Concrete Angel

At last, the school bell rang and I am long gone for the weekend. At least I’ll be away from school, what a relief. I don’t normally ride the bus. The people on there are the kind of people that make you want to be invisible, although I’m as invisible as invisible gets.

The walks home are always quiet. It gives tranquility to my mind, especially the peaceful sound of wind against the trees. It actually makes life seem peaceful, but everyone knows that life is anything but. I finally got the front door and walked in, Mom still at work. I repeated the usual routine of doing nothing until Charlie got home.

Charlie, right on time, came through the front door, but today had nothing special for him to rant about though, so it was unusually silent.

“Hey Charlie…”He turned to look at me. “I’m going somewhere tomorrow night……for a sleepover.”

“But what if I need you for something, like getting me out of dinner?”

“It’ll be okay, all I want you to do is behave. Even if you don’t like dinner, just eat it, but whatever you do, don’t make Mom mad” He nodded.

Mom got home but she wasn’t upset this time. Hmm, she must’ve had a good day. She later stated why she had a good day at dinner but I wasn’t paying attention. Even the dinner was better, maybe leaving Charlie won’t be so bad…..I hope.

“Hey Ellie!” Charlie yelled out while walking up the stairs with me.

“Yeah?”

“You wanna play this board game with me? It‘s Candy Land.” How could I say no? He’s so cute.

So we played for a few hours. He beat me all those five times we played, and I didn’t even go easy on him. I just naturally suck at board games.

Today seemed different. Mom didn’t freak out, dinner was good, and I didn’t have to take Charlie away from a dinner argument. Today actually felt good. Wow, I haven’t felt like that in a long time.