Something Changed: Day 15

Word Total: 90,075

Year to Date: 180,099

Summary of Events:

Luke spent a pleasant afternoon at Ella's house and was very reluctant to leave when the alarm he'd set to remind himself when he needed to head back went off, but he returned anyways and managed to convincingly convey to his dad that he'd had a thoroughly unenjoyable time at the amusement park. Upon arriving home, Luke was asked by his mom how the day had been, so he gave her the same answer he'd given to his dad — a rude hand gesture — which appalled his mother, who slapped him on the face, as she often did when she was mad at him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Luke’s cheek stung and he felt as if Mom’s action had just made his anger go from a rolling boil to fully boiling over. He seized her upper arm in response and slapped her back.

“Luke Tristan Warm!” Dad bellowed before he suddenly seized Luke away from Mom to look at him. “You will go upstairs right now, and unplug your video game system, and give it to us. You had no reason to slap your mother, and you’re not playing video games for a month.”

Why? Luke wanted to scream the question at Dad, but he doubted he’d get an answer for it. His parents weren’t listening to him, but he was the one who had to suffer? It wasn’t fair!

He snapped his knee up hard into Dad’s groin, causing Dad to swear and let go of his arm.

Luke didn’t stop to watch Dad crumple to the floor, but instead rushed out of the living room, up the stairs, and into his bedroom, whose door he slammed heavily before leaning against it, his sides heaving.

Instead of calming him, Luke felt like his heavy breathing was feeding air to the fire burning hot within him, especially as he looked at his video game system and the small TV mounted to his wall straight ahead of him, which reminded him of what Dad had said.

After working up what he felt was a froth of rage, Luke surged away from his door and attacked his video games, tearing apart cases, snapping discs, smashing the console as much to pieces as he could by sheer force, tearing wires from controllers and trying to rend the controllers themselves as much as possible.

He punched his TV screen and threw things at it before he eventually seized it with his hands and strove to tear it from the mounting that held it to the wall. He was able to get most of the TV free, but a portion of the back shell remained attached.

Throwing it to the floor, Luke jumped on it several times before he surveyed the carnage, assured none of it would ever again be useable.

A knock sounded on his door.

“Luke Tristan Warm,” Dad said firmly.

Luke picked up the biggest, worst pieces made by his destructive frenzy and placed them on the distorted screen of his TV before picking up the TV and turning toward the door, which was opened by Dad before he could reach it.

Dad’s upset expression snapped into one of shock at the sight of what Luke was bringing toward him.

He managed to return a stern expression to his face by the time Luke reached him.

“You do realise this means you’re never getting a new TV, console, controllers, or games, right?” Dad asked firmly. “If you destroy the ones you have, then you don’t deserve new ones.

“I don’t care,” Luke swore darkly.

He released the TV — which Dad hadn’t taken hold of — causing it to fall to the floor and hit Dad’s toes, making Dad swear again.

Maintaining the stony expression he’d had fixed on Dad the whole time, Luke whipped around and slammed his door before leaning against it so Dad couldn’t come in.

Next Post: 27 February.