Liam and I by Elaina H (100 best novels of all time .txt) 📕

PART ONE- THE PAST

Chapter One

I will never forget the day I met Liam.

It was July 4th, and Mom and Dad had decided we were for sure going to the block party that year, even though I promised them I was sick. Jack, my younger brother, wasn’t feeling well either.

Of course, Mom knew both of us too well, and told us we could be sick when we got back from the block party. Until then, we had to be perfectly healthy.

I remember very clearly Mom shouting up at me from the first floor that very morning, “Isabel, if you don’t wake up and eat your breakfast right now I am not going to be happy!”

“Uh! Gee, Mom. I told you I was coming five minutes ago!” my seven-year-old-self complained.

She laughed, “Then why aren’t you down here?”

I grumbled as I headed down the steps, still angry I had given myself up like that. I knew better.

Twenty minutes later, the four of us were ready to go. Mom had made apple pies and had each one of us carry one.

Each house on our street was up kept and clean. Not a single blade of grass was too long or too yellow, and every window was sparkling.

The cars that weren’t parked in driveways and garages were visitors because nobody dared leave their car out on the street.

The faultless way of our neighborhood wasn’t anything new, I’d noticed it all my life. But something about it made be notice it then, and I was not sure what.

It wasn’t the pristine garden Mrs. Clements had in her front lawn or Mr. Bruno’s collection of birdhouses or even Mr. Douglas’ amazing play set he put in for all his grandchildren the previous year.

Halfway down the street, almost directly across from the one, small, empty lot on our block, the crowd of people became thicker and Jack, who was five at the time, was lagging behind.

Dad shouted at Jack to keep up, and little Jack started running forward towards us.

It was almost like it happened in slow motion. I noticed Jack’s shoelace dragging behind him right before his little self went flying through the air. I shouted out as he fell hard on the ground.

The apple pie was smeared across the concrete, but not one of us noticed it. Jack’s arm was twisted around, and we could all clearly see the bone poking at his skin from beneath, almost breaking through.

Mom shouted at me to move back as Dad lifted crying Jack from the sidewalk. Everyone on the block stared at us, and I make eye contact with no one.

To be honest, I was embarrassed my little brother had merely tripped and then broken his arm.

The four of us left the people and the pie behind, and immediately drove the twenty minute drive to the hospital.

Jack cried the whole way, telling all of us how much his arm hurt. Dad and Mom tried to calm him down, but he whined relentlessly.

I stared out the window.

Jack’s cries eventually subsided, and I watched the bright, summer green landscape pass by. Every once in a while, a burst of color would pop up in my vision: red, white, blue, yellow.

When I felt the car slow down, I pulled my eyes away from the window, and stared at Jack’s tear stained face.

He sniffled and turned to me, and at that moment I felt guilty for being embarrassed by him and for ignoring him the entire car ride.

Before I could reach out and take his good hand (his right one), Mom and Dad flung open my and Jack’s doors. They pulled us both out of our car seats and quickly brought us in the emergency room.

I remember the emergency room being scary.

Ambulances rushed across the pavement and sent chills down my spine. My mom carried me while my dad carried Jack.

The nurse at the counter watched us with her creepy blue eyes and nodded her head at ever word Dad said. “Okay,” she finally said. “Go ahead over to that open bed and set him down. It’ll be just a few minutes before someone can get to him.”

We waited by Jack’s side for two hours before any of us said something about the wait. It was my mother. “Excuse me!” she shouted at the nurse who had walked past us for the third time. “Where is someone who can get him a cast?! This is a hospital!”

The nurse smiled sickeningly sweet at Mom, “I’m sorry, ma’am. We are trying our best to get things going around here. All our doctors are real busy helping people who were in a car accident about half and hour ago.”

My mom’s eyes narrowed, “What about the hour and half before that?” She stuck her hands on her hips, “I suggest you find somebody to come and give my kid a freaking cast before I cause you a whole bunch of problems!”

Dad leaned forward and placed a calming hand on Mom’s shoulder, but she just shrugged him off. “Right away, ma’am. I’m on it. While you wait you can go to the cafeteria and get some coffee.”

Before my mom could go off on her again, the nurse walked away.

“She wants to offer us food and drink while my son is here balling his eyes out because he is in extreme pain! I don’t think so! We are definitely going to do…”

I yanked on my mother’s sleeve, “Mommy? I’m hungry.”

Mom laughed and picked me up. “Oh sweetheart, I’m sorry. I should have thought you’d be hungry by now.”

I was seven and definitely too big to be held, but my mom was tired and needed someone to squeeze because she was scared for my brother.

She set me down after a moment, and looked at Dad, “Can you take her to the cafeteria? I don’t think I can leave Jack, honey.”

Dad nodded, he’d always given Mom just what she wanted when we were little. “Let’s go, Izzy.”

I grabbed Dad’s hand and he led me to the cafeteria for a snack.

He bought me a blueberry muffin, milk, and a box of Sour Patch Kids since he knew they were my favorite.

I picked a table by the window and instantly took a bite of my muffin. Dad sat down next to me with a coffee, and absent mindedly stared out the window into the hospital courtyard.

I was silently eating my muffin when a little boy sat across from me and smiled. “Hi.” He said and gazed at me until I felt uncomfortable.

“Hi?” I finally said.

Dad looked at both of us and smiled, “Hi, kiddo.”

“What’s your name?”

I squinted at him. “Well, you’re the one who came up to me, so ain’t I supposed to ask you that.”

“Ain’t isn’t a word, Izzy,” Dad reminded me. He was an English teacher at the junior high.

“I guess so,” he said. “I’m Liam. Now, what’s your name?”

I stuck out my hand like I’d seen Mom and Dad do when they met new people, “I’m Izzy.”

He laughed and I frowned, “That’s a funny name!”

I gaped, “Dad! He’s being mean to me!”

Dad sighed, “I’m sure Liam didn’t mean to be mean, Isabel.”

Liam nodded his head vigorously, “Isabel’s not weird. I like that.”

The three of us just sat there silently for a moment, and didn’t say much at all. Liam finally stood up, “Well, Isabel, it was real nice to meet you, and you too Isabel’s dad.”

My dad chuckled and waved as Liam left the cafeteria. When he rounded the corner and was gone, I looked at my Dad. “He was kind of funny.”

“He was nice, it’s a shame such a young kid has to be in the hospital,” Dad downed the rest of his coffee, and we headed back toward Mom and Jack.

“I’m sure he’ll be going home soon, Dad, just like Jack!” Dad smiled sadly, and gripped my hand as we approached Mom, Jack, and the doctor.

Chapter Two

Three weeks later after the incident, we went to the hospital again to get Jack’s arm checked out. He wasn’t getting the cast off yet, but for whatever reason the doctor said he wanted to see him.

It sounded funny to me, but I went anyways since it was raining, and what was I supposed to do in the rain?

Dad didn’t come this time; it was just Mom, Jack, and I. We waited in the waiting room until our appointment time, 3:45.

I looked through the magazines on the table. I picked up a Sport’s Illustrated magazine and squealed at the half-naked lady on the fourth page. My mom ripped it out of my hands, “It’s just a swimming suit, Izzy, a swimming suit you will never wear,” she assured me.

Our name was finally called and the nurse said I should stay in the waiting room. “You think I’m going to leave my seven year old daughter by herself in a hospital waiting room? You must be related to the nurse I talked to last time!” the young nurse didn’t understand the last comment, but she pointed to the bed my brother was going to be in.

“You can see her from there. You’ll only be twenty feet away,” the nurse reasoned. “The space isn’t big enough for you, your son, your daughter, me, and the doctor.”
“Well, I think you ought to build bigger rooms! How about that fancy idea,” she mumbled. “Alright, Izzy, I need you to stay right here where I can see you, okay? No more magazines because I’m not sure what kind of pictures that got in them. I’ll only be a couple minutes with your brother, then we’ll be going home.”

I nodded, “Okay, Mommy.”

“Good girl,” she kissed my head, and herded Jack toward the awaiting bed.

I sat in my chair swinging my legs back and forth. No one paid much attention to me, I heard Mom every once in a while argue with the doctor about this and that, but none of what she said mattered to me.

I picked up the pen off the table next to me and slowly sounded out the words on the side of it. “Dallas Hospital.”

Once I got board sounding out all the words, I set the pen back where it was, and wandered around the waiting room.

I jump when someone poked me on the arm. “Hiya!”

I turned and stared at the short kid next me. “Who are you?”

“God Almighty, Isabel! We must’ve talked for a good five minutes!” the boy seemed surprised that I didn’t remember him.

I stuck my hands on my hips like I’d seen Mom do, “I don’t talk to strangers!”

“Gee, we ain’t strangers. I’m Liam, remember. We met over there in the cafeteria. You were with your dad eating a blueberry muffin.”

Suddenly, it dawned on me then who I was talking to. I removed my hands from my hips. “Oh, Liam. I know you!” I got excited that I new somebody at the hospital and smiled wide at him.

“Good! Want to come explore with me?” Liam pointed out the doors of the waiting room and into the hospital.

“I don’t know, Liam. That sounds like a bad idea,” I looked over my shoulder at Mom who was still talking to the doctor about Jack.

“Please! I don’t get many visitors!” he begged.

I finally gave in, “Alright, I’ll go, but I got to get back quick, okay!”

“Promise!” Liam grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the waiting room through the swinging double doors.

“Why you wanderin’ around the hospital like this? Don’t they care where you go?” I asked.

Liam shrugged, “I been here a while, they pretty much trust me to hang around my room and the kid center,” he wrinkled his nose when he said ‘kid center’.

“That don’t sound too bad,” I said innocently, not knowing the truth about anything

“Guess not,” he said distracted. “Let’s go to the courtyard!”

I looked through the large window overlooking the courtyard,