Saving Max

Chapter 33

Today has been the complete opposite of yesterday was. There seems to be no good in this day, only the dark and the dreary showing their faces today past the gloomy clouds in the sky. The earth is sad along with me, the rain falling down in heavy pellets since the early hours of the morning. It started rather early, actually; it had to be only three in the morning when the first drop fell from the clouds. I know this because I was awake.

More specifically, I was cleaning. I was cleaning up the destruction of last night all morning long.

I didn't get a wink of sleep last night. Caden didn't, either.

We rushed to put Max to sleep when we saw the destruction in our home, not wanting him to wake up and suddenly find his home broken beyond repair. We had to maneuver around all the broken furniture and shards of glass covering every inch of the floor, slowly creeping through the maze of chaos until we reached Max's room, only to find his bed broken. The bottom beams of support were broken, throwing the mattress completely off kilter. One of the legs was broken right off, too, being thrown all the way across the room, landing on top of Max's now broken baseball lamp.

Max ended up sleeping in Caden's room last night.

I was crying last night, the tears streaming down my face silently as I sat in a lump on the living room floor, letting the mess surround and consume me until I felt nothing at all. Caden didn't say anything, or even console me, but instead got straight to work. I think he knew there was no use trying to calm me down. He knows me well enough by now to know that nothing he can say or do will help me in a situation like this. It's best just to leave me alone.

I found myself zoning out when I finally pushed myself to my feet, fighting back the extra tears that wanted to be released as I stood up. I started to push all the mess to the sides of the room, joining Caden in making huge piles along the wall: one of broken things and one of things that could still be saved.

Our couch, luckily, remained unharmed through the break-in. The coffee table, however, was shattered into a billion pieces all over the floor. Our recliners had the stuffing ripped out of them, but I reassured Caden in a mumble that I could push it all back in and re-sew them easily. This, I could see, put a sliver of his worries at ease, but he was still very much on edge. And he was still very, very angry.

The real problem was with the food. Oh, the mess that was made. Everything in our cupboards and fridge was emptied out onto the floor, the milk poured all over the kitchen table and all of the papers left scattered on top of it. Every cereal you could imagine covered every inch of our kitchen floor. You couldn't even take one step without hearing a crunch beneath your feet.

Over a hundred dollars worth of food, completely gone. Just like that.

A couple hours into our clean up, the clock chiming one o'clock in the morning, Caden turned to me and spoke for the first time. "You know who did this, right?" he had asked, but wasn't really a question at all. More like an acknowledgement.

"Yes," I paused, halting my movements to look him in the eyes. "I do."

It was David. Of course it was.

"He has to pay for this." Caden whispered in a hoarse voice, almost like the thought pains him to think about, although I'm not quite sure why. Maybe he's mad he hasn't gotten to beat David yet for what he did. Or worse, though I'd prefer not to think about that.

"Don't you think I know that, Caden?" I'd snapped, whipping myself around to stare at him sternly, my eyes shining with rage. I was exasperated. Tired. So, so tired.

He raised his eyebrows, but that's all he did. He didn't say anything to me, didn't even look like he was made at me for yelling at him. He just stared, and waited for me to calm down. He waited for a long time.