Fifty Reasons to Stay (Book Three)

Chapter Forty Six- Snow

(Narrator's POV)

Andrew remembers how much snow they'd gotten the night of January 14th. He was sure school was going to be cancelled the next day, so him and his two best friends were going to play video games all day. Snow days were the best.

Before bedtime, him and his family made sugar cookies shaped like stars and gingerbread men, but even the eight year old could sense the tension between his parents. They weren't arguing, but something was definitely going on and it didn't sound pretty.

His little sister was sent to bed at her usual time, but Andrew was also sent upstairs, even though his bedtime wasn't until 8:30.

"Can't I stay up for thirty more minutes?" He had whined. "There's probably going to be a snow day tomorrow!"

"Snow day or not, you may not stay up any longer. Go upstairs." Leo massaged his temples, clearly exhausted.

So Andrew had stormed upstairs and stayed up as late as possible. He snuck into the hallway at one point, trying to hear what his parents were talking about, but it would seem that they were sleeping, and he couldn't listen in on that.

So he went to bed.

It seemed as if he'd only been asleep for a few minutes when he was woken by his dad's boring, monotone sounding phone ringing. Glancing up at the clock, he saw that it was only two in the morning.

"This is Leonardo..." His father's sluggish voice interrupted the ringing as he must've answered. "What??? Where?!"

Something was wrong.

The bedroom door opened, someone ran down the stairs and went out the front door.
~~
Donnie rolled over, rubbing his eyes as he listened to his husband talk to someone on the other end of the phone.

"What?? Where?!" Leo's eyes widened as he quickly sat up in bed, grabbing his shoes off the floor. "I'm coming. I'll be there as soon as possible."

"Leo.. what happened..?" Donnie touched his shoulder, heart starting to pound. Oh god... it hadn't happened, there was no way...

"Shut up for a second.." He snapped, swatting Donnie's hands away. Leo immediately regretted it and hung up the phone, exhaling sharply. "There's been a situation at the... office."

"What..." He sucked in a breath, waiting for Leo's response.

"Just go back to sleep, honey... I'll handle it." Leo leaned over and gave him a shaky kiss. "Don't ask questions for right now. Just go back to sleep."

"You can't go out in the snow.." Donnie whispered, already getting ready to doze off. "Can't it wait..."

"No, it can't..." He stroked Donnie's cheek. Donnie wasn't awake long enough to answer.

So Leo tried to leave the house as quietly as possible, but he was stopped on the stairs.

"Dad..." The boy rubbed his eyes, holding onto the railing. "Where are you going?" Andrew feared his father was leaving again... maybe his parents had argued....

"I have a situation to deal with, okay? I promise I'll be back before you wake up. Now go on up to bed... you can sleep in my room if you want."

Leo promised to be back by morning.

But when Andrew woke up at half past nine, his father still hadn't returned home. Donnie was still in bed, clutching his cell phone and staring at the house phone, as if he was actually going to force one of them to ring.