"He's breathing!" I remarked aloud, overjoyed. There were loud sighs of relief from the crowd. I wanted to bounce off the walls, however, we were outside and there were no walls to bounce off of.

"The paramedics are here!" I heard Coach Green yell in the distance. More chatter from the crowd.

Slowly, Liam started to open his eyes. He sat up, a bit confused, then caught sight of me.

"Rhonda?"

My heart skipped a beat. I instinctively leapt out and hugged him, not thinking. I heard "awww"s from the crowd, which I was too happy to be abashed about. Liam gave a very painful "oof!", which told me to let go.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I completely forgot that I cracked one of your ribs, I shouldn't have done that. Sorry." I quickly apologized.

"Huh?!" He looked absolutely flabbergasted. His face looked absolutely adorable, so puzzled and confused, processing what he just heard.

I didn't have the chance to explain, because the paramedics interrupted us, taking Liam away from me, into the ambulance. He was incredibly confused.

~~~

Liam was in the hospital for a couple days after that, not at the locker next to me where he should be. I got an embarrassing amount of attention during that week. And I hated it all. Constant compliments and staring, along with whispers. I tried to ignore it all, but it was hard to. Today was Monday. On Tuesday, Liam will come back from the hospital. I was a bit nervous at the thought of it.

"Rhombus, what's wrong?" my friend Taylor asked, concerned. We were on our way to math class, my first period. Taylor is the only friend I have in my math class, although I do have other acquaintances there. Some of the boys are fun to talk to, most of the girls in math with me are a bit on the toxic side, so talking to them is mostly full of fake smiles and laughs.

Taylor Best lives up to her last name. She's one of the smartest kids in our school and excels especially in math. Taylor has been called a nerd on multiple occasions, but it doesn't bother her anymore. In her defense, she does look like your average nerd. She's got curly brown hair that's always put up in a bun and tortoiseshell, square-frame glasses that always rest on her pointy nose. Taylor doesn't like wearing makeup, and neither do I. It's itchy and both Taylor and I look completely fine without it.

I sat down next to my usual spot next to Taylor and we started our math lesson. I didn't pay much attention to the lesson, which I never do, like usual, but I'm always able to understand the homework miraculously. I was too focused on Mr. Liam Driscol. What I've heard from multiple stories of others saving each other's lives is that they usually end up having a great bond with one another. What does that mean for Liam and I? Are we going to become like the bestest of friends, then soon more than friends, then soon more than more than friends?! Oh please, I'm kidding myself.

Liam is probably scared of me more than anything, or just weirded out. In kindergarten, I stole his lunch box and wouldn't give it back until he agreed to be my kindergarten boyfriend. We ended up "breaking up" after he told me I couldn't play tag with him. (It was a boys only game.) During primary school, I would constantly step on his foot while learning about the gospel. I mean, they would be teaching us about kindness and charity and prophets, and I would be jamming my purple high heels into his foot.

I've grown up though, well as much as I can. Sometimes I still step on his foot during church just to mess with him. The question is, what's going to happen with me and Liam?

"Rhonda." Taylor nudged my shoulder. I zoned back into the real world.

"Yeah, what?"

"Mrs. Drew is collecting homework."

"Oh, right."

I opened my binder and dug around for my math homework, then handed it to the teacher. Mrs. Drew is an okay teacher in my opinion. Everyone complains about her and how unfair she is, but I've never personally experienced a time where she was ever unfair to me, so my opinion about her is completely unbiased.

Mrs. Drew eyed my paper, then handed it back to me, unpleased.

"No name, one point off. And I don't like it when you doodle on your pages, it makes the work hard to read, two points off."

Now I understand why everyone despises this vile creature.I made sure to doodle on the edge of the page, away from all the work. Three points off in total, for a little mistake and creativity. I scribbled on my name and gave it back to her, annoyed.

The rest of the day was good after that, except for when I tripped on the way home from school and cut my knee. Luckily, I didn't hurt that much, and now I have a cool looking rip in my jeans.

I eventually got home and walked inside. I love my house. It's one of those cool, giant, log cabin houses with a tall stone fireplace that stands above it all. It also has a wrap-around porch that we use for barbecues.

The people inside the house aren't too pretty though. I have six siblings. All boys. I'm the second oldest. There's Luke, the oldest,then me, Bridger, then Wyatt, Hyrum, and Sam. Growing up around all boys, you can easily tell how I act, how I treat my family, and how they treat me.

I get along with Bridger the most, we share the same interests and he's the least annoying out of the bunch. Sam is everyone's least favorite, for obvious reasons. The weird thing about Sam is that he looks like no one in my family. He has red hair. No one else does, none of my parents either. The only person that I know of in my family that has red hair besides Sam is my great grandmother.

Everyone else in the family has brown hair, some with blonde hair. My hair was once blonde, like bright blonde when I was little, now it's darker. I look like my mom the most, except my hair is shorter than hers. I like mine short, just a centimeter below the chin. My only problem with it is that I can't put it in a full ponytail, so I put it up into sort of a half ponytail, just enough to keep hair out of my face. If you've ever seen Anastasia, I have her hairstyle, but with light brown hair. I'm basically my mom's clone, we have the same heart-shaped face and pointed nose.

I entered my house, set my backpack by the shoe stand that's always packed with shoes and took off my shoes as well, adding it to the pile.

Hyrum walked by with his friend, Andrew, who practically lives here at this point, besides the fact that my parents don't allow sleepovers.

"Rhonda, what happened to your knee?"

"I tripped."

"Loser."

Hyrum is ten, so this attitude from him is understandable for his age. I went over to the bathroom to go find a band-aid. Since my mom and dad are so cool, they don't make me share a bathroom with all the boys; I have my own personal bathroom all to myself, along with a bedroom. Besides that, there are no other perks to being the only girl in the house. I searched around the cabinets of the bathroom, looking for the band-aids, but there were none.

"Hey Mom!" I called out.

"In the kitchen!"

I entered the kitchen to see thousands of homemade desserts lined up along the counters. Cookies, Rice Krispies, cupcakes, pudding, brownies, everything. Mom was whisking a batter of some sort, and there was a pie baking in the oven.

"Mom, what's all this for? Is it someone's birthday?" Sometimes I forget my siblings' birthdays, and considering how many desserts there are, it must be Sam's, that spoiled little brat.

"Um- it's for something." Mom tried to change the subject, "Oh, would you like to bake something? You could do snickerdoodles, those are your favorites, right?"

"Mom, I think you have enough desserts. Also, where are the band-aids? I tripped on my way here from school."

"Oh sorry to hear that! There's some in the medicine cabinet in Dad and I's bathroom."

I went upstairs to the parent's bathroom, which is connected to the master bedroom. What was the dessert thing about? Does Mom plan to start a bakery? Why are there so many? Whatever, I grabbed the box of band-aids from the medicine cabinet. Mom likes to buy the colorful ones, however, there were no more purple ones in the box, so I just settled on a neon green one. I carefully aligned the bandage perfectly along my wound, then threw away the packaging and headed to my room.

My room is in the attic, since all cool people should have a cool attic bedroom. It even has a little ladder that goes up to it. (You won't believe what it was like getting all the furniture up here.) I've got a nice queen-size mattress that sits against the wall below a circular window with a purple bedspread that's always sloppy. I bet you can't guess what my favorite color is. Next to that was a black nightstand with a green lava lamp next to it. I got the lava lamp just last year for Christmas and it's so cool. I bet you can't guess what my second favorite color is.

To the right of my bed is a desk that I do the usual homework on. It's black too, matching the nightstand. To the left is my closet, all it has is clothes in it, there's nothing else much to it. The rest of my room is a mess, clothes covering my rectangular, white shag carpet. Leaned on the side of the wall is my dad's old guitar, which he lent to me, along with his entire amplifier. Hauling that amp up into my room was a nightmare.

My dad encourages music in our family, Luke and Hyrum play trumpet in the school band, Bridger plays piano, and Sam doesn't really do music, maybe because he's only seven. My dad introduced me to the punk rock genre of music, despite the fact that we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Life is usually fun in our household.

I was going to start on homework, but then remembered that I left my bag downstairs next to the shoe rack.

Soon after I was back in my room doing homework, making sure not to doodle on my math homework and trying not to worry about seeing Liam tomorrow morning.