I Swear I Love You

Jimmy’s POV

Despite the fact I had offered Jess my bed every single night for the past fortnight she still persisted in sleeping on the couch, claiming that it wouldn’t be fair if she made me do it since I wasn’t even making her pay any rent. We hadn’t yet discussed what we were going to do about the whole marriage thing, and for now, we were kind of just going along with it. At times we were even jokingly referring to each other as ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ in place of our names and sometimes it actually felt like we were a proper couple, especially when now I wake up to a freshly cooked breakfast everyday. Hell, I didn’t even use to bother waking up for breakfast before Jess moved in and usually just moved straight onto lunch. I think I was even beginning to lose the slight beer belly I had since I just ate whatever she cooked for the both of us, saying that even if she wasn’t allowed to pay rent then she would help out in other ways. She even routinely cleaned the house. I barely cleaned the house, and I tended to only when I had to. Now with Jess, it was spotless all the time.

If I could be married like this with someone at some point in my life, I just know it would be perfect.

Like most nights I woke up for an early morning snack, taking care to tip-toe my way past the front room door in case I woke Jess up. However after I was coming back from the kitchen with a fresh peanut butter sandwich in my hand to settle my midnight cravings I heard something strange coming from the front room, sparking a debate of whether or not I should investigate.

In the end, my concerned side won over the delusional ‘you might just be making things up; leave her alone and eat your sandwich!’ stomach.

“Jess?” I opened the door as quietly as I could, just peering around the corner to get a look at her. “Jess?”

She was sat with her knees pressed against her chest, her arms wrapped around them to secure them in place. Even though the room was dark a small stream of light filtered in through the window, illuminating her tear-stricken face as she turned to me.

I instantly moved to her side and wrapped my arms around her in a hug, pulling her so that her head rested against my shoulder, the sandwich laying forgotten on the coffee table. She trembled in my arms. “Jess, what’s wrong?”

She sniffed. “I don’t know. I just feel like everything is against me. Sometimes I just wish that I could just stop it all; stop the numerous injections, the pricking of my finger all the time…” She sighed. “Why did it happen to me? What did I do in my life to deserve this? None of my family had diabetes, so why me?”

“Jess you don’t mean that,” I murmured, giving her a light, reassuring shake. I glanced briefly glanced down at my sandwich before returning my attention to her. “Have you checked your glucose levels lately?”

She shook her head. “I did it after you went to bed. I was fine.”

“Well why don’t we do it again, just to make sure you are still alright,” I said, reaching to the side and picking up her glucometer. I helped her through pricking her finger with the lancet before testing the drop of blood it produced onto the strip in the machine.

2.4mmol/L.

Over her short stay I had learned all about her different types of insulin and what they did, like how she took NovoRapid shots before or just after meals and Levemir once a day just before she went to bed. Along with this I got into the habit of researching it up on the Internet as well, learning about all the risks and things that I should look out for. This reading was one of them.

I quickly reached over to the small bag she kept alongside the glucometer and pulled out a tube, popping a few glucose tablets into my hand before instructing her to take it. She glanced down at it, confused as to what I wanted her to take. I knew that she was currently in a state of mild hypoglycemia and that she needed something to take her glucose levels back up, but it also often came with the unhelpful confusion that could sometimes deter a person away from the very thing that would save their life.

“I just need you to take this for me okay? It’ll make you feel happy again.”

She seemed disbelieving but accepted it anyway, swallowing the tablets before turning back to me. “Did it work?”

“We’ve got to wait a little while first.”

“Okay.”

She just seemed to accept anything I said so we both remained in silence, hearing the odd sniffle every now and again, and waiting for the fifteen minutes to pass until I could test her again to see if it worked. Eventually it was time.

“Let’s see shall we?” I performed the test again and smiled as the reading came back as 7.4mmol/L.

That should be alright until morning.

Just as a precaution however I reached over for the sandwich on the table handed her half of it, glad that I had taken a liking to the peanut butter recipe which was ideal as a snack to keep her levels up. “Here. Eat this.”

Looking briefly between the half she now held in her hands and the half I was beginning to eat she then tried to hand it back to me. “It’s your sandwich. You eat it.”

I shook my head. “It’s our sandwich. You’re my sandwich eating buddy, and you need to eat that to stay as my sandwich eating buddy. You don’t want to leave me buddy-less, do you?”

She smiled at the immaturity of my words, beginning to tuck into the sandwich without another word. “Sandwich buddy.”

I chuckled. “That’s right Jess. Sandwich buddies.”

--

Sandwich Buddies became a frequent thing ever since then, and soon we were beginning to use it outside of the nightly hypo episodes and in normal life. Once or twice we even used it in front of the guys, and soon they all adopted the term as well. We even began to just abbreviate ‘Sandwich Eating Buddy’just to ‘SEB’, and when Val overheard us referring to each other as ‘What’s up SEB’ and ‘See you around SEB’ she began to tear out her hair trying to figure out what it meant until she finally burst and just resorted to asking.

Needless to say we got a new SEB member that day.

“Are you sure they are alright if I go up with you?” Jess asked, still not believing me even though I had told her a thousand times it was fine. “I mean last time it did end up in you disappearing for three days with no memory and getting married.”

“Once again Jess, it’s fine. I’ve ran it past everyone and they all agreed that as long as someone kept an eye on us and made sure we weren’t going to elope again, everything would be fine,” I replied, stretching as best as I could in the cramped leg space the airplane gifted to each of its passengers. “Fuck I think my legs are falling asleep.”

As I was wriggling in my seat trying to get the numbing feeling disappear Val turned in the seat in front and peered back at us. “That’s a point, what are you going to do about that marriage thing? Have you talked to anyone about it yet?”

“I’ve looked up a few things on the web, same as Jess,” I answered, momentarily stilling my movements. “Since Jess has only been over here for about a month she hasn’t got residency rights so I’ll have to be the one to file for divorce.”

“Divorce?” She looked surprised. “Can’t you get an annulment?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Since I offered Jess to stay in my house we technically have been co-habiting as a married couple, so we’ve voided that right.”

“Even if you don’t even remember the wedding ceremony and were probably drunk or something?”

“Even that.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter though, most of the people recommended divorce anyway. Cheaper and faster.”

“How long will that take?”

“Six months from when we file the papers.”

“Six months?!” She squeaked. “That’s so long!”

“Well I highly doubt I will be getting re-married in the next six months anyway so it’s not like it matters. It should get finalized before the new year.”

“Well you better get a move on then to get those papers in.”

“We dropped them in yesterday actually,” I said. “We thought it was probably best to do it now since we were going to be up in Vegas shooting the rest of the video for a week.”

“Planning ahead eh?” She smiled. “At least it won’t be over your heads any more.” She looked over at Jess. “I bet you’ll be glad to be shot of using his last name, right?”

Jess just shrugged, smiling politely at her. “I haven’t actually thought about it since now. No one has really asked me for my full name since we it happened.”

“Well they have, you just didn’t realise it meant you. Remember when you handed your boarding pass in?” Since they had our current names on it Jess’ read as Jessica Sullivan instead of Jessica Fawn, meaning that when we all handed in our passes and the check-in assistant called for a Mrs. Jessica Sullivanto step forward she didn’t react. In the end I had to give her a nudge to get her attention followed shortly after with an explanation that we were newlyweds before her suspecting gaze let us get on the plane. “I just hope you remember for the way back. We nearly didn’t get on the flight.”

“It’s not my fault,” she huffed, crossing her arms with a pout. “It’s not everyday I somehow manage to get married and lose my last name.”

Val just laughed at the pair of us. “I think the Honeymoon period is over now, eh?”

In perfect unison Jess and I looked away from each other to stare Val straight in the eyes, both of us holding a haunting expression that even made her cringe, wondering what we were going to say.

And in all seriousness, our response was this; “You are no longer a welcome SEB.”

--

“Aw come on!” Val whined. “You have to let me be a SEB again!”

I just looked blankly at her. “No. You abused our trust so you are no longer welcome until you are seen fit to rejoin us.”

“But…!” She turned to Matt and tried her whining there. “Mattie! Make them let me be one again!”

Instead of following normal boyfriend behavior and sticking to her side he shook his head, instead defending ours. “Sorry Val, if they think you did something wrong then I can’t do anything about it.”

Then she looked to Jess. “Jess, please make them let me back in! I didn’t mean what I said, I promise!”

She just laughed at the sheer sincerity and determination infused with her words. “Val, you do know that being a SEB doesn’t really count for anything right?”

At that point everyone on set, or at least the band members of Avenged Sevenfold, Val and for some odd reason, Marc the director, gasped. “What?”

“Traitor!” Brian yelled, dumping his guitar on the floor and running over to where Jess was standing off-set with Val. He bent down and quickly threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, ignoring both the verbal curses that she screamed at him and the physical punches she assaulted his back with. “She must be punished!”

He ran with her at a steady speed to a bathroom on-set, which to Jess’ annoyance, happened to be equipped with a shower that he placed her into, turning on the shower before cackling and running off. The only reason he didn’t stick around to see her get wet was for the pure fact he knew he needed the head-start if he wanted any chance of avoiding her for the rest of the day.

When Jess returned, dripping wet, to the set there was absolutely no sign of Brian anywhere, however his guitar was still exactly where he left it, right by my drums. She must have noticed this as well since a menacing look glazed over her eyes as she walked to it, picking up the instrument in her hands and raising it above her head, almost as if she were readying herself to smash the guitar into the ground-

“No!”

She grinned as she looked up to see Brian emerging from behind a few boxes at the back of the room, the look on his eyes echoing heartbreak as he looked at his guitar. As she placed his instrument carefully aside however everyone realised that she never intended to damage the guitar in the first place, just knowing that if it was threatened, it would be the perfect bait to draw out the lead guitarist.

And it worked.

The moment the guitar left her hands she began to advance on him, putting every ounce of energy she had in order to propel herself across the set. A few seconds later Brian screamed and turned on his heel and fled; leaving the rest of us to stare blankly over at Marc, who just shook his head.

“I think that’s a rap for today guys,” he said with a sigh. “By the looks of it I don’t think we are going to get anything else done; especially without our lead guitarist.”

Brian ran back in at that moment followed shortly after by Jess, the fear in his eyes as he turned back to look at her undeniably real. However by turning back he must have lost focus with his feet for a second since he tripped and fell to the floor and allowed his female stalker to pounce on him shortly after, straddling his stomach as she thrust a finger in his face.

“You are no longer a SEB!”

That was all she did, removing herself from him, grinning. For a few seconds after Brian was completely perplexed, obviously expecting a different type of assault until it finally clicked what she had done, and he reacted in the exact same way that Val did.

“What? But you have to let me be a SEB!” He followed her as she began to walk outside, still pleading. “I thought we were friends!”

After they both disappeared I caught Matt’s, Zack’s and Johnny’s eyes, looking at each of them with a cold stare. “Don’t do anything to find you in the same situation.”

I swear at that moment I saw them all look actually a little worried.