Maybe One Day

19: What Happens in the Woods

*New chapter! Enjoy! Also, still in need of a new cover so if anyone's interested, let me know....?*

"Can we talk?" I ask Maddie through the phone.

I hear her shift uncomfortably. "About what?"

I roll my eyes. "You know what."

"I'm kinda busy," she says quickly.

"No your not. Come over so we can talk," I say back and hang up.

I sigh. She's not coming.

Just as I do so, my mom walks through the front door. "Ugh, what a day. I had completely forgot how rough it is to be pregnant," she complains, sitting on the couch next to me. She brushes her hair out of her face and smiles at me. "So how was your day?"

"Fine. You know, I was thinking. You and I could have babies that are the same age," I comment.

She turns to look at me, wide-eyed. "What are you-"

"Relax, mom, I'm not pregnant. I was just saying that if I was, our babies would be the same age."

"Are you saying I'm too old to have a baby?" She narrows her eyes at me.

Before I could answer, Noah suddenly runs into the room and hops onto my mother's lap, screaming, "Mommyyyyyy!"

She lets out an "umph" and gently lifts him off her and places him onto me. "Sorry Noah, I'm not up for your energy today."

"That's okay, Livie can take me to the woods, right Livie?" Noah bounces on my lap and twists around to look up at me.

"Not today, Noah, I'm tired," My heart breaks a little when I see his face fall in disappointment.

"What? You said we can go whenever I want!" He yells in my face.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not up for it today!" I try pulling him in for a hug but he wriggles out of my grasp and hops off the couch.

"I want to go to the woods! I want to remember Kyla!" He screams, tears now streaming down his face.

"Noah!" My mother says, horrified, at his outburst.

He suddenly dashes from the room and up the stairs.

My mom starts to get up but I put my hand on her arm and say, "I'll get him."

I quickly ascend the stairs after Noah. "Noah?" I hear a noise come from my room and I hurry into it. "What are you doing?"

"I want to go to the woods!" He yells and grabs the nearest thing in my room he can find, which is the bracelet from Luke that was sitting on my desk. "Take me or I'll break this!" he threatens.

My mouth hangs open in horror. This was not my little brother. This was not the sweet, innocent Noah I knew. "Noah -"

I was cut off my him yanking it, sending the pieces of macaroni flying across my room. Kendall then appears by my side, brought over by all the noise. "What's going on...?"

He suddenly grabs the next nearest thing on my desk: a small envelope with the word, Olivia, scrawled on it.

"PUT THAT DOWN!" I scream at him. "RIGHT NOW!" I lunge at him just as he sidesteps me and tears it down the middle. "AHHHH!"

Instinct causes me to shove my ten year old brother down on the ground. His head smacks against my dresser in the process and he shrieks out in pain.

I sink to the ground, the torn letter from Isaac clutched tightly in my hand. Sobs wrack my body at the thought of what Noah just did and what I just did to him.