Savanah Garcia
She thought she was a Garcia
She was only just 9 years old when everyone forgot about her.
She's been bullied, gone through a heartache, been kidnaped, has a best friend dealing with cancer, her family has turn their backs on her, wh...
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| Savannah Rodriguez |
Sitting slumped in uncomfortable waiting room chair, I had watched a lot of things unfold in my dozing state. My mother had come down the hallway, screaming and yelling that my brother wasn't getting the help that he needed, before my father dragged her away, and coming back in by himself, after smoking a cigarette. Neither one had looked at me when they had come and gone from the hospital.
I had no idea what had happened to Benjamin, as I had left him the car. I was sure that he had forgotten about me and where I had gone, and that didn't bother me in the slightest. It was better this way anyways. This was just how our family functioned, and there was no way of changing it. It was like the hierarchical classes of the olden days, to be honest.
"Here" a hand was suddenly in front of me, as I hadn't even noticed that someone had placed their body beside my own, causing me to flinch and lean away from this unknown person. I was sure that I would know this person, but in my hazy state, I wasn't so sure. "It's me just, Sav. It's me Elliot"
I turned, suddenly brightening at the boy that had sat beside me, whom I hadn't seen in years. As bad as it sounded, I had almost forgotten about him too, and I was so sure that he had forgotten about me after so long of not seeing one another. Placing the cup that he was holding out to me to the side, I basically jumped into his arms, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck, holding him as close as possible, as I blinked away the tears and was brought back to the year I spent in and out of here, by the scent that hung to him like his own.
"A little birdie told me that I would find you down here" I smiled at the thought of that, as his larger body brought me more peace than I would ever know. "I missed you, you know?" he continued to talk, and I just nodded my head along, as I just sat there, enjoying the moment that we were sharing with one another.
"Come with me on my walk?" I knew what his walk meant, so I stood up, grabbing his hand in my own, as we wandered off, back through the hallways that I had once known like the back of my hand, but had started to fade as new memories had taken place.
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When I had first been born, there was concern with me being underweight and other issues with the blood that was pumping through my body. I had been fine till I was about 6 years old, and I had started complaining about pains in my chest. There were the days when everything had seemed fine. Liam had just been born at the time, so there was not as many children to worry about, so I wasn't so lost in the litter of siblings.
That was until I started to have issues. I was taken to the hospital and I had found myself on this floor, where the bedrooms of the children's lives were forced to stay. I knew that the boy that was still holding my hand, had a room that was in here, and he very rarely got to leave this place, unlike the people like me that get to have one or two surgeries and get to live life like the rest of the world, or somewhat like it.
Taking a pause in our walk, the same ones that we had taken whenever I had the chance to visit him. I stood at the window, where I had been told was the start of it all. This was where I had been monitored for the first few months of my life, because I wasn't well enough to go home like most children, only to end back up here a few times each year until I was about 6 years old.
I had met Elliot along the way, when I was about 3, and he would have been about 4 or 5 when I met him. He had been the sweetest boy, as due to staying here so long, I had been forced into some of the activities that some of the long-term patients had to take, which meant the basics to life, like how to count, read and write.
Elliot had been here longer than I had, so when he had 'set his eyes on me' when I first walked in, he would always tell me how he had wanted to make sure that I was welcome and would always had someone to see whenever I had to come back. I found it harder, coming back each time, because there was always a a goodbye that had to happen, and I would never know if it would be the last.
Elliot Hayward had been born with Leukemia and had been a long-term patient since the day he was born. He had an older brother, who I knew was living his best life, while their father had passed a few years after Elliot had been born, meaning it was just his mother looking after two separate kids.
I knew that Elliot had never had a good connection with either of his parents, and neither had I and still don't. Hence why I let him drag me away from the window that I had been staring at with him at my side, and down into the room that was all too familiar with me. This had been where people knew was our safe place.
Elliot's room had always been where people had found me, and it wasn't in a weird way. There was just something about this room, that brought me more comfort than the one that I had never been here long enough to decorate or be my own like Elliot's. Elliot's just had this sense about it that was a teenage boys room but much cleaner.
Turning my head around the room, it had changed since I had last been in here, which was when I was about 8 years old meaning that Elliot would have been about 10 or 11 at the time. Time had really caused a change between the two of us, because we were awkward. Or at least I was the one that was awkward. Elliot sat down comfortably on his bed, while I just wandered around the room that I had once called my second home.
He just let me see everything that had changed. I noticed the swimming posters and medals, even some of the soccer championships that he must have been too, warming my heart at the fact that he had had been given some form of chance of having a normal life. I even noticed the academic medals that he had hung up, before I was turning back to the other side of the room that held all the good memories.
The medals were behind his bed, while the photo wall was right in front of it, and the last time I was here, it wasn't half as full as what it was now. At the time, it had been about half full, but now, at least majority of it was full, and some of it was encroaching on the rest of the wall. Taking a closer look, I noticed that I was in about half of the photos, warming my heart at the sight.
The fact that I was still a major part of his life was something that I thought would ever happen to someone like me. "Movie time?" his voice brought me to the boy that had placed a hoodie over his wiry frame and motioned for me to climb in with him. So I did, as I laid my head on his chest, just like old times, as Disney movies flashed across the screen, brining back the nostalgia that I never knew that I needed.
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