the bay. Sometimes he could even hear the sound of the sea from his bedroom window. He then set off on foot towards the bay. Hopefully, nobody else was going to be there.