DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING.
CLARIFICATIONS: Alex moved to Canada when she turned eighteen and her kids turned one.
Goodbye – Chapter Four
Fifteen Years Later
Fifteen-year-old Madeleine Russo looked out of her bedroom window and watched as one of her friends from school got into their car with her dad and drove away to the father-and daughter-dance.
She sighed as she remembered that she was the only one absent on that occasion.
"Dinner's ready!" Her mother called out from the bottom of the stairs.
Maddie sighed again. Why does she know nothing about her father?
She pushed the question away while she tied up her long curly hair into a ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked exactly like her mother when she was fifteen, only she had her dad's eyes. The dad she never knew.
She opened her bedroom door the exact same time as her twin brother whose room is directly opposite hers. The excitement of unknowingly doing things together already died down.
She looked at her brother. They were twins, but they looked nothing alike. He looks like their dad when he was young, she's sure, but her mother never said anything when Maddie asked. He had their mom's eyes though. He was the exact opposite of her. She doesn't know where he got the hair though. It's curly. Really curly. [a/n: Nate's hair. Exactly the same hair.]
"Why are you staring at me?" he asked, looking at her in a weird way.
"Nothing."
"Oh no. Am I turning you incest?"
"Ew. You're not hot, you know that?"
"I am. I have girls drooling all over me in school."
"Whatever."
He was right though. He does have girls drooling all over him. They would always ask her things about him and ask for his number even if he already had a girlfriend, Audrey. They were the perfect couple.
What she didn't know was that almost every guy in school has gone up to him to ask him about her. He would always intimidate them. The intimidating thing was a test, though. He would intimidate them and the one who was brave enough not to get scared was the one who would pass the test and be good enough for his sister.
She was the protected one, he was the protector. He loved his sister that much, even if he rarely shows it. Studmuffin. He was tough on the outside, but he was the kindest and sweetest person on the inside. He was the tough guy, the man of the house. Since he never knew his father, he learned to stick up for his mom and his sister at an early age. He had to be tough.
She was one of those girls who are shy when you first meet them, but as she gets to know you better, she loosens up and shows her true self. The outgoing, spontaneous and happy girl. She's willing to do anything and everything, except sex and drugs since she didn't want to get pregnant yet and she thinks drugs are stupid.
She tries to be as kind to people as possible, but she has a limit. Go over that limit and you're dead meat. Thankfully no one has crossed that limit yet. Except for one person. That person moved away.
He doesn't know it, but she protects him, too. She controls him. He has a terrible temper and he could easily beat someone up, but she usually prevents him from doing so. She and her mother are the only people who can control him or tell him what to do. They are the only two people in the world who can tell him to do something and he does that something without complaint.
They stick together like glue.
Maddie sat on her usual spot on the rectangular table. Their mother sat at the head, her brother on her mom's right and her on her mom's left, in front of her brother.
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
"Gus, I got a call from Principal Carver." Alex said after swallowing.
"Mom, call me Ghoul. Ever since I was ten, everyone stopped calling me Gus and started calling me Ghoul when this exchange student couldn't pronounce it properly and only said the first syllable." He said.
"I will call you Gus all I want. Principal Carver called me because you punched another student." Alex said in her strict voice. She picked that up from her dad. Al those years of hearing that voice actually paid off.
He did. The dude asked for it. He overheard the guy making a deal with his friend that if he could get Maddie to have sex with him by the end of the year, the friend would have to give him 200 dollars. When he heard that, he punched the guy. Thank God, Maddie was there, otherwise he could've really beaten up the guy. The guy has a black eye now.
He glanced at Maddie. They made eye contact. She silently told him not to say anything about it using her eyes.
"How long am I grounded?"
"One week."
"Okay."
They ate the rest of their meal in silence.
After dinner, Maddie decided to ask her mother about her father. Something, surprisingly, she has never done before.
"Mom?"
"Yes, darling?"
"Whose our dad?"
Alex stiffened at the question. Ghoul stared at his sister.
"I don't think you should know that." Alex said.
"Why?" Maddie was persistent. She got that from Alex.
"Because."
"Because what?"
"Just because, okay? I don't want to talk about it."
"Why not? I think we have a right to know."
"Not now."
"Why not?"
"You're not yet ready."
"I am!"
"No you are not!"
"I am! I want to know why he's not here with us, why you won't tell us and why I don't have a dad!"
"Don't push it, Madeleine!"
"I won't stop until you tell me the truth! You are being unselfish!"
"Unselfish?! I gave everything you ever wanted to you and you're telling me that I'm unselfish?"
"I want to know who my father is! I need to know! Please, Mom, please."
"This conversation is over." Alex said, standing up and heading to her room.
Maddie had tears in her eyes now.
She stood up after her mom and ran to the basement closet, where she always goes when she's really upset. It's a small room with lots of stuff that they don't throw out because it could still be usable but they don't use it or of it has sentimental value but it clutters the house.
She cried there for awhile before she heard a knock on the door.
"Maddie?" Ghoul asked from the other side of the door.
"I'll be fine." She said.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I just need a minute."
"I'll be upstairs if you want to talk about it."
"Okay."
He left.
She looked around and saw a box she's never opened before. It was the size of a shoebox. It was plain and it was sealed. It said Alex's stuff on the side. This might have the answer, she thought. She got one of the extra keys from when they hide it for emergencies and cut through the tape. She opened the box and stared at hundreds of pictures.
She got a handful and flipped through it.
It was mostly of her mom and her Aunt Mitchie.
One picture caught her eye. It was of a guy who looked exactly like her brother, but had her eyes.
There were more.
She separated the pictures into three. One pile was for the pictures of her mom and Aunt Mitchie, another one was for group pictures and the last was for the pictures of the guy with her mom.
He looked familiar. Very familiar.
And it's not because he looked like her brother.
She flipped through the second pile.
It was full of pictures of her mom and the guy with Aunt Mitchie, two guys and another girl. [a/n: she knows Shane, but she doesn't know what he looks like since he never visits them because of his schedule. Mitchie visits them whenever she can. She doesn't know Ella or Jason because Ella goes wherever Jason goes and Jason is with Connect 3 therefore he is very busy.]
She put down the second pile and got the third.
She flipped through it.
It was full of the guy and her mom, hugging, laughing, smiling, making faces etc…etc.
She got two pictures from the pile.
One was of three guys performing onstage.
The other was her mom and the guy and the picture had writing on the back.
Dear Lexy,
I love you forever and I will never leave you. Know that. We both know I'll be really busy with the band and stuff, but I will always have time for you.
I love you.
Nate.
Nate? The band?
She looked at the other picture and examined it closely. Someone wrote on the back.
It was her mom's handwriting.
Connect 3 performing on my sweet sixteen.
Connect 3? The band? No way. They were too famous for sweet sixteen. That was them when they were young? Whoa. They still make music now, but they've also done solo projects like duets, TV shows, movies and other stuff.
Shane, Jason and Nate…
Nate.
She looked at the picture of her mom and the guy again. She reread the letter. Nate.
That's why the guy looked familiar. Because he was the younger version of the Nate Gray now.
He looks like my brother.
Realization dawned on her.
She found the answer.
a/n: yeah…this chapter is like an introduction to the twins.
REVIEW if you want to read about this…
"Ghoul, I found out who dad is."
Or this…
She got her bag and quietly sneaked out of the house.
This…
"Aunt Mitchie!"
"Maddie?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Maddie!"
"Um, who are you?"
"Uncle Shane!"
this…
"You idiot. That's your freaking daughter."