Robbie's Pain
Tori was searching the halls of Hollywood Arts for a specific someone. The person she was looking for normally wasn't that hard to find, it's not like there are a lot of people with a Jewish afro in the school. She needed to find him; she desperately needed to talk to him. He had ignored all of her texts and her chat requests.
Soon her eyes fell on the boy she needed to speak to coming around the corner. Robbie Shapiro had his gaze fixed on the floor, not wanting to interact with anyone, in fact the only reason he was in school was because he had nowhere else to go.
Robbie quickly made his way to his locker, but before he could open it a shadow fell on his locker, one that wasn't his. From the scent of jasmine that assailed his nose, he quickly deciphered that it was Tori. He saw a shadow of an arm reach up to touch him.
Without turning around he instructed in a harsh voice "You don't get to touch me"
Tori quickly withdrew he hand and placed it back at her side. She stood on the spot not sure whether to leave or give talking to him a go. She stood her ground but was unable to come up with any way of breaching the topic what happened at the weekend.
"Nothing you can say will change the way I feel" he stated bluntly as he slammed his locker shut. It was not until this moment that he made eye contact with her. She unintentionally took a step back at the raw emotions she saw in his eyes. She knew she had hurt him but not this much.
"Fine is there anything I can do to make it right?" she asked, she had been torturing herself all weekend. She had barely slept and knew that if she ever wanted to get back to normal she would have to make it right in Robbie's eyes.
"Turn back time" he simply said as he walked away from Tori.
Maybe she couldn't do that but she would do the next best thing.
Cat came bounding up to Robbie and dragged him by his arm down the corridor. He quickly yanked his arm free not in the mood for whatever the girl had planned. Cat spun around and gave Robbie a pout.
"I'm not in the mood Cat" Robbie explained, getting ready to leave. Cat quickly pounced on one of his legs and clung on as if her life depended on it.
"Pleasey. I'm not letting go till you listen" Cat squealed, worried that Robbie would react badly. With a great sigh Robbie slowly nodded his head as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Cat immediately let go of Robbie's leg and sprung up.
After a few short moments of Cat just staring at him with a smile on her face, Robbie began to wonder if she was going to speak. Just as he was about to tell her he was leaving she received a text. After she pocketed her phone she grabbed Robbie's hand and began to drag him again.
"Cat, where are we going?" Robbie asked as he struggled to maintain his balance with Cat yanking his arm every 2 seconds. The girl didn't answer him, but it was soon apparent that from the route they were taking that their destination was the black box theatre.
Soon the doors came into view and Cat flung Robbie through the door and slammed it behind him. Robbie stared quizzically at the door until he heard someone clear their throat behind him. He turned around and his mood got drastically darker as his eyes fell on the solitary form of Tori. Robbie quickly made to leave.
"I wouldn't try that, the others have been instructed to keep you inside" Tori informed him, a softness in her voice, a softness that she hoped would placate him somewhat.
"Why? You plan to hurt me some more?" Robbie demanded, spinning to face her, his face contorted in anger.
"No, I told you earlier that I wanted to make things up to you" Tori said, pure desperation in her voice.
Robbie let out a short harsh laugh. "How? You left before you saw the repercussions of your actions. You have no idea what happened to me" Robbie shouted at her.
"What happened?" Tori asked, desperate to know how badly she had hurt him.
"Well I basically no longer have a family" Robbie whispered in a dark tone. The pain was still fresh and it tore at him to think of it so soon.
Tori made a move to go and comfort him. When her fingers brushed his shoulders he withdrew sharply as if the touch caused him physical pain. He locked eyes with her and she briefly saw a pleading in his eyes before it was swallowed by hate and anger.
Upon seeing that she remembered why she was here and went over to her back bag and retrieved a book. She made her way back over to Robbie, who had barely noticed her move struggling with her own internal battle. She turned the book over in her hands several times and quickly thrust it at Robbie. The sudden presence of something so close to him made the battle cease in his mind. He slowly took the book.
"What is this?" he demanded with venom in his voice. How was this flimsy thing suppose to make up for what she had done?
"It's my diary. There stuff in there that could ruin my reputation or be used to hurt me" Tori explained, her eyes never leaving the floor.
Tori waited for Robbie's response and it came through him storming out. The others made to stop him, but Tori told them he was okay to leave.
Tori was sitting on her couch at home, staring at the TV without paying any attention to what was on the screen. She was broken by the sound of an engine pulling into her drive and cutting out. She didn't have much time to think who it could be before a knock came at the door.
She slowly made her way to the door and opened it, slightly taken aback by the person who stood before her. Robbie stood there and the look on his face was unreadable. Tori hesitantly gestured for him to come in, afraid that he was her to cause her pain.
"So I guess you here to start punishing me" Tori ventured, avoiding eye contact with him.
"No." This caused her to immediately look at him. "I've read your diary, or at least most of it" Robbie continued.
"And?" Tori asked.
"You've got enough problems without me adding to them" he simply stated and with that he made for the door.
"Wait." Robbie halted his movement to the door. "I still want to make it up to you" Tori pleaded, knowing that she would punish herself until she felt she had made it up to him truly. Robbie let out a great sigh.
"Fine but for that you'll have to see how badly what you did affected me" he said and continued his walk to the door. Tori quickly followed and was shocked by what she saw. Instead of Robbie's pathetic excuse for a car he was slowly mounting a motorbike.
"What happened to your car?" Tori asked.
"You'll see soon" he replied, handing her a helmet.
Soon they were tearing down the road. Tori expected Robbie to take a certain route but was surprised when he didn't turn down the road to his house. She was both relieved and worried. She didn't want to return to his house where she had hurt him. But at the same time if he wasn't taking her home where was he taking her.
As if in answer to her thoughts Robbie pulled into a lot full of storage lockers. He stopped and both Tori and Robbie got off, and Robbie opened up one of the lockers and began pushing his bike in. Tori was amazed and shocked at the site she saw.
Robbie had arranged the locker into a room of sorts. All his stuff appeared to be here. There was even a mattress on the floor and a desk in the corner. Robbie placed the bike against the wall and turned to look at Tori, the look on her face didn't surprise him.
"You live here?" Tori asked.
"I've nowhere else to go. Not since my parents kicked me out" he explained.
"Robbie if I thought that telling you parents would lead to this then I never would've told them that yo..."
"Yeah well what's done is done" Robbie interrupted her.
"So if you have to live like this then why don't you want revenge?" Tori demanded confused as to his choice of actions. Robbie let out a short loud laugh.
"Two reasons. The first I've already told you. The second... well did you ever wonder why I invited you around on Friday?" Robbie posed.
"Not really... I thought you just wanted help with something" Tori explained sitting down at the desk.
"If only it was that simple. I don't let many people come to my house, nut I knew that what I wanted to tell you needed for me to trust you. So I invited you over. I was going to tell you that I had feelings for you... have feelings." Robbie trailed off.
"Wait you had... have feelings for me?" Tori enquired, she had been so focused on what she'd done that she didn't pay any mind to the reason for being at Robbie's.
"Doesn't matter now, you see when you told my parents that I ... well you know. You broke my trust and in that moment it's not you I hated but myself. How could I have thought my life would ever be good in any way?" Robbie told Tori, who simply sat and listened.
"Can I ask why you did it in the first place?" Tori asked.
"I guess there's no harm in telling you now. I was forced to do it, some guys said that if I didn't do it then they would hurt me and my family" Robbie explained, staring at the wall ashamed at what he did and that he was basically a coward for what he did.
"So that's why you hacked the school system and changed people's grades" Tori explained, "why not just rat them out?"
"The threat was still present and if you hadn't seen me then everything would have been fine. It's not your fault though I should have been stronger. What hurt me was the fact that you thought I would do it of my own free will. And once my parents heard about that they assumed the same, never thought I was a good son, so disowned me" Robbie explained falling on his knees at the raw pain that he was reliving. Tori got up and place a hand on his shoulder.
"Robbie I never thought that you did it. I was just trying to force the truth out of you, but when you didn't tell me I thought there was a possibility that you did it, but I saw the pain in your eyes. Then when your dad came in and started screaming at you and your mum hit you I felt so bad. I knew that I had caused you more pain on top of what you were already experiencing. Robbie the only reason I did it is because I care for you, maybe a bit too much" Tori confessed.
Robbie looked into her eyes and saw that she was speaking only the truth. Robbie hesitantly leant in and gave her a quick kiss. Even though the contact only lasted for a few seconds both of them felt such intense passion sprout from it. Tori made to kiss Robbie again but Robbie moved away from her.
"I need to right my wrongs before anything can happen Tori" Robbie explained. It pained him to say it but he knew she already had lots of problems and he didn't want to add to them. In fact he want to solve them for her, but knew he needed to sort his own mess out first.
"Let me help" she begged.
"No. I need to prove that I can be strong for myself if no-one else" Robbie responded.
"If you say so. I'll be waiting for you when you feel that it's done" Tori told Robbie. She hadn't trusted him before and that caused him so much hurt. Now she would support him. She never wanted him to hurt again, plus she wanted to feel his passion flow through her once more. So she gave his hand a kiss as if to seal her promise.
Robbie pushed his bike back out and climbed on. Tori jumped on the back and wrapped her arms around Robbie's. In no time they were back at her house. Tori climbed off and waited by the door. Robbie removed his helmet and gave her a small smile.
"I'll do this as quickly as I can" he promised. Before he could replace his helmet Tori rushed him and slammed her lips on his. The heat that was in the kiss almost overwhelmed both of them. When they broke both were flushed. Robbie replaced his helmet and roared off into the night.
Tori stared at the figure as it disappeared. Great before tonight she couldn't sleep because she hurt Robbie, now she won't sleep because she'll miss Robbie.