Just Hold My Hand

10-What a Surprise

When I woke up the next morning I felt all better. Nothing hurt, my stomach felt fine, it was as if I had just instantly healed. It was odd. But I thought maybe yesterday I had a migraine, it certainly felt like one. So there's a possibility. That's the only reason I could think of anyway. Unless something was seriously wrong with me. But I had had my checkup a month ago and everything looked good. So a migraine is all it was. Just a simple migraine that hurt way more than the last one. Unless I wasn't thinking clearly, or couldn't remember fully the last one I had had. Since I only had one before. 

I went into my brother's room where Liam was sleeping to wake him up. He looks so delicate and happy when he's fast asleep. Super adorable. It's so hard to wake him up when he feels like that, so I just let him be. Besides, he was doing everything for me yesterday and the night before because of how sick I felt. The least I could do for him was let him sleep. Ugh. I couldn't wait until we could get back together. But I had promised them... even if we didn't have to worry, I hated breaking promises. No matter who they were too. It always made me feel guilty. Who knows why.

My mom was scrambling eggs and making toast when I went downstairs into the kitchen. She smiled when she saw me.

"How are you this morning, sweetie?" I could tell she was trying to sound upbeat, even though I could tell she was tired. Even so, it made me feel a little better inside.

"Actually really good, it's like I was just magically made better." She smiled again, clearly glad to hear the good news. I mean, she wasn't the best with puke anyway, so cleaning up my messes wasn't her favorite job. 

"Liam's still sleeping, he looked really comfortable so I just let him sleep a little longer."

"That's nice, but you had better wake him up before breakfast gets cold." Yeah, she was definitely tired. But there was something else. She wasn't exactly being herself. She was being more like a mom. Not that she wasn't like a mom before, but it seemed like she was acting more like one of those overprotective moms. At least in some way. Not that there's anything wrong with being an overprotective mother, but mine was never like that. She was protective, but not overly.

"Okay." I sighed. Even if I didn't want to wake him up, I probably should. 

As I trudged upstairs, I listened as some of them squeaked as I stepped on him. It made me think about when we first moved in, how new the house had seemed. How homy it was. Because there was a father, a mother, a brother, and sister. A complete family. Now the brother is off to college, the father left, and it's just the mother and the sister, along with the sisters would be boyfriend if she didn't fear for her life.

When I got to my brother's room and peeped in, Liam wasn't in his bed. I looked around frantically. Did he pass me on the stairs while I was thinking and didn't say anything? No. He would've said at least good morning and asked how I was doing. Could he have gotten kidnapped? That was the only possibility. Unless he was... just as I was thinking about it, someone jumped out from behind me and wrapped me in a blanket and tossed me onto the bed and jumped in right next to me.

Hiding. He had been hiding. Trying to scare me somehow. 

But when I looked at his face, it wasn't Liam at all. 

"L-logan!?" I couldn't believe it. How could I? I hadn't seen him in what felt like decades. He had refused to come home for any holiday he may have, because he didn't want to be a part of the divorce, or even be in the house after it.

"Hey, you miss Madi." His smile was so big. Oh, how I missed that smile. 

"How did you even get in here??" That was my most pounding question.

"I had a little help." He smirked, and I looked up and saw Liam standing in the doorway with the stupidest grin on his face.

"You didn't-" 

"Climb through your window? Yes, yes we did. That very handy you know, so if you're at some party you can just climb right through your window, or right out to sneak off to one!" 

"You're impossible. But, why are you here?" Another pending question.

"Well, don't you have a lot of questions." I just smiled, looking at him. Waiting for the answer that I knew he'd give. He just couldn't help it.

"Liam reached me apparently after trying a million different numbers, just to find mine. He told me about your kidnapping, and everything..." Wow.

"I thought he should know," Liam said. I nodded, thinking the same thing. He WAS my older, kinda protective older brother. Of course, he should know.

"Then when I heard you weren't feeling well, I knew that I shouldn't hold out my feelings for mom and dad and extend them to you. I have no reason to hate you, so here I am." That may have been the most touching thing he had ever said.

"One more thing," Uh oh...

"This Liam guy, he's a total keeper. I mean, if he was trying to reach me that badly, then he must've known how much it must've meant to you." I smiled up at Liam, I was so happy my brother approved. That was the one thing I was worried about. I didn't care if my parents approved of Liam or not, I was glad my mom did, but I was most worried about my brother. Knowing he accepted him was really something. He hadn't really thought great things about any of my previous boyfriends. Especially Blake, but I guess he was right about him.

"I missed you, Logan." He smiled again. I hoped I was going to see a lot more of that smile. I missed it. 

"Well, I suppose we should be heading down for breakfast before your mom gets mad at you," Liam said reasonably. That makes sense. I hoped Logan wouldn't make things too difficult for our mom, but we'll see.

"Yeah, sure. Let's go." Logan said, a little disappointed that we had to leave this moment. But he understood.

As we walked down I ignored the squeaking stairs. I didn't care about our broken family. I just cared that my brother was willing to at least come to see me once this year. Even if he never came back. The plates were all nicely set up when we got to the kitchen, my mom was standing, wiping some crumbs off the counter. Probably from the toast. 

"Hey... mom." It took a lot for Logan to say mom, but he didn't want to call her by her first name, because that would have probably created a lot more tension to the tension that was already there. 

"Hello, Logan." She didn't seem surprised at all. Did she know he was coming? Was that why she was acting so strange this morning, why she wanted me to go wake Liam up?

"Let's eat!" I said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

"Sounds good to me." I knew from then on that Liam would be trying to help me bring some cheerfulness into our home. No matter what, this was our home. There wasn't anything any of them could do to change that. 

There's a quote I know:

"It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home."

Breakfast was probably the most awkward thing in the whole world. It was basically Liam and me, and occasionally Logan to answer some of our questions. But for the most part, it was Liam and I just having our own conversation while mom and Logan were just sitting there eating.

But hey, I'm not complaining. It was good to have my brother back. I didn't know how long he was going to be here, and I knew he wasn't going to talk that much while mom was around, but I knew that even if Liam was in the room, we would have some pretty decent conversations. 

----------------------------------------

Hey loves, I'm actually planning to come back and start writing this unfinished book/story again! Because of school and things, I'm going to be hoping to put out 1-2 chapters every weekend, and possibly, if homework isn't too bad, maybe 1 chapter during the week. I have about 5 weeks of school until winter break, which is 2 weeks long. But for that vacation, I will hopefully be putting out a minimum of 3-4 chapters a week. 

That's all! 

-Purple