Guarded: Sequal to Broken

Twenty-Four

It's a double update again. Who's surprised. Enjoy 23 and 24 today.

Maddie's POV

"Hey Maddie, would you like to join us for the night?" Allison pokes her head through the doorway, smiling at me.

"Join you?"

"Christmas Eve tradition El and I have, we always stay up late watching movies, eating snacks, and talking in one of our rooms. We thought maybe you'd like to join us, since you've been pretty down the last few days."

I contemplate the idea a moment, I had planned to pull out my disconnected phone and wallow in photos of all the people I am missing... but maybe trying to put in some effort to enjoy Christmas here wasn't the worst idea.

"Um, ya, sure." I finally nod, grabbing both phones as I move off the bed.

"Great." Alli smiles, leading me down the hall.

"Yay!" Eloise claps her hands together as we walk into the room, at nineteen, she looks more like she should be my little sister than cousin. Despite always thinking I got all my gene's from mom, the dark straight hair and blue eyes of Eloise match my natural look almost too perfectly.

"I told you she'd want to have a girls night with us." Alli laughs.

"I'm trying to not be a bitch. And I'm sorry if I am. I'm just..."

"Going through hell." El smiles, patting my knee softly.

"Ya." I sigh, falling into a ball on the bed, my eyes dropping to the floor.

"It's okay, we aren't oblivious to the struggles you are dealing with, Maddie. You can be upset." Alli comments, rubbing a hand over my back. The small gesture pushing me nearly to tears, Calum used to rub my back when I balled up in emotional moments, and of course it's Christmas, so everything is reminding me that I'm not in Sydney sharing it with him.

"Want to just talk, we are pretty good listenets." El asks, pulling me into a hug between the two of them.

"I'm not supposed to talk about it all, that's part of the problem. I used to bottle everything up, and now trying to do that is breaking every part of me." I confess quietly.

"Look, Maddie, you may have never had a sister, but we have a code. Anything you say in this room, stays in this room. You don't snitch on your sisters. Not ever. And you're a cousin, so that's as good as a sister."

"I miss him..." I break, barely squeaking out my confession, "I miss my life, my job, my friends, my Calum." I sigh.

"Doesn't it feel nice to say it out loud?" Alli smiles softly at me.

"Doesn't fix anything though. I should be at his aunts house having a barbecue with the whole family right now, but I'm not. I never got to say goodbye to all my friends. I missed meeting my niece when she was born, now she's like six weeks old. I'm going to miss finding out if the next is a boy or girl. I finally got my life together, figured out who I am outside of my past, and then...." I shake my head softly, willing the tears to stay back.

"You know, last year you came to my high school to do a presentation." Eloise lifts my chin until she can force me to make eye contact with her.

"I did?"

"Ya, it was in November last year, and you did your whole talk about social media, mental illness, and awareness and everything. It was a really rough time in my life. Our grandpa had just past away, my boyfriend at the time had broke up with me out of no where, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and where I wanted to go for college and get my applications in. I wasn't taking care of myself at all mentally, and physically I was struggling too. But I went to this assembly, expecting to sleep or work on homework through the whole thing. And then I walked onto the stage in front of me. I was shocked, watching you walk out and seeing basically myself six years down the road. You had my hair, my eyes, my jaw, and my moms name. And then you started to talk... You asked a bunch of questions about things I had been feeling, things I needed to address in my life. When you started talking about your dad I was shocked, your story seemed so much like the story Mom and Alice would tell us about uncle Tom. I was so engrossed in your story, your life events, everything you said spoke to me."