The footsteps got louder, but I had spent so much time down here, I could determine who was coming. Each of them weighed something else, so the steps made a different creek for each person. I sat up right away and fixed my hair as best as I could, as Robert came into view carrying a bowl of cereal and a banana. He looked nervous as always when he came down here. Besides Chad, Robert was the only person in my life that cared about me. Yeah, he ignored me all the time at school, but you would to if Lilac went to the same school as you and saw you helping out the reject in the family. He checked up on me sometimes, but he was so subtle about it, that no one besides me would notice. He set the food down on my bed and took a step back, running his hands through his bleach blonde hair. It was the same color as his father's hair. They had the same athletic build and shiny blue eyes to. You don't understand how happy I am that he has no traits of his mother. Others would say otherwise since they both had blonde hair and blue eyes, but the colors were so far off from each other, you would never guess that they were related. Robert was a looker, Alice was a hooker. Don't tell her I said that!
"You ok?" He whispered, not wanting anyone to catch him down here.
I nodded and he came over and put his hand on my forehead, checking my temperature. Then he walked over the stairs to check and see if anyone was coming, apparently not, since he switched the light on. He came back over to me, but stopped about a foot away, examining me.
"You've been good lately." He said in a light voice, noticing how I wasn't bruised at all; he wasn't here as much lately to watch after me, he had football practice.
"Yeah, I survived another night." I said sarcastically, I added a little laugh at the end to try to soften the tension.
"But for how long?" he asked, more to himself than to me. "Hey, why don't you come to practice with me after school? You can tell ma that you are doing something with a teacher. She won't push questions."
I raised an eyebrow at him, this was a first. "What about Lilac? She has cheerleading practice."
"Nope, not today. We have a big game soon, so coach doesn't want us to be, uh, distracted while practicing." He laughed.
"Sure, why not. I'll just sit there for hours watching you guys practice. Goodie!" I joked.
"Hey, it's better than staying here and getting' hit all the time" he joked back, but I didn't laugh, I just looked down at my hands and played with them silently. "Never mind that last part."
I looked up at him, forcing a smile onto my face. I nodded and he smiled slightly. With that he told me to hurry and get dressed so he could sneak me a ride to school. He and Lilac had cars; I had to walk to school. Lilac would be leaving any minute, and sometimes, Robert would wait for me on the next block with his car, so Alice thought that I was walking to school, but really, I was getting a ride. The only days when we didn't do this are the days when Alice wants to have a "talk" with me before school. Robert still used to wait for me, but then we would both end up late. I had begged him for a couple months to stop waiting. Eventually, I just wouldn't get in the car, but that did no good, because he would drive at my pace. I finally had come up with an excuse and told him that if Alice found out that we were both entering the school late at the same time, even though you left ten minutes before I did, and have a car, then she would put it together.
I got dressed in a rush, putting on hand-me-downs. It was Lilac's until she got a chest and it wouldn't fit her anymore. Now it was mine. It was a plain light blue shirt, and I took out a pair of ripped jeans. They weren't designer ripped; they were ripped like in the back. Somebody tried to drop it like it's hot, and that didn't turn out to well. So I had sewn it up and wear them. Pulling on some black Converses that I had gotten at a garage sale, I was headed upstairs.
