Chapter 10

By Christmas break he knows he won't be going back to school. He doesn't say anything, because the others are still hopeful for a holiday miracle that will never come. He knows the truth. The disease has been spreading faster than the doctor expected. The initial seven months had been downgraded to six, meaning he's due to expire in May. Ryan knows he won't make it even that long.

So he does his best to make this the perfect Christmas. He won’t see another so he tried to make it special, to give them each a gift that would remind them of him, but also of what they he did for him, how much he appreciated and loved them, because he is sure they will feel like they have failed. He had after his dad died. His nine year old self felt like he should have done more. He didn’t want them to feel that. He couldn’t allow them to be buried themselves in what should have been and what it became instead. Ryan needs to make them understand that they couldn’t have rescue him.

He made everyone promise not to buy him gifts, because he had no use for them. He knows they listened because this wasn’t a far off thought anymore, it was a fast approaching tragedy.

They all sleepover on Christmas Eve, making excuses to their families that didn’t need them, they understood. Ryan is the first one awake and wakes them all up with more energy than he's displayed in weeks. It makes them smile at the ungodly hour of the morning.

It's like he's a little kid again and it makes his mom cringe a little because tomorrow there will be no more Christmas’s like this and the little boy she raised will be a little closer to the exit. She excuses herself. No one mentions her red and puffy eyes when Mrs. Sails rejoins them for breakfast.

He has to take a nap after lunch, but that's okay because he is awake and alert for Christmas Dinner. They all forget for a while and it feels good. Julia falls asleep with her hand tangled in his and her head resting under his chin. The rest snuggle and continue watching Christmas movies. When Ryan wakes up the next morning and realizes that he has just lived his last Christmas he finds it hard to get up. But he looks around the room and sees that all the people he cares about are here, for him and that he couldn’t just stop. He finds a smile curving his lips. Bri and Ben are curled up in the love seat in a deep restful sleep. Kyle lies on the floor and Peyton has her head on his stomach, her hand grips his as if they would never let go. Sam and Katie lay half under a baby blue blanket in the papasan chair crammed tightly together, Sam is gripping the sleeve of her purple shirt lightly between his fingers. He didn’t want to wake them bring them back to reality just yet.

School starts up again a week after New Year’s Day, but just as Ryan predicted he's not there. Every day the rag tag family burst through the door and all of them look a little relieved when they find Ryan there, still alive. This reaction never quite goes away even as January drags on, but they get better at hiding it.