Rewind
The ride to the hospital was quiet- to say the least. Since I was all alone for the past four hours without my air pods and no games on my phone, I resorted to attempting to come up with a decent conversation with the driver every now and then which, I have to admit, was a complete failure.As the driver was an old man –in the middle of his seventies- all the attempted conversations would end up with him rambling on how spoiled and disrupted our generation is to which I would remain awkwardly silent as I failed to come up with a reply.
It was 7 pm by now. A few hours ago, the rain has stopped, and the sky was now a darker shade of blue that it almost looked black. Tonight was a full moon, and the sky looked so beautiful with all the bright stars decorating it that my eyes were captivated by them- unwilling to look away.
The sign ROYAL LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL can be easily seen by a person standing a thousand miles away. The hospital looked like one built for royals- literally- that even though it was only a hospital, I kind of felt out of place.
Crowds of people were heading in, while some others were heading out. An old man with grey hair, who seemed like he could barely stand, was pushing his wife on a wheel chair out of the hospital which made my heart melt at the sight.
If this isn’t true love, then I don’t know what is.
I even overheard a conversation that was held by a teenage girl, with blond hair and ocean eyes, who was standing a few feet away from me as she spoke on the phone. At first I couldn’t understand why her chest was heaving in and out so heavily and why her eyes were puffy from the tears staining her cheeks but when I caught on to what she said, it felt like someone snatched my heart out of its place.
“The results came out; she has cancer.”
I felt like running over to her in order to offer her the biggest hug I could ever muster but other than the fact that I’m a total stranger, it would’ve felt like an invasion of privacy since I had no right to hear what she had to say in the first place.
After eyeing the poor girl, who was completely unaware of my sympathetic looks, one last time, I made my way slowly into the hospital. The hospital was completely another thing from inside with all the walls covered in bright white and the floor made of hard concrete. My searching eyes came to a stop at the sight of the brunette receptionist, and my feet started moving before I could even blink.
“Good evening, ma’am. How can I help you?” The woman says in such an annoying monotone.
At least she changed the word ‘evening’ to ‘morning’ to ‘afternoon’ to ‘night’ as the day passed, right?
I offer her an understanding smile. “Hi, I just wanted to know if you keep the files of patients who come by ever since you first opened the hospital.”
“Why?” She furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “Well yes, we do keep every single file of every patient we take into the hospital, but I have to warn you: if you’re here in order to look into a file of one of our patients, you can’t; those files are private, and no one has the rights to look into them except the doctors, the patients and the detectives.”
A tinge of disappointment pumps through my veins at the thought that I’ve been stuck in a cab for four hours with a judgmental driver all for nothing, but I won’t give up so easily.
“Well, can I at least ask someone for general details? I just want to know what happened to my friend like the timing she was admitted into the hospital and when exactly she passed away- please!”
I think the desperate look on my face got to her a little as she looks around quickly with a hesitant look on her face before she says, “Look, this is completely illegal, and it might cost me my job but since this is for a friend of yours, and you look like you’re about to cry, and I don’t know how to deal with tears, I can only tell you to go and look for a guy named ‘Seth’. He works in this kind of department and he’s a friend of mine. Tell him I sent you, and I can’t promise that he’ll tell you everything you want to know but what I can promise you is that I’ll try my best.”
I almost squeal in delight. “Thank you so much. If there’s anything I can do to return this favor, please tell me.”
“There is, actually.”
I eye her in confusion, clearly not expecting her to ask for something back so quickly and urge her to continue.
“You’re the daughter of George- the owner of Williams Incorporation- aren’t you?”
“Uhh, yes?”
It never crossed my mind that people might recognize me here in Liverpool since almost none of them ever do in London.
“Then you’re the sister of Trevor George, aren’t you?” She pauses a little as if trying to remember my name. “Uhh Evangeline George Williams?”
“Yes?” I urge her to continue, not truly understanding where this conversation is heading.
“I want to meet him: your brother. Just to take a picture I swear-nothing else. My friends are going to go crazy once I post it on instagram.”
I then slowly walk away from this rambling crazy young lady whose dream, apparently, is to have her post exceed the number of likes of her ‘friend’ Bianca.
“Excuse me, do you know where Seth is?” The hope in finding Seth started to slowly dissipate