He picks her up behind the school, where mold and vines grow on the faded bricks and stoners gather to smoke, but at this hour, it's just them and the waning silver moon in the sky. She's waiting for him, leaning up against the brick wall, and the headlights illuminate her figure in the dead night. The halo of light would make her look like an angel if it weren't for the way she's dressed in black from head to toe. Perhaps fallen angel would be a more apropos description.
She opens the passenger's side door, sliding into the seat and settling in like she belongs there, which of course she does. She's so close but still too far away for comfort as she looks over at him and tries to smile, but he knows that it's only her trying (and failing) to convince the both of them that she's okay.
The air between them pulses with unsaid words as he drives, stealing looks at her whenever he can. Her bottom lip is marred with a cut that practically glows crimson in the passing haze of the yellow streetlights, and her jawline is tinged with bruising. His hands tighten on the steering wheel when he sees it, grateful for the gloves that hide his whitened knuckles from her gaze.
He pulls into the driveway of his house, taking care to be as quiet as possible as they both get out of the car. He peers at the window of the living room, and can see the blue glow of the television through the pale curtains, conveying that entry through the front door is not an option. He only needs to glance back at her for her to understand and she follows him around the outside walls of the house.
He finds the window to his bedroom, and removes the makeshift prop of a textbook from earlier, pushing up the frame and glass. She climbs in with a quiet and practiced grace and he follows, taking less care than her not to tread on the sheets of his bed, which sits right under the windowsill. He replaces the textbook, and gently closes the window on it, and pulls the curtains closed. His math teacher would probably kill him if she knew what he was doing to the book, but what she doesn't know won't kill her, he thinks.
"Thanks, Robbie." Her voice is quiet and a bit coarse from not speaking, and he looks up at her where she sits on the mattress, legs crossed and shoulders slumping forward, her dark eyes bright in the ever-present moonlight.
"Always, chica," he replies, tucking her hair behind her ear before capturing her chin in his hand, fingers skimming feather-light over the bruises. She winces, ever so slightly, enough that he drops his hand and makes a path for the door to steal into the kitchen without saying a word, unzipping his jacket and draping it over his desk chair on his way out. She doesn't question it; they've been here enough times for this to become routine.
He passes through the living room, taking care to be as silent as possible. The television continues to drone on, some old western playing as his brother, Gabe, sleeps on the couch, open textbooks and notebook paper scattered across the coffee table.
Robbie moves on into the brightly lit kitchen, pulling open the freezer door and taking out an ice pack, feeling the cold through his gloves while listening for any complications. Fortunately, there aren't any other sounds apart from the T.V. and Gabe's breathing and he's grateful that Uncle Eli is still at work. The more discrete they are and the less his uncle knows, the better.
At least, that's what she thinks.
When he slips back into the bedroom, she's still sitting on his bed, motionless and gazing out the window through the haze of the curtains even though there's nothing there but a moonlit sky, a lawn that needs mowing and a chain-link fence. Her fingers travel along the seams of the quilt that lays on it, and Daisy remembers Robbie telling her that his grandmother had made it right before he was born. The mattress dips a bit under his weight as he carefully settles next to her so as not to startle her and she turns her head back to face him. He holds out the ice pack in offering, and she takes it with a smile, pressing it to the bruises on her jawline, reveling in the way the sudden chill chases away all other emotion for a split second.
"You okay?" he asks, his voice rough.
She shrugs, her shoulders rising and falling a fraction of an inch. "As okay as I can be right now," she answers, her voice equally uneven due to their silence.
"What happened?" he says gently, pulling off his gloves and tossing them on top of his jacket, stripping away the last of his day-to-day armor. He asks this question every time, and after so many times the 'you don't have to answer if you don't want to's and the 'it's okay if you just want to be somewhere else's no longer need to be spoken, but they're still there, in the softness in his eyes and the air between them like so many other things.
"The usual," she replies tonelessly, her way of saying she'd rather not elaborate, because 'the usual' can range from a variety of things, from her foster brothers being assholes to getting in the way during a drinking binge.
Robbie understands, and all possible responses have already taken to the night air a long time ago, so he stays quiet, his way of letting her go on, should she want to.
The chill of the ice pack becomes a gentle burn, and since she's had enough pain today, she sets the ice pack down on the blanket next to her and fiddles with her hands, noticing her fingertips colored pink from the cold, shaking slightly.
Robbie takes her hands in his, and there's something unfailingly comforting about the calluses on his skin and the way his thumb caresses her knuckles, and Daisy finds herself falling a little farther every time.
"It won't be much longer, Daisy," he says softly, lacing his fingers through hers.
"I know," she says, staring down at their intertwined hands. "I just…" She lets out a deep breath, and it sounds like her soul is leaving her along with that sigh. "I just don't know how to look forward anymore," she confesses, not meeting his eyes, and his heart twists a bit at her admission.
To see her like this, it's a stark contrast from the girl he sees in the hallways during the week, and it's times like these when he wonders how many of her earlier smiles are false, and when he wishes he could do more to make them real.
"It'll get better," he assures her, trying to convince himself as well as her. "This is it. Once next year's over, you'll be out of the system, and we'll be able to work things out." They've been over this before, practically counting down the days to when she's no longer at the mercy of social services, to when she can leave the foster home and live somewhere better, though still in reach of each other.
Her eyes remain downcast, so he tilts her chin up to meet her gaze. "I mean it," he says. "Uncle Eli just got this engineering job at some stuffy energy lab, so things are definitely looking up. I mean, I still gotta work at Canelo's, but I don't have to drop out anymore."
A small smile curves her lips. "Seriously? You can stay in school?"
He nods, and her smile grows a little wider, and he's relieved to see it's real. "That's great, Robbie," she says genuinely, and her fingers curl around his a little tighter.
He shrugs in an effort to downplay it all, but he won't deny that Uncle Eli's newest job has lifted a sizable burden from his shoulders. "Yeah, it's pretty great," he says. "Now I just have to keep my grades up to graduate." It feels odd, playing optimist, as that's usually a role he lets Gabe star in. Daisy used to have a lot more positivity, but her reserves have dipped considerably in comparison to when he first met her.
"I'll help you if you need it," she promises, and he grins at the way her eyes seem to glow a little brighter.
"See what I mean, though? It's going to get better, it always does." His thumb brushes across her cheek, and he leans forward to press a gentle kiss to the bruises on her jawline.
"I hope so," she whispers softly, almost as if she's divulging some sort of forbidden secret, like it's dangerous for her to wish for anything anymore, and when she kisses him under the watchful eye of the moonlight, he hopes that his words are more than an idealized dream.