Max hadn't even been completely out of his bed when someone knocked on the door.

He walked up to it only to find out that it was Kevin.

"You aren't ready yet?" he said.

"I just got up..." Max started but was interrupted by his own yawn.

"Got up? Look at your eyes, seems like you didn't even sleep last night!" Kevin said.

Actually, Max really couldn't sleep last night. It was already past midnight when he finished reading the diary, and after that, he was in a whole different state.

"What happened last night?"Kevin asked as he walked in and sat on the chair.

Max gulped. The diary was kept right beside Kevin, on the desk, but he didn't even notice it as his eyes were fixed on Max.

"Nothing...why?" he said in a soft, shaky voice, trying to keep his eyes off the desk and thinking how to get it away from Kevin without even letting him know.

Kevin looked at him as he squinted for a moment and then suddenly, his eyebrows went high with his eyes wide open. He jumped off the chair and grabbed Max's shoulders as he yelled, "Holy crap! Don't tell me that you got her pregnant!"

"What the hell! Kevin, don't you think it's quite early to get high? What are you even talking about?" Max wiggled out of his hold, and casually grabbed a towel and then threw it on his desk. It landed directly on the diary.

"Yes!" Max wanted to say it in his mind, but the words came out a bit too loud.

The overdramatic expression from Kevin's face disappeared as he said, "I am talking about Julie, you dumb whoreface! She left crying, and you're talking as if nothing happened!"

Uh-oh, Max totally forgot about her.

"I-I don't know... Shane said some weird stuff, which made her so uneasy that she left..."

He knew that all this was connected, he just couldn't see how and why. He had absolutely no idea what was going on with Julie. Max had never seen her getting so vulnerable.

"You know anything about her family?" Max asked.

"She lives with her grandmother," Kevin said as he looked away.

"What about her parents? Are they alive?"

"Yup, her mother is... but in prison."

Max was stunned by what he heard just now.

"What happened?" Max's eyes widened.

"She killed Robin Miller, Julie's father. She got a gun somehow and shot her own husband. No one knows why she did that, they were a perfect family. Many were jealous of how happy and content they were." Max shouldn't have let her go like that. He was now even more worried about her. But he was still unable to understand the tyrfing reference which bothered her.

"How old was she when this happened?"

"Probably 7 or 8," Kevin said as he stood up to leave, "poor thing, even she had a hard childhood."

"Yeah," Max said, his head hung down.

"Now don't think too much, you already have a lot of load on the tiny head of yours." He smiled as he walked out, closing the door after him.

There was indeed a lot going on in Max's head. He already had his own demons to deal with, and now he had to hide this new secret from the person who could read him like an open book. And Julie too! He had yet to make sure she was fine.

He also read about the chosen one, who had to come five years after 1999, which was 2004, the year when Max was born. He felt like a cold wind went right through him. The diary, instead of clearing his doubts, created a whole new surge of questions within him.

Leaving the diary on the table wasn't a good choice. He decided to take it with him.

Just as he was about to pick it up, the door opened.

"I almost forgot...." Kevin started but was interrupted by Max.

"Oh jeez, Kev! You don't have to scare me like that," Max screamed.

"What are you scared of in your own house? Monsters?" Kevin teased him.

At this point, after reading about an Archangel in Shane's diary and his encounter with that mysterious woman, maybe yes.

"I came to ask...." he started but then stopped. He closed the door and then continued, "....about the diary. Did you find out something? You do realize that we cannot keep that diary forever?"

Oh crap!

"Yeah, um, I mean no. Nothing that could help," Max started arranging his shelf out of nowhere just as an attempt to not look directly at Kevin.

"What are you doing?" Kevin said as his brows knit. Max's weird behavior intrigued him.

"Just cleaning my shelf, it looks messed up."

"I can see that, but what are you actually trying to do? You look more messed up than the shelf," Kevin said as he raised an eyebrow, and stood there with his arms folded.

Max started laughing hysterically as he pushed him out of the room. "Now you just go and let me get ready."

"What about your shelf?"

"Um, I'll do that later."

"Dude, you seriously are messed up!" Kevin laughed, "Alright, at least give me the diary. I'll keep it back."

There was no way Max was going to hand it over to him.

"Relax big brother, I took care of it!" he smirked.

"Wait, what?" he said, but Max didn't answer. Instead, he locked the door as soon as he pushed Kevin out.

"I need to get ready for school!" Max screamed from the other side of the door.

Kevin didn't say anything and left quietly.

'Please Kevin; don't make it difficult for me... I know you are not going to take this well... I need to untangle all this before I tell you anything.'

Max got ready real quick but was scared to go down, scared to face him. He had no other choice. Kevin must be waiting for him.

He grabbed his bag and moved down with a fake smile on his face to conceal his heavy heart. Just as he had expected, Kevin was waiting at the table for him.

Max was still on the stairs when Kevin saw him and said loudly, "Max grab whatever you want, and have your breakfast in the car. I don't want to get fired within a month of my joining!"

He picked up his leather briefcase and jolted out of the main door. And within second his head popped back in, just his head, and screamed, "Hurry up Maxie boy!"

Kevin always used to tease him by that name. Max rushed to the table only to find out that all they had was burnt toasts and orange juice. He then remembered that Aunt May had to go for some check-up today. That means the breakfast was prepared by Lucinda or Josh, the only two people who cooked in the absence of Aunt May, and both being awfully terrible at it. Max could have prepared something better but was never allowed to. According to Shane, everybody had a part to play, and cooking food was definitely not for him! Max couldn't agree to it though, he liked cooking and could say that he was quite good at it. Often when everyone fell asleep, he and Kevin would sneak into the kitchen to prepare something to eat while they sat on the rooftop at about 2 am watching the night sky and talking about what a piece of shit life is.

"Got scared of the burnt toast?" Kevin said as Max entered the car.

"I'll have something at the canteen," he said with a disgusted face.

"Yeah, me too," Kevin said and they both started laughing.

Max feared that Kevin would ask him about the diary, but he didn't even bring it up for once. Maybe because he was getting late... Or maybe because he could sense that Max wasn't yet ready to talk about what he read...