Just Hold My Hand

12-The Room

The room was silent. Completely silent. The nurse had left at this point, looking the same as she had when she'd entered. I looked over at my brother. Still. No movement. He expression had gone back to its lifeless state that it had been in previously. I wondered why. My mom was sobbing over in her corner. Why didn't she come over to hug me, or at least try to comfort me? Liam was the only one close to me. He was sitting on the side of my bed, still squeezing my hand. I think we were all still in shock.

It could've only been minutes, but it felt like hours, days even, that we had just been in the same position. Like we had run out of power to function properly. Tears were flowing down my face now. Liam's too. But not a sound came out of us. The only real noise now was still mom crying. But even that was almost as soft as a whisper. I was scared. I had a brain tumor. Cancer. I had cancer. There wasn't anything anyone could do about it. 

Liam's POV

I was stunned. Completely. I don't think any of us had ever expected Madi to have cancer. It was insane. If I could do something, put her cancer somehow into myself, then I would. I cared about her so much. It hurt to just hear her mom announce what she had. Why she had been feeling so nauseous and under the weather. But I couldn't quite understand why her brother had no expression. Why he was blank-faced and seemed as if he didn't care that his sister had cancer. It made no sense. He'd come all this way, tackled her and talked to her and acted as if he cared, but then just doesn't have a reaction when we all find out that Madi has cancer.

I watched the clock tick back and forth. I watched for two whole hours. It felt like an eternity. But it also felt like just a few seconds. It's insane what time can feel like in any given situation. Her mom eventually sat down in one of the nearby chairs, tears still streaming down her face. But not a sound came out of her. Her brother still stood up against the wall. With a blank face. I was beginning to wonder if he had passed out or fallen asleep. I was sitting on Madi's bed, holding her hand. But she had fallen asleep. I guess she was pretty tired after the past few days' events.

A different nurse came into the room and began talking about different approaches we could take on how to treat Madi's cancer. I wasn't paying any attention. I was still watching the clock tick the minutes away. I couldn't help but think that there were only going to be a few more of these minutes that I'd have with her. 

When the nurse finally left, I looked at her mom. She sighed. I could tell she was trying to be strong. She told us what was going to happen. Madi would take chemotherapy every other day for some amount of time, and then eventually she'd do radiation therapy every weekend for six weeks. Then they'd check up on her. 

Madi had been awake for this part, I could tell there was fear in her eyes, but she seemed to want to do everything she could to fight the cancer. 

"WHAT DOES IT EVEN MATTER!? SHE'S GOING TO DIE ANYWAY!!" It was so sudden it made all of us jump. Here he was, not saying anything. Then all at once he just bursts and says that?? 

I watched as Logan stormed out of the room. Madi was clutching my hand, then she began to cry. I hugged her tightly and stroked her hair. That seemed to calm her down a little. But her mother was going crazy. She ran out of the room and began yelling at Logan. He started yelling back. I guess standing there for more than two hours really built up a lot of emotions inside of him.

Madi began to cry even harder until her mom came back and hugged her head. I had let go. She kept apologizing to her over and over again. But I knew that that wasn't what had upset her. It was the fact that her brother. Who had came to surprise her. Had just said that it was no use fighting because she was just going to die. He had no faith that she could survive this. None. That's what got me so mad. Madi had always told me he had always believed in her and always cared for her, but I guess even she had been fooled.

There was something strange going on. Not just with her brother. Her mother too. She had been acting so weird all of a sudden. I knew her and Logan's relationship wasn't the best, but I felt like it was going beyond that. I knew that for Madi's sake, I had to find out just what that was. Since I was living with them, I hoped that it wouldn't be that difficult. Unless I got caught.

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Hey y'all, sorry this is a bit of a shorter chapter, and I didn't post a chapter for a while. But I will be posting more this week for sure. This was mainly just so you could get to know Liam a bit more, and just to set everything up for the upcoming chapters. I really love writing this book, but it's just hard to find time to write a chapter here and there, especially with school.

I love y'all very much, happy holidays!

-Purple