I didn't want to go back the other day. But Melody made me. She forced me into the shower and made hot chocolate. Kelley avoided us. Zach did too. I wasn't sleeping in my room again. I was back into the living room. Kelley wouldn't let Melody sleep in the guest room, no matter what anyone said. Melody was back into the living room too. Things were going great. Alice tried to talk to me, but she had hit me hard home and it hurt. A lot.

The next morning we woke up early. We took the box of Christmas presents for the hospital and brought them to Ibaleterm. I handed Melody Max's phone number. Melody took a deep breath and looked at me. I nodded.

"Hey Max," Melody said. "Kyle and I need a favor. And the thing is. We need to keep it a secret."

•••

Next thing I knew we had snuck off to a few roads down, where Max had met up with us. We were in the car driving to the hospital. And Max not questioning us at all.

"What happened yesterday?" Max asked. Scratch the last part of what I said.

"You want to here the whole thing?" Melody asked.

"Yeah. I kinda do." Max said.

Melody explained everything. I tuned out most of the time, not wanting to remember any of it.

"...so I found Kyle in the woods." Melody continued. I snapped to attention at this part.

"And..." Melody stopped for a moment looking at me, wondering how much of it she should tell.

"And we went back to the house." Melody decided.

"Ok." Max said simply. "It's going to be a long way there. So get comfortable." Max said.

•••

1 hour it took. 1 whole hour. Melody and I hoped out of the car the second we got there. We carried the box together and off we went.

"Wait don't you guys want me to come?" Max called.

"We'll be fine!" Melody called back. We walked through the hospital until we found the children's section.

"These are for donation." Melody said to the lady and the front desk. Her eyes widened.

"All these?" She asked. We shook our heads.

"Oh thank you!" She cried.

"You're welcome." Melody said. I smiled.

"Merry Christmas to you and your families!" She told us happily. We waved good bye and headed back to the car and Max.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's Note

Thanksgiving hasn't even passed and I'm writing about Christmas. Wow. I'm weird.

Word Count: 418