Post by James on Nov 3, 2011 19:08:19 GMT -5
Even though before today he had never thrown a dart before; Robbie knew instantly that the projectile had left his fingers wrong. It spiralled and wobbled through the air and landed with a dull thud against the wire for a double four. He had woken up hours ago to an empty bed and howling winds, the rattling windows doing nothing to improve his mood. Louise had hardly taken her nose out of the books that were cluttered throughout Vinnie’s house, and Natalie and Kaie had disappeared within the labyrinth of rooms. With no permission to use the electrical equipments within an empty study he had stumbled across, Robbie turned his attention to the dartboard in the drawing room.
Dust had leapt from the board like a coiled spring when he first opened its doors; the silver wires hardly distinguishable from the rest of the board. Giving it a clean down with his sleeves, Robbie had begun to hurl the set of darts across the board. What had once been a surface of smoothness quickly began to be peppered with deep pinpricks. After a hundred throws he still wasn’t finding the darts easier to draw free from their target. Anger seeped from his arm and out into the triple twenty.
It was better aiming at only one spot. He had fallen asleep filled with searing anger at Lawrence; hating him for killing Edith and for reducing him to a shivering mouse. However as Louise slipped from the bed, her naked feet padding softly across the room, and he listened to the rattling glass in the room, the anger turned irrationality on Colin. It took him only an hour for his stomach to drop in guilt. The strange man had rescued him twice in as many days. Robbie knew that he owed his life to him and yet he was the embodiment of the strange new world that had been hidden behind the veil.
Both his parents had strayed into the firing line at some point just before the first dart was thrown. They knew what they were and they must have known how dangerous the world was, but they still gave birth to him. Did they want him? Or were just raising another solider for the army they fought in? They couldn’t have loved him. His mother died when he was a little boy. His father abandoned him to an elderly lady he hardly knew. Neither of them had been around to protect him. Neither of them tried to explain what they were; what he was. At some point, maybe when he struck his first bull’s-eye, the sickening medicine of grief, confusion and grief curing him of his anger. His parents had sent him to live with kind, but strict Edith, they had his best interest at heart. Maybe they even questioned their parents in the exact the same way.
Rhythmically throwing, walking, pulling and throwing again, Robbie found himself trapped in a circle of anger. He didn’t know who to blame and yet he knew he desperately wanted someone. Darts began to pile in one spot, forming a deep and ugly crater upon the board as Louise occasionally clicked her tongue in disapproval from behind the book she was reading. She had hardly moved from the red leathery armchair except to reach for a new tome. She hadn’t given any comforting words. She hadn’t placed a tender kiss on his cheek like she did after he had once broken his arm in a rugby game. She hadn’t taken his hand in hers like she did when he felt he had failed a test. Louise had done nothing but read books. Maybe she was angry at him? After all, if it wasn’t for him then Edith would still be alive and she could concentrate on her university placement.
It’s far easier to be angry at one thing, Robbie decided as he turned the radio up. It was an old, wooden portable thing. He was surprised it had even turned on but the strong Welsh accent was swooning as clear as ever through the machine. With Sir Tom now penetrating every corner of the room, Robbie threw three more darts at the board. His arm moving fluidly, hardly a pause as the three strips of metal landed with a thud one after the other.
“Can’t you turn it down,” a voice snapped from across the room. “In case you haven’t noticed I am trying to read here.”
“Oh, she does talk,” Robbie retorted, his neck clicking as he turned to see Louise’s blue eyes peering from over the top of her book. “I thought maybe you got your tongue stuck between the pages or something.”
“Very funny,” she said, her cheeks colouring slightly. “At least I’m actually doing something useful. Why don’t you find somewhere to hurl things at a wall? Like a cave?”
“It’s not my fault that he’s put his dartboard here. Why don’t you go and read one of your oh-so-useful books in one of the seventy thousand rooms this house has instead of biting my head off?” Robbie said.
“You can give me more and more counting up the score. Yeah. You can turn me upside down inside out”
“Can you turn that rubbish off?” Louise yelled, slamming the book shut. Turning to face his advancing girlfriend, Robbie silenced the radio with a turn of a nub. Now wasn’t the time, Sir Tom. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting like… like…”
“Like what?”
“Like a petulant little child,” Louise snapped.
“Like a petulant little child? That was the best you’ve got, an insult right out of Edith’s textbook,” Robbie replied, realising what he said a moment after the words had tumbled free of his mouth. The colour drained instantly from Louise’s cheeks, her skin instead turning a blotchy white as the first tears began to navigate down her face. Robbie felt his own eyes begin to water and suddenly pictured Edith striding into the room to sternly tell them to stop yelling and end the madness.
God, I hate teen angst. This is the last time I'm writing something with teenager in. Even the older variety.
Feedback would be greatly appreciated but like everyone else at the moment; this is unedited and will have mistakes. Unless I turned into a deity.
