𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞 ★ leah williamson

14 - consequences

I was sitting in the Eurostar, somewhere between Cologne and Bremen, a little later, phone in my hand and earbuds in my ears. I'd said goodbye to Leah hours ago this morning, after she had once again fulfilled the promise of driving me to the station the way she had driven me to the airport the last time. We'd won one more game since my concussion, through two of my goals and a beauty by Katie, and my spirits had been high for the international break as well. But now I was sitting here and Marik wasn't answering my phone and I was pissed. Magnus was contently purring in his little carrier box, although he usually hated it more than anything. He hated trains too, but I had figured he would hate the United States (or rather, traveling there) even more, so I was loading him off in Hamburg before I boarded another plane to travel overseas.

"Hey", Marik's voice finally came to my ears as his face manifested onto my screen. His expression was blank.

"Finally, why haven't you been answering?", I asked, slightly angry with my brother. I had been calling him for hours and he had not once bothered to answer the call or return it. I felt as though he avoided me on purpose, mostly because there was no way he wasn't on his phone on a Saturday afternoon.

"Didn't have the time. Why are you calling again?", he asked blankly, and I just stared at him. I was used to him not caring, but I wasn't used to his attitude.

"My train is half an hour late. Can you tell the parents to pick me up please?", I sighed, starting to grow frustrated with my brother. I hadn't done anything to upset him, as far as I knew, so I didn't understand why he would let his bad mood out on me.

"They're out. You're gonna have to take the bus", Marik grinned, and I swore to God if you could punch someone through the screen, I would've, without hesitating.

"What do you mean 'out'? Where are they?"

"I don't know. They're out. The bus takes like five minutes, Ellie", Marik shrugged as I looked at him with my mouth open and my brows furrowed.

"Marik, I'm not going to take the bus. Call them", I instructed, but my brother shook his head, claiming that if they didn't answer me, they wouldn't answer him either. I wasn't so sure about that, but when I felt numerous pairs of eyes on me as I yelled through the train in angry German, I hung up on him, huffing. The first reunion of ours in three months would be great.

By the time I finally carried Magnus' box into my childhood home, my mood had settled, despite walking through Hamburg for close to thirty minutes, and so had Marik's. He stuck his fist out to me once I put down my luggage, expecting me to bump it, but I pushed it away quickly, pulling my brother into a hug before he could push me off. He didn't resist as much as he used to, only groaning once or twice and sighing when I finally let go of him.

"Coffee?", he offered, and so we drank coffee and I let him update me on school and what his friends were up to, most of the stories being of drunken incidents and making me seriously question whether they put my brother in danger.

My parents came home around an hour later, apparently having gotten distracted during their Christmas shopping (I didn't mention the fact that Christmas was still more than a month away) and engulfing in our conversation quickly, although my father was paying more attention to the TV, showing the Premier League game of Arsenal against Liverpool.

"You guys are what, second in the table? Figure you'll win the league?", Papa questioned me as I dropped next to him, eyes fixated on the screen in a similar manner. I shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe."

There was still a lot of time to go, we hadn't even played half a season and I knew that Chelsea surely wasn't going to let us take what they thought to be their trophy easily.