The Key to my Heart

Chapter 20: Love Muffin (Dex's P.O.V.)

I got my inspiration for this chapter from this pic, but it's not KotLC related.

And, I know I was supposed to wait, but I have five chapters ready for Saturday, so I decided, why not give you guys a little something?

I yawned and sat up in bed. Something... something was important about today. After a moment of thinking, it dawned on me. It was Christmas morning! Exitedly, I glanced at my clock, which read 5:30 Yes! I thought. Adolescence hasn't caught up with me yet!

Fully awake, I jumped out of bed and made my way over to the window, carefully picking my way around creaky floorboards. I had memorized them, and I had not once regretted giving up a piece of my memory to those creaking panels. Before they were memorized, I couldn't take a step out of bed without waking the triplets, who each, especially Bex, whom I shared a wall with, slept extremely lightly. So I had memorized not only the creaky floorboards, but the exact places I had to step to be absolutely silent. And with that same silence I moved across the room, carefully pulling open the curtians, mentally wishing for now. There hadn't been any the day before, but miracles do happen...

Just not this year.

There was, however, a small pile of fake snow, topped with a wrapped package on top. Curiously, I opened my window, cringing as it squeaked. For a second, I hesitated, waiting for the sound of the triplets' footfalls. But aparently, their sleeping ears hadn't been trained to hear squeaky windows the same way they heard creaky floorboards. I continued with the window, pausing every time it squeaked, shivering every time the frigid December air rushed into my room.

As soon as the window was opened enough, I reached through and grabbed the package, closing the window again as quickly and quietly as I could. Surprisingly, it was warm. I longed to open it, but then I wouldn't be able to open any presents from under the tree... It was a family rule that the triplets and I were only allowed to open one present before our parents woke up. Some 'celebrating Christmas as a family' thing. But as I turned back to the package, I realized someone must've left it under my bedroom window for a reason, and it called to me. Before I could give myself another chance to think over the pros and cons, I ripped off the paper.

The sound of tearing paper, not unlike the creaking floorboards, was an automatic wake-up call for the triplets. Bex's door slammed open first, and I heard her slipper-muffled feet pounding down the stairs. Rex and Lex's door opened second, followed by two sets of racing footsteps as they competed to get to the stairs first. And, like most times they tried that, their stampede was cut short by muffled cries and the THUMP THUMP THUMP of them tripping and tumbling down the stairs. I didn't worry about them. All three of them had fallen down the stairs so many times, it was just as normal to us a stubbing a toe.

Plus, I couldn't concentrate on them anyway. I was too busy staring down at the now unwrapped gift.

It was a muffin.

A pistachio muffin.

I made my way downstairs in a daze, plopping into my mom's favorite chair that none of us dared to sit in while she was awake.

"Heya, Dex! You gonna open your present?" Lex asked through a mouthful of jelly beans.

I shook my head. "I already did," I told him, holding out the muffin. Bex, intregued, paused from pummeling Rex with her new Nerf gun to examine the muffin.

"Do you think it's poisoned?" she asked, poking it, then whipping her hand away like it would kill her. I shook my head.

"No. I don't think it's poisoned... but maybe there's something inside it. I'm going to cut it open before I eat it, just in case." Bex shrugged as I squinted at it. She squinted with me for a second before getting hit in the back with Rex's Nerf gun. Then she turned around and picked up her own menecingly.

"What's that?" My mom asked from behind me, eying my muffin.

"A muffin," I told her, getting out of her chair.

"I know that. Where did you get it?"

 "It was outside my window. And it was wrapped. A present addressed to me. I opened it up and it was a muffin."

My mom raised her eyebrows, but she knew by now that weird, unexplainable things happened to me and my friends sometimes. She'd learned to roll with it.

"Well," she said eventually. "I guess we should at least cut it open and make sure there isn't anything inside it. I bet someone wanted to get you a present but didn't know what to get you. This looks homemade. Do any of your friends know pistachio muffins are your favorite?"

I thought for a second. "All of them do, actually." I said, tailing my mom into the kitchen. She took out a knife and began to cut the muffin down the middle.

"Oh?" she said, pausing her work. "What's this?"

She moved aside so I could look. Embedded in the cakey-muffin batter was a piece of paper. "Wha..." I traced out and pulled on it until it broke free of the muffin and I had the paper in my hands. "Dex," I read aloud. "Pistachio is your favorite type of muffin, right? I hope so! Merry Christmas, Dex! Love, Marella..."

My mom raised her eyebrows at me. "'Love', huh?"

I stated at the note, unfazed by her tease. "... Yeah."