I Won't Give Up

**Marc’s POV**

“I think we’ll let the one that knows her best go first,” our father announced and my three brothers and I all stood up at once. Joey was sitting between Jordan and I on the couch and she erupted with laughter. Eric was on my other side and forced me to sit back on the couch by pushing down on my shoulder. Jared, on the far side of Jordan, voluntarily sat down. Joey and Jared had a different bond than she had with Eric, Jordan, and myself, but he knew it couldn’t match the twin bond she shared with Jordan. I wasn’t quite sure why Eric was being so stubborn.

“Face it, E, you aren’t going to insult your little shortstack the way I will. You can go last and make the whole night emotional, alright?” Jordan told him and made his way around the coffee table without even waiting for Eric’s response.

This was the last night our family was going to be altogether until Christmas. Joey and Jordan were due to fly out to Pittsburgh in the morning. It was only the middle of July, but Jordan had to get down there for the Penguin’s rookie camp. Even it was basically a sure thing he was going to join the team for training camp and the entire season. And when fall rolled around, Joes was going to go to Carnegie Mellon University as a freshman and a theater arts major.

This family was used to all the kids running off and going their separate ways when late August rolled around, but this was the first time Joey was leaving so we were making it special.

We were having a roast in her honor.

“So I thought I would start with a story from the first ever time Joey and I were apart,” Jordan opened and Joey immediate threw her head back with a groan. I stretched my arm across the back of the couch and ruffled her hair a bit while I laughed along with our parents and brothers. “She had just gotten her license and was driving me out to Peterborough for my first season out there. Dad was in the SUV with most of my stuff, but Joey was very set on driving us in her little pickup truck. And then she got us lost. We lost track of dad and somehow ended up in the states. We left here early enough that that we would be in Peterborough by one so I could go to practice. But no. It took us the entire day to find our way back and she had to go explain to my new coach why I had missed my first practice with the team.”

“I have a driving horror story too,” Jared chimed in and rose to his feet. He walked to wear Jordan was standing and Jordan return to his seat next to Joey. She thanked him for his story with a punch to the stomach. “Joey drove me of my first date. I didn’t want mom or dad to drive me to avoid the mushy gushiness of ‘baby’s first date’. But in all honestly, Eric, Marc, and Jordan would have been a better option than Joey. They would have gone out of their way to embarrass me in front of this girl and it wouldn’t have been as bad as Joey.”

“Girls like sensitive guys, Jare. I was trying to help you out,” Joey gave her input and Jordan smacked his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t interrupt the story more.

“Let’s just say after hearing that at age fourteen I still crawled into my big sister’s bed during thunderstorms and talked to her until it passed and I could actually fall asleep, this girl was not asking me for second date.”

“Alright, Nutjob, it sounded better when I said it,” Joey commented and Jordan threw his hand over her mouth again.

Jared sat down after his story and then I stood up to share a story. My family got eerily quiet, assuming I was going to do the worst. Everything between Joey and I turned into a war so everyone had every right to think this was going to go just as badly.

“I want to share a story from when Joey was only seven years old. We were fighting, like we always do, but it ended in her giving me the best advice I think I have ever gotten,” I started and Joey just lifted her right eyebrow in confusion while she stared at me, as if daring me to continue. “Eric was eleven and we were leaving his teammate’s house after an end of season team party. Joey had spent the entire party down in the basement with the players and their brothers instead of upstairs with all the sisters. Of course, I was giving her a hard time about it. I asked her why she just wouldn’t leave us alone and join all the little brats where she belonged. She then began to inform me that she didn’t want to be a little sister, but wanted to be one of the guys.”

I saw a bashful smile sneak its way on to Joey’s face. Jordan punched her leg a couple of times and her small smile turned into a full out, toothy grin. This brought a smile to my own face before I continued with my story.

“I told her not to be stupid. ‘You’re a girl, Joey. You can never be one of the guys so just give up.’ I know I’m not the best big brother in the world. If Joey and I had had this same argument yesterday, I probably would have told her the exact same thing. And she would have said the same exact thing she said ten years ago. ‘It’s better than chasing something that will never come; tomorrow.’ At the time, it didn’t make any sense; why should I listen to something my stupid, seven-year-old sister said?”

“Get on with it!” Jordan hollered and out mom told him to keep his trap shut. I glanced at my mom and I could see tears building up in her eyes. She knew where I was going with this; somehow she always knew.

“I always live for tomorrow. I want life to go much faster than it is and never stop to appreciate what I have at the time. Joey is always asking me why I’m in such a rush and I can never come up with an answer for her. I still haven’t learned my lesson yet, and probably won’t for awhile, but I know my little sister will never stop pounding it into my head. I will deny ever saying this; I may think you’re annoying as sin and you get on my nerves way too often, but I’m glad I have you. I’m glad that I have a good person, such as yourself, who will always be there for me no matter how much I tell her to just leave me the hell alone.”

“Marcus!” our mother whisper shouted at me. She always hated when any of us cursed. I didn’t let her chastising me stop me from finishing what I needed to say.

“I’m so proud of who you’ve become, Joey. You went from a snot-nosed seven-year-old that I thought chirped whatever popped into her mind just to annoy the crap out of me to a beautiful seventeen..almost eighteen-year-old young adult that I know will always have my back. I just want you to know that when you are in Pittsburgh and at Carnegie Mellon University and I’m stuck here, I will always support you the way you have always supported me.”

With that, Joey jumped up off the couch and basically threw herself on top of me in a massive hug. And for the first time in a long time, we shared the words ‘I love you’ as more than just a goodbye or because it’s what was expected of us; but because we actually, truly meant it.



I was sitting at the airport, waiting for Joey’s flight to land and I could go back home and sleep. She always insists on flying overnight unless it is completely 100% necessary to fly during the day. I have no idea why. For some strange reason, it’s more convenient for her. But it’s completely 100% inconvenient for whoever had to pick her up.

Luckily for me, my older brother Eric was still awake at 2:15 in the morning and I had been on the phone with him for the past ten minutes while I waited. He told me he was only still awake – even after his doctor told him days ago that his concussion was out of the dangerous time – because Joey wanted him to stay up until she landed in New York. Being the over cautious type that she is, she didn’t want Eric to die in his sleep because of his concussion and then be the last person to hear about it because she was in the air. Yeah, my little sister had a tendency to make everything about herself.

“I told her that I didn’t know about this, so you better stick to that story unless you want both of our heads mounted on her wall above her fireplace at home,” Eric told me in an irritated voice.

“You sure do have this all planned out, don’t you? The whole ‘her killing us’ thing,” I laughed back, shocked that I had enough energy in me to laugh.

“Just don’t let her know that I made you do this, alright? I want her to think, at least for a little while, that you actually care about her enough to do this.” Low blow. I may not show Joey that I love her like my three brothers do, but that does not mean I love her any less. And sure, she may be the one person in the world that can push my buttons and make me go off like a fucking nuclear bomb, but that doesn’t mean I won’t help her reach her dreams.

“Yeah yeah yeah, man. I got it the first hundred times you told me.”

As the words left my mouth, I saw my little sister get off the escalator and enter baggage claim where I was waiting. She came barreling towards me with her arms spread out wide like she had the intentions of tackle hugging me. I thanked heaven that there were only about twenty-ish people around to see what was going on; and all of them were half asleep, like me, and not really caring about anything outside of their bubbles.

It was then that I noticed what she was carrying. Oh no. She did not have a Starbucks cup of coffee in her hand, did she? As much as I knew that was a bad idea because it was fucking 2:18 in the morning, I was going to use it to my advantage and get out of the aggressive hug I was doomed for. I putted dramatically to her cup to get my point across and she slowed so enough to just walk the last couple of steps and then sat down in the seat next to me.

“You think that is going to help your insomnia problem?” I questioned her. She rolled both her top and bottom lips back between her teeth like she was actually pondering what I had said. That only lasted about two seconds before she shrugged and took another long sip of her drink. “You aren’t going to be able to sleep at all tonight, you know that right?”

“Chillax, Marcy Marc-ity Marc,” she giggled and bounced happily in her seat. Joey was giddy to the point when I genuinely thought she was drunk. I knew she wasn’t though. I guess that’s why she’s the actress.

“Just know I’m not going to stay awake to entertain you, dumbass,” I mumbled and the smile that was on her face immediately fell.

“Typical Marc, I don’t even get a ‘hello’, you just go straight to degrading me,” she replied, rose to her feet and marched over to grab her suitcase.

“Don’t take it so personally, Joe. If anyone else was being as stupid as you are right now, I would call them a dumbass too.”

“Let’s just go home,” she demanded while storming past me. Through the phone that I had forgot was still attached to my ear, I heard Eric say something about me always knowing how to kill Joey’s good moods.

“Here,” I instructed when I caught up to her and handed her my phone. “Tell Eric her no longer has to stay awake for you.” I took her bag off her shoulder and threw it over my own. She still had her carry-on backpack on her back and I didn’t want her to struggle with carrying too much.

“It wasn’t for me; it was for my sanity.” I had a snarky comeback about her sanity being part of her so I was still right on the tip on my tongue, ready to fire back at her, but I decided to let it drop and led her to my car without another word out of my mouth.

*~*~*~*~*

“What the hell is wrong with your sister?” I spat into the phone with Jordan on the other line just an hour later. We had just gotten back from the airport and my apartment was freakishly quiet to the point it creeped me out.

“When she’s happy and pleasant she’s your sister, but when she does something wrong she’s my sister,” Jordan mumbled back at me, still not really awake. That made sense though; I had just waked him up at nearly 3:30 in the morning. “If that’s how this family works, you’re Eric’s brother. I don’t associate with people that wake me up at this hour.”

“She’s asleep. She fell asleep on the drive home and I carried her up here.”

“Sounds like she got a jump start on what you should be doing.”

“She had a giant cup of coffee at the airport though. You know how she gets when she has coffee. Mom never lets her have it past six because she’d be up for the next eight hours and not get to bed until two in the morning,” I explained and I could basically see Jordan’s brow furrow in confusion from the situation I was in. “I think there might be something wrong.”

“Marc!!” I heard Joey call from the guestroom I put her in. She sounded sleepy but excited at the same time. “Marc! Where are you?”

“In the living room, Joe,” I yelled in response. In seconds she was scurrying into the living room and jumping on the cushion next to me on the couch.

“Who you talking to?”

“Jordan.”

“Jordan! I know him! He’s my brother. You’re my brother too. I love you.”

And with that, Joey collapsed into my lap and was asleep before her head even hit my leg. I just stared down at here with a confused expression and not knowing what to do next.

“What the fuck just happened?” I asked Jordan as if he were here and saw that scene that just happened.

“She told you she loves you, dude. How often does that happen?” Jordan responded. If he were more awake right now, he would have sounded more enthusiastic and started to complain that he wasn’t there to witness our brother/sister moment. The fact that Joey and I didn’t really get along affected Jordan the most out of all the siblings. He and I were really close and of course he and Joey were inseparable. All he wanted since we were little kids was for Joey and I to be really close too, but it never happened.

“I think I’m going to go put her to bed again. And then go to sleep myself. I will call you in the morning if she isn’t back to normal,” I told my younger brother and he gave a simple ‘alright, see ya’ in return before hanging up the phone. I threw my phone to the other end of the couch and scooped Joey up into my arms before walking down the hall and tucking her into her bed for the second time that night.