Remember When ↠ l.p.

An incident

"Hi, hi I'm uh Isabella Sandoval? You called me because of what happened with Liam Payne?" Upon reaching the rehab center I rushed straight to the front desk. "I was wondering where he was being held or if he had been taken to a hospital, I mean I didn't know what you did for situations like this..." I trail off and take a deep breath. I'm out of air either from talking too much too quickly or from running inside so quickly. 

The lady behind the counter smiles and reaches out to take my head. "You might want to take a moment to breath honey, relax. Mr. Payne is fine and in recovery. We have a medical center here, since the majority of our patients here are struggling with addictions. Our medical ward is actually in this main building. So let me pull up his room number and I'll tell you how to get there." Her voice is calm and reassuring. I feel some of my former panic beginning to fade away.

"Oh that's great, thank you!" I exhale and sag against the counter. I was so worried the whole drive over. I think I even ran a red light, but the way here was a blur. I place a hand to my chest and breath deeply until I can breath normally again. "Thanks, again." I reiterate to her as she turns the screen of her computer to show me where to go, from the map she's pulled up. 

"This is where you want to go," she demonstrates by tracing her finger along the screen. "If you take this hallway right here and then take a right you'll find the entrance to the recovery wing. His room number is 357 and once you've entered the recovery wing you'll veer to the left and his room should be along that hallway." She smiles back at me pleasantly and I thank her. I gather my purse and keys, which I didn't even bother putting away in my desperation to get here and have news about Liam, and follow the hallway she's pointed me down.

The walk isn't long and I find myself outside his room within five minutes. I take a deep breath, "She said he was fine and recovering," I try to reassure myself. "he's going to be okay." I push the doors open and step inside quietly. There's Liam in a standard hospital bed, his chest rising and falling steadily. I walk slowly to his side and rest my hand on his arm. I feel my eyes well up with tears. I hate hospitals because I think they feel like they are full of nothing but death and sickness. I hate how small Liam looks in this bed, his soft brown hair that's been growing longer and longer falling limply on his pillow. For all of his muscles and abnormally large and strong shoulders he looks so tiny and helpless in this bed. 

I find a chair pushed against the wall and pick it up and carry it to his bedside, not wanting to risk dragging it across the floor for fear of waking him up. Then I take my place by his side again and lift up his right hand to hold in mine. "What happened to you?" I whisper, thinking I was alone in the room.

"Well we think we were making too much progress, too quickly. But we won't really know until he wakes up." I hear a man sigh behind me and turn in my seat to find a man sitting behind the door, which I've left halfway open, towards the foot of Liam's bed. He's wearing a doctor's coat and holds a clipboard with a file of papers open on top of it. He closes the file, I can just barely make out Liam's name on the side, and stands up. He straightens his coat and advances towards me. He puts his hand forward for me to shake and introduces himself. "I'm Liam's new doctor, Dr. Madison. You're the one that was on his emergency call list right? Isabella Sandoval, is that correct?" He smiles cooly, like he already knows the answer to this. He doesn't seem unfriendly but...

"Yes, that is me." I shake his and then brush at my eyes a little self consciously. "I didn't know you were there, sorry." I clear my throat and push back the chair to stand next to him. "I haven't met you before, when did you get appointed as Liam's doctor?"

"I was appointed this morning actually, after Liam's incident I was called in to treat him and consult with his regular doctors. I can brief you on his condition now or you can wait for them, but I have to warn you that they won't be in for a little while, they're having their lunch break right now." He holds his clipboard in front of him, flipping through the papers held there as he appraises me with a loaded look. "What do you think?"

I ignore his slight rudeness and focus ons Liam's face, blocking out Dr. Madison. Something about him doesn't rub me the right way. At this moment however, he holds all of the answers. "I would like to know now, I can't wait." A thought strikes me just as I finish my sentence. "Wait, what do you mean by you won't know until he wakes up? I thought that he was just asleep! Hasn't he been awake before? Is he not waking up? Can't you scan him or something and figure out what's wrong with him?" My voice rises with each question as I begin to panic again, no longer caring about how quiet I should be. 

"No, he hasn't woken up since he was found. We have scanned him and checked him out, doing everything in our power to try to diagnose what he's going through right now and why he hasn't woken up. We also wouldn't know anything of his condition directly prior to being found, he didn't leave a note." He watches me without his face changing a single bit, but I somehow know that he's enjoying this, slightly.

"You mean...?" My heart drops to an enormous depths and I whip back to look at Liam in the bed, seeing him with a new sight. 

"Yes Mrs. Sandoval, it was an attempted suicide. Like I said, we might have been moving too quickly with our treatments." He sighs and shakes his head as if it's not a big deal at all. "We've made note of it now, however. So no need to worry."