Barefoot Cinderella

12. Underestimation

6 Years Ago...

"Wake up!"

It was my stepmother waking me up for the day in an unusually hard manner. Not that usually she was all warm and fuzzy when she woke me up in the morning, or that she work me up at all, but at least she was tolerable. I would have a warm breakfast waiting for me on the table downstairs if nothing else. My father hated it when the help cooked and had insisted that my mother and then later my stepmother be the one that prepared our meals.

Although my mother was horrible at it and more often than not dad was the one who used to cook or we used to order in, but stepmother was great at it. She made coming up with a five course meal as easy as counting from one to three.

"Yes, ma'am?" I was still half asleep and a bit groggy. Sitting up I yawned a big yawn and looked at my stepmother expectantly.

"Hurry, quickly," she said, and started tearing my comforter and my duvet off of me. "Rhea friends are coming over for a sleepover and her room is too small to fit all the girls."

"But, what does that has to do with me?"

"Silly girl!" she said sternly, "Rhea is moving into your room for the time being."

"Why?" It was too early in the morning for me and I forgot how stepmother hated when I whined like a toddler.

"Because she is your older sister and it is unfair how you have the second biggest room in the house, which should be rightfully hers," she exclaimed rather hotly, as if chiding me for whining like a child. "Don't worry, it is just for this weekend. You can move back in once the slumber party is over."

I believed her.

I even obeyed her silently when she told me I should rearrange the old furniture from my parents' previous bedroom when my mother was alive up in the attic to spend the week in so that Rhea bedroom would remain undisturbed so she could move back into her room once the slumber party was over.

But then just a day later when I saw new furniture being brought in along with painters and an interior designer, I finally understood that I was never going to step into my old room again.

My room was going to belong to Rhea, while all my furniture was going to be sold off, along with the furniture in the rest of the house to upgrade it to the levels of my stepmother's lifestyle.

I was being put away in the attic, with all the things that my stepmother didn't want to be a part of her perfect life and her perfect house.

*****

Present...

One Month Later

"For the life of me, I never thought I'd see you wearing something other than a dress."

I turned to the side, only to find a smirking Tristan leaning against a locker next to mine. Ignoring him I continued filling my bag with the stuff I'd need for the day.

"Infact, I didn't know that you even owned anything other than dresses and ballet flats." This little snippet of information made me turn towards him and grace him with my complete and utter attention.

"Well, as you can see, I do." I said simply and continued, "But the real phenomenon that should be explored here should be you and your acquisition of, what I presume to be, a very extensive knowledge of Ladies' footwear."