Remember When ↠ l.p.

Watching you in your "sleep"

I sit there with my phone held to my ear for a minute or two, waiting as I all can hear is it ringing and ringing. She must be using the phone and doesn't notice my call beeping in or is too busy with her current call. I hang up in the end, I little glad that I can postpone what will surely be a tearful chat. Karen is a very sweet lady, the several times that I've talked to her to give her updates about Liam or when I've needed to ask her a question about a certain treatment route the doctors wanted to take, she was always so polite and lovely. That given, she will cry on a dime. She'll sad cry, happy cry and cry for nearly no reason. While I wouldn't really say that I've become friends with her I would say that we've grown close. We sad cried together once, and after that I knew that she could make me cry, given that I was vulnerable to it at the time. 

I make sure that my ringer volume is turned up to a medium level and set my phone on the bed next to Liam. I kick off my shoes and curl my legs up underneath me and settle in to watch him. The thing about his face is that at first glance, it looks average. Nothing overly large and yes, his eyebrows can be a little bushy, but for the most part you wouldn't look at it and say it's an interestingly odd face. It's a handsome one, of course. But not one that you wouldn't see often or in passing in a street or store. However I've watched his face before, discovered it in great detail and searched it over and over. Just, before I hadn't searched it this deeply. 

You see, I have free rein to stare for as long as I want without the fear of being caught of being thought odd if I am caught. He almost doesn't look like himself when he's like this, his head turned slightly to the side and his hair messy. His eyes closed and the dim lights in the room making him look pallid. While there may be just a little something off about his face, making it look unfamiliar, it's still Liam. He has the large freckle on the side of his neck, it's often hidden by some form of a beard nowadays, he must have shaved recently because it's still visible right now. There are his full eyelashes covering what I know to be beautiful, twinkling brown eyes. There's the way his hair falls atop his forehead. The way his nose reminds me of his father's but still suits his face as if it's his and only his. 

I smooth the sheets by his sides, wanting desperately to fix his hair but feeling like it would cross a line. In the back of my head there's a little voice reminding me of my confession from last night. It tells me that things are different now and an action I might have written off before isn't exactly as harmless now. Nor as platonic as it might have appeared in the past. Ever since last night I've been asking myself, my heart, and my emotions why they had to make things more complicated than they already were. They say you can't help who and when you fall in love.

Logically, I guess that I could just hide these feelings and ignore them. After all, admitting it to Liam as he was the last time that I saw him...well let's just say you could say it would be the same as handing him a handful of specifically painful grenades with my name on them. Even if it were the old Liam, I don't know if I would want to bring it up. Wouldn't it almost assuredly make things worse? I don't want to wreck any more of his life. I feel like with us both dancing around my feelings and trying to work them out and me having to try and explain them would be far too much effort. Much better to keep them to myself and hope they fade away. I've almost completely decided on it.

My phone rings suddenly, as I'm lost in my thoughts and staring at Liam. I check the screen and smile a little. "Hi Mrs. Karen, I heard they called you too?" I ask gently, unsure of how teary she might still be. With good reason of course, I don't blame her whatsoever. "I'm so sorry..."

"It wasn't your fault, stop apologizing!" She sniffles a little before speaking again. "They did call me. Is it true Izzy?" She's taken to picking up Tessie's nickname for me from long phone calls with her granddaughter. To be fair, Tessie only calls me Izzy half of the time now, but I think she somehow senses that calling my mom to her grandmother might not be the best idea. "Are you with Liam there now?" She asks shakily.

"Yes, I'm sitting right next to him. I'll send you a picture if you really want to see him, he looks fine just pale and small in the hospital bed. It's unnerving. Let me tell you what I've heard so far," I settle in for what will be a long and tearful chat. I know it'll be worth it though, heck if Cailyn was in this position and someone else was with her I would want pictures and every detail I could grasp onto, especially if I couldn't be with my child.