Being a Barrow - A Sequel to Barrow's Boy

The Knowledge of Tragedy

Hi everyone! Sorry for the slight delay in updates. Between a serious case of "how do I get from point A to point B" writer's block and my course load, it's been very hard to find time to sit down and write. But here it is. I hope you all enjoy it!

Also, so sorry about the mood of this chapter.

     Theodore should have known that The Sketch would eventually be forgotten among his other work. But, when he got the telegram from the office asking him where his next article was, as it was now overdue and realized that he had nothing to give them, he had been just as shocked about it as Miss Edmunds had been on the telephone. 

     So, that was how he found himself going to the office after classes and sitting down to write the piece, not moving from his chair until he had something that at least seemed complete to hand over. It was a rush job for everyone; as he wrote, Laura was trying to put together that edition's appearance. She left a section open for him and told him that if his work didn't fit that space, she would have to fire him right there. That was an empty threat, she neither had the power nor the will to do so. But, the whole experience had brought something into perspective for Teddy. Perhaps it was a mix of that and everything else that had been going on. He couldn't say. But, after he finally had his article, and he and Laura were leaning on her desk as they drank their coffee, he turned to her.

    "I'll find you a replacement for me, if that works for you."

    Laura's face turned to surprise.

    "I'm not actually firing you-"

    "No, I know," Teddy replied, holding his cup between his hands to keep them warm. He stared across the room, finding his reflection in the mirror on the wall. Pale and freckled with bags under his eyes that seemed to only grow with every week, Teddy wondered how he still looked alive at this point. He barely felt it.

    "So, a replacement?"

    "It's too much. I thought I could do it, but it's too much," Theodore confessed. "I have so much work to do for my classes and then a million other things on my mind. I'm just going to keep forgetting this as well."

    "Theodore-"

     "The spirit of my column was to have a child's voice on current issues. I'm not a child anymore. Would it not make sense to find someone new?"

     Laura sighed, putting her coffee down on the desk behind her. The drink jumped in the cup as it made contact with the wood, a couple of drops spilling out over the rim.

    "I only want you to do this if you're sure. You understand that if you want to come back, we may not be able to take you on?"

    "I understand," Theodore replied. At her skeptical look, he smiled. "Current issues. Who am I kidding? I'm not an activist. I'm just a medical student."

     That night, Theodore walked out onto the lamplit street with one less weight on his shoulders. One less string tying him to a childhood that he was slowly leaving behind. Toward better things, that was the saying, wasn't it? New horizons and all that poetry shit. 

     It grew darker as he walked down the street, heading back to Hawthorne House. He hoped that Ashton had not stayed up waiting for him; it wouldn't have been fair to the poor boy. He'd already had to deal with Teddy's sleeping habits left over from his years of living with servants. The last thing he needed was Teddy's connectedly detrimental tendency to work late into the night rather than save something for the morning. 

    As he walked up to the building, Teddy's attention was caught by a flickering light up by the roof. He could not quite make out what it was before it disappeared, blinking away like a firefly disappearing among the trees. It was like a beacon that Teddy found himself drawn to. So, as he entered the residence building, he followed it.