I Can't Not Love You

[Alex]

We had been in the waiting room for two hours now with no word on Jack’s condition. I was starting to get pissed off. Flyzik was asleep beside me, exhausted because it was already past one in the morning. Danny was keeping himself awake by playing games on his phone. I would be pacing around, but Danny had threatened to make a nurse strap me to the chair if I continued.

“Is anyone here for Jack Barakat?” a woman said suddenly, startling us.

“Yes, all three of us,” I said quickly, jumping up from the chair. Danny shook Flyzik by the shoulder, waking him up.

“Come back with me, please,” the nurse said, beckoning for us to follow her. We followed her in through the doors of the inner emergency room, stopping in a hallway with her.

“How’s Jack?” Flyzik asked groggily, still just waking up from his nap.

“Is he gonna die?” I demanded.

The nurse laughed softly, shaking her head, “No, Jack is not going to die. It turns out that he has a very bad case of pneumonia. He has a 104 degree fever, which is why he had chills. He’s still fighting the fever right now; we’re trying to get it down. We hooked Jack up to IV antibiotics to help get rid of the pneumonia. The type he has isn’t contagious, so it’s safe to be around him. He cold or whatever this started out as must have been contagious, but it isn’t anymore. He’s hooked up to oxygen to assist in his breathing, because he was having so much trouble breathing on his own. He was dehydrated when he got here, also.”

“How long is he going to have to be here? We kind of have a tour to get back to as soon as he possibly can,” Flyzik explained, more awake now.

“He’s going to have to be here for a few days at the very least,” the nurse told us.

“Can we go see him?” I asked.

“You are more than welcome to go see him. He’s upstairs on the fifth floor though; he was just moved off the ER unit. Follow me.” The nurse led us to an elevator and we headed upstairs quietly. When we got to the fifth floor she led us to a room down the hall, going through the doorway. Another nurse had just walked out of the room. It was a small room with only one bed. The room was dark, so the nurse flipped on a dim light. “He’s asleep, but you boys can stay for a little while. I’ll leave you alone. Call for a nurse if you need anything,” she said, leaving the room.

I looked at Jack and my face paled. He looked terrible. He was hooked up to an IV with a few medicine bags on it, an oxygen mask over his mouth to help him breathe, and there were a bunch of other machines hooked up to him. The heart monitor was beeping each time his heart beat.

“He’s going to be fine,” Flyzik reminded Danny and I, seeing our pale faces.

“I know,” I murmured, still in disbelief over the fact that my best friend was lying in a hospital bed in front of me. If I hadn’t been so god damn focused on John, he wouldn’t have gotten this sick...

“Well, this definitely means we have to cancel a few of the upcoming shows. There’s no way Jack can play at all, even when he first gets out of here,” Flyzik sighed. “I’m gonna be on the phone all day later.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to cancel the entire tour,” Danny said, and Flyzik nodded in agreement.

“How did he even get sick in the first place?” Flyzik questioned, shaking his head.

Danny shrugged, “I have no idea.”

“The shower,” I murmured, and they looked at me in confusion. “That stupid communal shower we used a week or so ago. He got sick a day or two after that. We all fell down and Jack’s face was against that disgusting floor. That must be how he got sick.”

“Fuck, I forgot all about that. He did get sick soon after that, didn’t he?” Flyzik asked.

Danny nodded, “Yeah, he started to get sick a few days later and it started out as a cold.”

“That makes so much more sense than him just randomly getting sick.”

I walked over to the chair next to Jack’s bed while they were talking. I sat down in it and reached out hesitantly to touch his forehead, sticky with sweat. I jerked my hand back quickly. The nurse was right; he definitely had a high fever.

“At least his chest doesn’t look quite as bad when he breathes,” Danny spoke up, noticing that I was watching Jack.

I nodded, “The oxygen mask probably helps.”

We were silent for a few minutes, the only sound coming from the beeping heart monitor and Jack’s heavy breathing. The silence and dim light was making me feel tired suddenly. It was already two in the morning, and the night had exhausted me.

“So I guess we just wait,” Flyzik sighed, sitting in a chair on the other side of Jack’s bed. Danny nodded, sitting beside him in the third chair.

--------------------

About half an hour later, a doctor came into the room to check on Jack. He looked surprised when he saw the three of us there. “Oh, hello. I didn’t know Jack had visitors.”

“A nurse got us from the waiting room a little while ago and brought us up. We had been waiting for two hours,” Flyzik told him.

“I see,” the doctor nodded, going around and checking all of Jack’s monitors and IV drips before checking his vitals. “He still has a 104 degree fever. It hasn’t broken yet,” the doctor told us with a frown, checking his clipboard.

“Don’t you have him on some sort of medicine to make it go down?” Danny asked.

The doctor nodded, “We have him on a pain and fever reducer. It just hasn’t seemed to work yet. It’s probably just taking a while to kick in. I’ll get a few cold washcloths for him.” He left the room and returned a few minutes later, three washcloths in hand. He set one on Jack’s forehead and the other two around his neck. “That should help a bit. By the way, it is way past visiting hours. You boys are going to heave to leave.”

My eyes widened and I shook my head, “No way! I’m not leaving him alone here. He’ll be terrified if he wakes up and he’s alone.”

“Visiting hours technically ended at eleven, sir,” the doctor pointed out. “And Jack is heavily medicated. He won’t be waking up any time soon.”

“Alex, come on. We all need some sleep,” Flyzik said with a sigh, standing up and walking over with Danny.

“No,” I said stubbornly, crossing my arms and looking up at the three of them. “I thought people were allowed to stay as long as they want if the patient is in life or death condition.”

“He is not in life or death condition,” the doctor said, beginning to look irritated.

“He has a 104 degree fever that won’t go down. That’s something that can technically kill a person if it spikes again. And he’s having trouble breathing, which is life threatening,” I argued.

“When did you learn about medical stuff?” Danny asked, looking amused.

The doctor sighed heavily, “You do make a good point...”

“To be honest, Jack will probably have an emotional meltdown if someone isn’t here when he wakes up. I really wouldn’t want to make you guys deal with Jack trying to jump out of bed while hooked up to an IV,” Danny admitted.

“Well...” the doctor looked at me, and I gave him a hopeful look. “Fine. Only one of you can stay though. Visiting hours start at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, so the rest of you can come back then.”

“Thank you so much,” I said happily, holding my hand out to shake the doctor’s hand. He looked surprised but shook it.

“You’re welcome. Just don’t cause any problems.”

“I won’t,” I promised. He left, and I looked up at Danny and Flyzik.

“Only you would persuade a doctor into letting you stay here overnight,” Flyzik chuckled, patting me on the shoulder. “We’re going to head out. Rian and Zack will probably want to come tomorrow, so one of us will come up with them. Text us when Jack wakes up so we can come over here and actually talk to him.”

“Try to get some sleep, bro. You look exhausted,” Danny added, also patting me on the back before they walked out of the room.

I looked at Jack beside me and settled back into the chair. As tired as I was, it would be easy to fall asleep in this uncomfortable thing.