I'll Be Right Beside You

Jared

“Okay, this is getting ridiculous!” I sighed, completely exasperated. How my brother could be such an idiot was beyond me; I mean, I’m the single one and even I knew that I could handle the situation better.

Eric and I had been watching the game and saw them yelling at each other, which had instantly made both of us worry. Thankfully Parker and Levi were over at Ward’s for Nolan’s birthday, so they hadn’t seen it and wouldn’t be asking about it. I’d been humming and hawing over phoning Jordan, but I knew he probably wouldn’t want to talk about it. So I’d pulled the annoying little brother move and called Sid to see what was going on.

“I know it is, but both of them are too damn stubborn for their own good,” he replied, and I groaned, staring up at the ceiling of my living room.

“I just don’t know how we can help,” I admitted.

“Me either, and I think Steve’s ready to tear your brother a new one; he snapped at him a few days ago,”

“I don’t blame him, if somebody did that to my daughter I would’ve just lost it,” I told him, and Sid laughed.

“That’s just because you have a redheaded temper,” he teased, and I let out a huff.

“Again with the ginger jokes! Jesus man,” I rolled my eyes, and then couldn’t hold in my laughter any longer, which let Sidney know I was teasing him.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, all right?”

“Fine. But this isn’t changing the fact we need to do something about this,” I reminded him, and he was quiet for a minute, before I realized he was talking to Becka with his palm over the mouthpiece of the phone.

“Well I told him to call her, but Becka doesn’t know if he did or not – Cam hasn’t mentioned anything,” he informed me, and I let out a long breath.

“Well, I think I’m going to call her – I haven’t talked to her in a little while anyway. I’ll see if I can ask her about it without her getting too upset,” I suggested. Sidney voiced his agreement, and not long afterward we hung up.

I walked out to the kitchen to make a sandwich, deciding I would wait a little bit to call Cam, not wanting to catch her eating dinner. So I sat down in front of my television with my supper and watched all of the hockey highlights from today. I frowned when I again saw the Penguins highlights, Cam and Jordan not even playing on the same line anymore, because, as it was evident from their penalty kill shifts, they weren’t playing well together at all. Even the announcers were noticing the lack of on-ice chemistry they were having, but thankfully nobody had completely pegged it on their blowout argument on the ice a while back.

Finally I ran out of excuses to keep from calling one of my best friends, and dialed her number. She answered on the second ring, and our conversation flowed just as it usually did, which helped ease my nerves about bringing up the topic of my brother.

“So, are you going to tell me the real reason you’re calling?” she asked out of the blue, making me choke on the mouthful of water I had.

“Uh…”

“Jared, you only ever beat around the bush that much when you want to talk about something,” she giggled, and I let out a groan, wishing momentarily that we weren’t so close that she could pick up on something like that.

“Ugh, fine,” I sighed, making her laugh once more.

“You probably know Cam,” I allowed, and her laughing slowed. Things were quiet for a few moments, before she sighed.

“Yeah, I think I do. I don’t know what I can tell you Jare; it’s just rough,” she said, and I knew if I waited she would give me an explanation. I had a vague idea of what had happened, because I knew it had something to do with Marc’s hit on her during their game, but that was about it.

“It’s just… Jordan doesn’t get that I have to be able to play the game, you know? I get it that he doesn’t like to see me take a hit or that he doesn’t want me to get into fights, but I’m not going to be able to be a serious part of the team if I don’t do those things,” she explained. I closed my eyes and groaned internally this time; they’d already had an argument about this and I’d thought Jordan had got over it.

“This again?”

“Yeah, that’s how I feel Jare,” she agreed, and I ran a hand through my hair.

“Have you talked to him Cam? Since you two got into that fight – Eric and I saw it on TV,” I told her, and she let out a dry laugh.

“Yeah, that was a hoot,” I cringed slightly at the tone of voice. I knew she’d be upset, but I now knew she was devastated by the way she tried to cover it up with being gruff.

“Cam, you know how emotional he gets when it comes to you – it would be hard for me to deal with it too, but I understand where you’re coming from,” I told her, and I heard her sniffle.

“Thanks Jare,” her voice was quiet, and I wished I were there instead of just calling, especially if she was going to end up in tears.

“Cam, don’t cry – it’ll be okay. You guys just need to talk about it and see where each other are coming from,” I tried to assure her. A sob ripped loose from her then, and I had to fist away a tear from my cheek as I felt awful for even bringing it up on her.

“Jared, he doesn’t want this!” she exclaimed, catching me off guard. “He doesn’t want some girl who’s roughing around like a guy, who’s hitting and getting into fights, he wants some pretty little thing that will be waiting for him at home so he can get married and have a family!”

“That’s not true Cam, you know he loves you,” I insisted, but she cut me off.

“He might love me but he doesn’t love what I do, and it feels like he’s stepping in and doing that to try and get me to back off from it,” she quietly admitted, and I felt my stomach drop. That couldn’t be true, I couldn’t see Jordan doing that, not when he loved playing hockey with her by his side so much, but I hadn’t spoken to him so I didn’t know.

“I’m sure that’s not true Cam, Jordan loves playing with you by his side, and you know that,” I told her, and heard her sniff a few more times.

“Sometimes I don’t know Jared,” I could’ve sat there and cried with her, I felt so goddamn terrible for even bringing it up. I pulled my laptop over to me and booted it up, before prompting Cam to do the same. As soon as the icon popped up I requested a Skype chat with her, and when she came on the screen I felt even worse. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she was still trying to get a hold of herself.

“Where are you?” I asked, not recognizing the room behind her, she chuckled a little, before panning the view so I could see.

“I’m staying at Rosa’s place,” she explained, and I nodded, and then laughed when I saw some of the pictures she’d sticky tacked to her wall by the bed.

“Nice pictures,” I grinned, and she turned back to see them before turning back to me and shrugging.

“Well I hate bare walls,” she responded, and I nodded, understanding how she felt. I was the same way, and so I’d had Tanya and a few of her friends help me pick a couple of pictures to hang on the walls in the living room and kitchen and hall, while my small gym room had posters all over it, and my bedroom was in the same state. The guys teased me that it looked like a sixteen year old’s room, but it felt more homey for me rather than just bare and empty.

“I know the feel, bro,” I nodded, and made her laugh.

“Thanks Jare, good to know,” she replied and we continued to talk for a bit. Someone burst into the room, and Cam looked up over her laptop to talk to the person I couldn’t see.

“It’s Jared,” she answered, and who I assumed was Rosa was suddenly in my field of vision as Cam swung the laptop around. She looked about as stunned by Cam’s actions as I felt, and we both stared at each other for a second.

“Hello?” I shyly offered, giving her a wave. She quietly answered and soon made an exit out of Cam’s room. As soon as she turned the laptop back to her she gave me a moment’s look and then we both burst into laughter at the awkward encounter. Cam knew I wasn’t the greatest with meeting new people, yet she always seemed to put me into these kind of situations.

“Do you have practice tomorrow?” Cam randomly asked, and I shook my head.

“No, do you?”

“Nope. Would you want to stay up and watch a movie with me?” she asked, and I nodded, making my way to the DVD player to search through my DVD collection as she listed off a couple of different ones that she had. We decided on watching Adam Sandler’s The Longest Yard, and settled in to watch one of our favorite movies. It only took about an hour before I could tell that Cam was asleep, and was glad that I’d been able to talk to her and help her relax a bit – knowing her she’d been having a hell of a time sleeping since she and Jordan had argued.

I pulled the blanket off of the back of my couch and wrapped myself up in it, ready to fall asleep on the couch, and made a mental note to rip my brother a new one via phone tomorrow morning.