From the Heart

- C H A P T E R 4 -

Mark's relationship with Abigail began when he was seventeen years old. It was a breezy morning in August when he had held his little sister for the first time. He had taken her in his arms, seconds before his mother flatlined. While he saw his sister take in her first breath, he saw his mother blow out her last.

It was right then and there his life completely changed. A father, he had never had and now he also didn't have a mother. The only thing he had left was a barely hour-old sister. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with her, after all he was still a child. The only thing he thought of doing was calling Mrs. Shepherd, the woman who had been there for him all this time.

Seeing Abi grow up was hard for him. She was everything that he wasn't. Where he was scared to stand up for himself or argue for his opinion, it was all she did. She wasn't scared to stand up for what was right. She was brave enough to tell others what she wanted and fight for what she deserved. She was everything his mother was, inside and out. She was just like her.

The day his mother had died was also the day he had decided to go to medical school. He was going to become the doctor she had needed. The doctor that would've fixed all her burns so that she wouldn't have died giving birth. He was going to become a plastic surgeon and he did. Now all he wished was his mother being proud of him.

Mark knew that he had abandoned his sister the day he left for med school. He knew it and he wasn't proud of it. Unlike Derek, he found it hard being around her as she became older. When she was a toddler, he was the most protective and helpful brother he could be. But as she gained a voice, he became more and more distant. He was scared of her. Of hurting her. Of being a disappointment to her. So, he ran and eventually became everything he was scared of becoming.

During his time in med school, Derek kept assuring him that she would love to talk to him, but he was too scared. Not that he hadn't been keeping up with her life, rather the opposite. He talked to everyone about her. Learned about her favorite and least favorite things. About the things she loved and the things that scared the crap out of her. He knew everything about his little sister, but he didn't know her. And she didn't know him.

He was miserable during that time. So, when he had graduated, he took the first plane home to visit her. He got to know her, instead of things about her. He flourished but at the same time felt more ashamed than ever. Mark had overheard a conversation between Derek and her in which Abigail had said that as much as she loved Mark, he had failed in every aspect of being a brother to her. He had felt like a distant relative rather than a big brother. That was the straw. It was that sentence that completely tore him apart.

On that day, Mark had decided he was going to become everything Abigail had hoped for. Everything she had wished for and anything she wanted him to be. He was going to be the best brother he could be.

And he was, at least for a while. He had spent days teaching her every suture in the book. Had watched surgeries with her. Went to sports games. Flown all over the world to visit every country she had wanted to. He did everything for her, because she was everything to him.

The night he had slept with Addison for the first time was the day everything changed. Obviously Abigail had chosen Derek's side, the way Derek had always chosen her's. But while he had expected her to ghost him, like Derek had done. She kept encouraging him to fix it. To keep a relationship with his brother, even if that meant breaking up with Addison. But he couldn't, he was in love with her.

And to prove it to himself, that he was absolutely done with fooling around, he had made the dumbest decision in his life. He had slept with another woman and Addison had caught him. Right then and there she had taken her belongings and moved to Seattle to save her marriage. And once again, Abigail had encouraged him to try and fix his brotherhood with Derek and whatever relationship was left with Addison, whether it would be platonic or romantic.

Abigail had done everything to make him realize what he had done and what he had destroyed. She was there for him and in return he had ghosted her, the moment he decided to take her advice. The worst part was that hadn't even thought about her while he was fixing what he had broken, while she was the one that told him how to.

It wasn't until the day she had shown up in Seattle that he had become aware of the horrible situation he had left her in, once again. He was a terrible brother, he knew it and she knew it. But somehow she hadn't blamed him for it. Which probably meant that Abigail had been keeping contact with Derek like they always did. Derek was the brother, he had never been to his little sister.

But now that she was here, he was once and for all going to be the brother he wished he had been all these years. He was going to protect her and be there for her. He was going to be everything to her, like she was everything to him. He was going to be a real brother to his little sister.