I Swear I Love You

Jimmy’s POV

“Don’t try to force her to do anything, she’s still a bit groggy from the DKA but it should ease as the treatment begins to work. She may be a bit confused as to who you are at first but don’t worry; it is completely natural. I’ll be back in about half an hour to check on her again.”

After the doctor left I made my way to Jess’ side, sitting in the chair beside her bed. She rolled her head slowly to face me, her eyes flickering briefly as she attempted to focus them. “Who are you?”

“Well, I expected that,” I murmured. Considering I couldn’t really remember who she was, it was kind of confusing for both of us, and I wasn’t even the one lying in the hospital bed. “I’m Jimmy, Brian’s friend. I’m the drummer for the band- you hit your head on my drum kit, remember?”

Her confusion seemed to ease a little. “That was on Thursday… right?”

“That’s right.”

“But today is Monday...”

“Yep.”

She sighed, rolling her head so that she stared upwards at the ceiling. “I don’t remember anything since then.” Her eyes began to blink rapidly then, announcing the arrival of fresh tears. “I don’t know what has happened to me.”

“To tell you the truth… I’m in the same boat.” Her eyes drifted slowly back to look at me. “I don’t remember anything since then either.”

“You don’t?”

“Not a clue.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “If I knew that, I could probably remember what I had done, don’t you think?”

She laughed quietly to herself. “I guess you are right. That was a stupid question to ask.”

It was silent for a few moments as neither of us talked, leaving me to be the first to break it. “Hey… Jess?”

“Yes?”

“How long have you known you were diabetic?”

“Since I was about 15. Brian was actually there when they told me.”

“I’m guessing you’ve known him for a long time then?”

“About eighteen years now, since kindergarten. Although I haven’t actually seen him since I graduated from high school; I studied abroad in Australia. We kept in touch though, calling each other when we could. He sounded like he was having the time of his life with you guys whenever we talked- sometimes it made me wish that I had stayed behind to experience it with him.”

“So what about you?” I asked. “What did you do over in Australia?”

“I actually worked with dolphins over there,” she replied, a soft smile coming over her as she thought about it. “I got honours in my Bachelor degree in Biology and from there I just moved into working with marine life in my local aquatic centre. I had been working there for about a year before I cam back here.”

“How come you came back?” Her life seemed so happy over there- I mean come on, working with dolphinsas your career? “You sound like you were in your ideal career.”

“I was,” she agreed. “But I don’t know- something just kept nagging at me all the time I was there. I guess I just missed being back here.”

“So you quit your job?”

“Took a year out actually, they said I was welcome to come back at any time.” She chuckled lightly to herself while saying the last part. “They didn’t actually want me to go since I was the only one little Jade seemed to warm up to.” She must have seen the confusion on my face since she then went on to explain who he was.

“Jade was a sea lion pup born a couple of months after I started working as a part of the dolphin team, and she was a rather… boisterous little thing. Even when she was old enough to be separated from her mother while she joined the other adults in the show the team puts on they often had a hard time keeping her happy, since she would either attack anyone who tried to enter the exhibit with her in or would just mope. Everyone in the marine centre tried to make her join and play with Luke and Lily, two of the other pups that shared the exhibit, while her mom was gone but she wasn’t having any of it.

“For some reason though when I went into the exhibit while the adults were gone she didn’t do anything to me; in fact she seemed to perk up. It took a few moments but eventually she got off the small island in the middle of the pool and swam over to me. No one in the park could explain why she chose me to warm up to, but as long as I visited her every morning she seemed fine for the rest of the day. The days I wasn’t working were often calamity for the sea lion team so as long as I wasn’t dying in bed from some kind of illness then I would go in and still visit her.” She sighed. “She was such an adorable little thing.”

“Sounds like the perfect job to me,” I mused, already imagining all the shows that must have been going on, how fun it would be to actually swim with them every day as your job. “Paid to swim with dolphins and sea lions everyday in sunny Australia…”

“It was.”

As the conversation faded we both ended up just sitting in silence again, each of us just staring at something inanimate until one of us spoke. “Hey Jimmy?”

I looked up. “Yeah?”

“I just thought about something.”

“What’s that?”

“Are we married?”

I paused a few moments before I replied. “Yep.”

She sighed. “Thought so.”

--

After the doctor had done his check up on Jess and was pleased with her progress he allowed the others to come in, but after we went through the greetings all over again to refresh her memory it was clear a crucial member of the group was missing, and she instantly picked up on it.

“Where’s Brian?”

“He said he was going for a walk,” Zack replied, exchanging looks with Johnny and Matt. “He’ll be back later.”

“Oh, alright.” Compared to when she was first brought in she was looking a lot better, but after hearing that her supposed best friend was no where to be found almost looked to reverse that. “Where did he go?”

He shrugged, looking apologetic. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” She curled up on her side, taking care not to tug on the IV tube dripping fluids into her system. “I’m a bit tired now.”

Considering the guys were all on the opposite side to where Jess now faced they just accepted her words and motioned to move outside while I stayed with her, already having noticed the tears beginning to fall before she hid her face from me.

“Jess…” I reached over and gently took hold of her hand, trying to think of what words I could put together that might provide some kind of comfort for her, but I was just stuck at her name.

She pulled her hand away. “I just want to get some sleep Jimmy.”

I opened my mouth to say something but thought better of it, merely murmuring for her to have a nice sleep and that I would visit her later. I didn’t get a reply, but somehow I knew she was grateful. If Brian wasn’t going to be here to support her, then someone had to do it.

--

“Hey Zack,” I called just as I was leaving the main entrance, noticing the guys all standing around having a smoke. He flicked away the last of his stick before turning to me.

“Yeah?”

“Were you just covering for Gates back there?” I could feel myself starting to get angry at him, but I tried not to show it. It wasn’t his fault after all. “Do you know where he is?”

“I really don’t know Jim,” he sighed. “He just said he was going for a walk. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking asshole,” I muttered, pulling my phone out of my back pocket and dialling his number. When he answered my greeting was far from being polite. “You know Gates; you’re a real piece of shit.”

“What the fuck?”He sounded genuinely surprised. “What have I done?”

“Try walking out on your friend in hospital,” I hissed, ignoring the alarmed expressions of my band mates. “You have to be real low to do that.”

“It’s not like I could go see her anyway, that was left to immediate family members, right?”

“Oh! So that explains everything!” I laughed. “You’re acting all pissy because I could go see Jess and you couldn’t? Well guess what asshole; I only did it for you! But I bet you couldn’t come off your high horse for two seconds to let someone else go to her instead of you, is that it? Fuck, and here I thought I didn’t make friends with egotistical pricks; looks like I got that wrong when I got mixed up with you right?” Throughout all of this, he didn’t answer. “You can’t even find an excuse can you? Do you want to know why? Because you know it’s all fucking true. Although if you think you could spare five fucking minutesfrom this pathetic one-man pity party you are enjoying then see if you could go visit a girl who is crying at the fact her friend has abandoned here. Just think about it.” I ended the call and shoved my cell back in my pocket, grabbing a stick and light from Zack and inhaling deeply from it as I lent against the wall, calming down instantly.

“Feel better?”

I glanced up at Matt and smiled. “Much better.”

“You know you threw wind into flames right?” He looked at me doubtfully. “I’m not sure if having at go at him was the best idea.”

“He needed someone to tell him to get his head out of his ass,” I replied, exhaling the last of the smoke before flicking the remains of the stick to the ground. “I was just the one to do it.”

“Just don’t let a girl get between you two,” he stated. “You barely even know her.”

“Well we are married.”

“About that…” At this point all three of them seemed interested in my answer. “What are you going to do about it?”

I shrugged. “I’m not really thinking about that right now. Jess’ health is a bit more important than some piece of paper.”

“Hey… Jim?”

I glanced over at Johnny. “Yeah?”

“You know that you are legally married… right?”

“That’s what the paper says.”

“And you don’t care?”

“Not really. If it bothers you though…” I tugged on the gold ring on my finger, managing to slip it off after a few sharp pulls before I offered it to him. “Here.”

He accepted it- albeit with confusion. “What am I meant to do with this?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Skip it across a pond, propose to Matt with it, put it around an eel in an aquarium and claim it as your own… Whatever. You were bothered by it so now you get to do what you want with it.”

He glanced down at it briefly before giving it back. “Here.”

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“You said I could do what I wanted with it… so I’m giving it back.”

Since I couldn’t be bothered with it any more I just put it back on, uncaring for the weird looks the guys gave me. “After this mess is sorted out Jess and me will go down and sort this marriage thing out, but I don’t think now is the time.” I pushed off from the wall. “I’m going to go ask the doctor how Jess is doing. Feel free to go off; I’ve still got the keys to the rental.”

About halfway up the steps leading to the main entrance I suddenly stopped as my gaze fell upon the person walking up the set opposite me, his own dropping as they met mine briefly. He was the first to move from our frozen stances, his normally confident walk reduced to meagre shuffles as he blinded himself to my glare.

But he can’t.

“You can’t ignore me Brian.”

Yet he still tried. He paused long enough to hear what I had said before continuing through the glass doors, not even bothering to turn back or hold the door in case I wished to follow him. In an ideal situation I probably would have had the others not been there to stop me.

“Leave him.” Matt pressed a hand onto my shoulder, gently pulling on it to make me turn back. “He obviously feels terrible.”

I glanced back through the glass doors, watching just as he was clearing the first set of stairs. “For how he’s acted today, he better do.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Zack murmured. “Look why don’t we go to the bar for a bit, burn off some stress? I’m paying.”

Considering all I wanted to do was kick Brian’s ass into next week it took a lot for me to just turn around and walk away. I had known Jess barely a day, and even then most of it she was completely out of it. Sure the marriage wasn’t exactly planned and we were probably going to look for a way to end of it as soon as she was discharged but it felt as if I had some kind of obligation to look out for Jess now.

Even if it was just for the sake of a paper certificate.