Beside You

3rd person POV

Practice had been good, not too hard, not too light, just right after the game the previous night. Marc was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with his little sister, eager to spend some quality time as he knew that the next visit would be at least a few months. There’d always been guys that were quicker at showering and dressing than him, not that he was a slowpoke, but he liked to go about things calmly instead of in a rushing manner and he knew that Maddie would wait one way or the other, probably plenty entertained by texting with Abby and Matt. She would always text huge amounts when she wasn’t with her best friend, keeping each other updated as if they were attached at the hip.

“Marc?” Dan Girardi was usually out before Marc, eager to get back to his wife and little son, but it was highly unusual that anyone ever came back in after they’d left.

“Yeah?” Marc finished pulling on his shirt and looked at Dan questioningly.

“Madison’s outside,” Dad told him. Marc nodded, he knew that. “She’s crying.” That caused Marc to jump-start, jamming his feet into his sneakers and then racing to get to his baby sister.

He was not the first one to reach her, Mike and surprisingly also Chris Drury were already sitting with her, but Marc could tell from first glance that she was ignoring them. She’d pulled up her knees to her chin, half hiding her face between them. She wasn’t shaking, but she was still crying, big tears rolling down her face rapidly. His heart was squeezed by an iron fist in his chest, it’d been a long time since he’d seen Maddie cry and even longer since he’d seen her cry like this.

“Mads?” he said quietly, taking Chris’ place after the team’s captain moved to stand. Madison didn’t say anything, only tipped over to the side to curl into him and hide her face in his chest instead of her knees. Marc exchanged a clueless, worried glance with Mike and wrapped his arms as tightly around his sister as she would let him. “What happened, Maddie?” he asked as softly as he could, but she only shook her head, her crying almost worsening.

It took a long time until Madison calmed down enough that Marc felt he could put her in the passenger seat of his car without feeling too bad about letting go of her. Tears were still slowly dripping down her pretty face when they reached his apartment and no sooner than he had unlocked the front door, she’d disappeared into the guest room, shutting the door behind her tightly, but not after throwing her bag and something else onto the couch carelessly. Listening closely he could hear her cry into her pillow, but a shut door meant ‘keep out’ (an age old rule, implemented because locking a door was forbidden at the Staal house, save for the bathroom).

Marc started pacing the length of the living room, racking his brain for possible reasons and also possible solutions for this unfamiliar outburst. The first obvious reason could be Matt, but the longer he thought about it, the less likely that seemed. If Matt had broken up with her just three days after asking her to be his girlfriend, that was quite ridiculous (he knew Matt was better than that) and also Madison would be on the phone with Abby right now, not seeking solitude.

It had to be something else, but Marc just couldn’t figure out what. If something would’ve happened in their family, then he would have gotten a call as well, not just Madison. Anything else made little sense, because it would not shake Maddie this much.

In the end Marc realized that he had not a single clue what was going on. Because he didn’t know the reason, he couldn’t start on a solution either, so he had to find something else to occupy his time with trying to help his sister somehow. The first thing to pop into his mind was ‘comfort food’ and his brain quickly calmed him with the reminder that he’d grocery shopped before Maddie had arrived, stocking up on junk foods she liked, including various kinds of Ben&Jerry’s.

Just as he was about to knock on the door to ask Maddie if she wanted anything, music started playing in the guest room. Marc almost let out a groan, his sister had an, if you asked him, unhealthy obsession with Taylor Swift music, but the longer he listened to the song she was playing, the more he realized that Madison was seeking some sort of comfort in the lyrics.

All this time I was wasting,
Hoping you would come around
I've been giving out chances every time
And all you do is let me down
And it's taken me this long
Baby but I figured you out
And you're thinking we'll be fine again,
But not this time around

You don't have to call anymore
I won't pick up the phone
This is the last straw
Don't wanna hurt anymore
And you can tell me that you're sorry
But I don't believe you baby
Like I did - before
You're not sorry, no no oh

Looking so innocent,
I might believe you if I didn't know
Could've loved you all my life
If you hadn't left me waiting in the cold
And you got your share of secrets
And I'm tired of being last to know
And now you're asking me to listen
Cause it's worked each time before

But you don't have to call anymore
I won't pick up the phone
This is the last straw
Don't wanna hurt anymore
And you can tell me that you're sorry
But I don't believe you baby
Like I did - before
You're not sorry, no no, oh

You're not sorry no no oh

[...]
(Taylor Swift – You’re not sorry)

It took Marc a few listens to the chorus to be sparked with the idea of checking her phone. That was not something he usually felt comfortable doing, but he was desperate. Right away when he saw that she’d completely turned it off, he knew he’d had the right idea. He turned it on, only taking a few moments to run through possible passwords/number combinations. First he checked the text messages, running with the initial Matt idea, but there was only a new one from Abby that he didn’t read and the last one from Matt was (probably) about a date next week, so that ruled the Matt-reason out completely. Then he checked the last calls.

In essence her incoming call list was not very surprising, Abby, Mom, Dad, Matt, a few friends from school... But the very last incoming call, Marc was very surprised to find his younger brother’s name there and it was not Jared. Suddenly it clicked.

Marc’d been right, only someone in their family would be able to upset Madison like this and anger immediately started to boil in Marc’s veins as he realized that Jordan had probably called Madison (which was extremely out of the ordinary to begin with) and had said something to her that had hurt her this much (which was not very surprising, as bad as it sounded). He shut the phone off again and went back to the door, knocking lightly.

“Mads? Is it okay, if I come in?” he asked through the door. When he didn’t hear anything, not yes, not no, he slowly opened the door to give her time to protest, but she didn’t. While his anger continued to grow in the pit of his stomach, Marc’s heart also went out to his sister, who was, simply, a picture of misery as she sat there on the floor leaning her back against the bed hugging a pillow, still crying. Whatever it was that Jordan had said, Marc would kill him for it, fair and square. Not ever had Madison cried like this and not ever had her pale brown eyes held so much hurt and pain as she looked up at him.

While he sat down next to Madison and let her curl into him again (when was the last time she’d literally sat on his lap? He couldn’t remember), he contemplated if he should bring up Jordan or if that would just make it worse for the moment. He decided against saying anything, she would start talking when she was ready to.

And so time passed by, Madison staining her brother’s shirt with more tears either of them thought she could ever produce and Marc trying his best to console her without words. When he’d thought of quality time earlier, this was not quite what he’d imagined...

.

End 3rd person POV, back to Madison’s POV
.

“Can I sleep here?” My voice was quiet and rough, I’d literally spent hours crying into Marc’s chest and my insides still felt ripped out, trampled and spit on, then put through the meat grinder and burnt. I had the mother of all headaches from crying for so long and not drinking much and the thought of sleeping on my own made my stomach churn even more.

Marc looked surprised, really surprised, but he nodded almost immediately. I could read on his face how worried he was about me, but all the words that were swimming, racing in my head would just not pass my lips yet. I could barely bear to think them, let alone say them.

Big brothers know that something is really wrong, when their little sisters turn down any kind of comfort food, besides crying for hours and not talking I mean. I’d seen the impressive collection of Ben&Jerry’s Marc had bought for this weekend (we had a sworn-to-silence-no-word-to-coach pact about all the food we’d eat when I was here), but even the thought of it made me sick. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to talk, I just didn’t want anything. If anything, I wanted to disappear.

Marc slipped out of the room for a few moments to get my pillow and blanket, moments that I used to grab some sweats and a shirt to change into from his closet. All my brothers usually smelt good and they were pretty much used to lending me stuff to sleep or lounge in (although it was weird with Eric and Jared because of their ‘better halves’).

I could tell that Marc felt a little weird about sharing a bed with me now that we were this ‘big’, but he really tried not to make me feel unwelcome. I curled up with my back to him, not because I didn’t want to face him, but because I usually slept on my right side and so he started rubbing my back softly, trying to ease me into sleep, but it was impossible. I knew I would have to say something, before I could sleep, get it off my chest.

Surprisingly my eyes filled with new tears as I tried to find the words, so much for not being able to cry anymore... One lonely one slipped down my cheek and dropped from the tip of my nose into the fabric of the pillow.

“He said he wished he didn’t have a sister...”