Hospital Beds and Memories

The churning and screaming consumed my ears. I was stuck in a large dark room with no walls, ceiling, or floor. Sometimes the images would change to random environments as voices tried to enter my mind. I had been in the wilderness, next to a river, in a hospital, at a school, or just simply at a home. People I knew and didn’t know would show up in the blur I had created. This was my life now. Lost in a dark abyss.

I turned around and saw Jack standing in front of me. He was the only thing here. Nothing else appeared. It was just us in this large maze with no walls. His footsteps echoed as he walked up to me. My left hand felt warm as he suddenly stopped and stared right through me. I stared right back at him. There was something about him that felt so right, yet I still did not know what to do. It was quiet, no sound coming out of either of us. I wanted to talk to him, but my mouth wouldn’t open, so I went to move, but that also didn’t happen; I was stuck.

“Hey, Ireland." Jack smiled.

I tried talking back but I just couldn’t. Nothing was working. I could only listen and try my best to pry open my mouth. But it felt like a weight was keeping everything stuck together, everything was glued shut.

“I need you to figure out how you feel about me before you wake up.” Jack seemed so close yet so far away. I wanted nothing more to reach out and touch him.

“Can you do that for me?” He suddenly disappeared and I was left alone again.

The only thing I could do here was think, so why not think about Jack if that’s what he wanted?

I could suddenly move again, I was only frozen when a person showed up, otherwise I was fine. Something like this had only happened once before, only then I had been stuck for a year, now it had been for only a short amount of time, or what felt pretty short compared to last time.

I sat down Indian-style on the floor and propped up my head by resting my elbows on my knees. How did I feel about Jack? I had been avoiding the question for some time, or at least not been thinking about it properly. But there was literally nothing else to do here and it was time to face reality, even though this wasn’t reality itself. I thought about all the moments I had with Jack. At first, he really was just a friend, but there must have been a reason why I kissed him, right? Just before it happened I wanted nothing more than to have his lips on mine.

I had been getting even closer to Jack. We would literally lie on top of each other in bed and wake up on opposite sides of where we both started. I felt comofrtable enough to do that. The first time I touched him I freaked out. But was it because we were now best-friend close, or more-than-friends close? I just didn’t know. It was all muddled up in my head. I didn’t do relationships, but did I like Jack? All the questions swirled around and were written out in front of me in white letters. Nothing made sense anymore.

What if I thought about Jack being with other girls? I shrugged. Jack was just like that. Why would I judge him? If that’s how he was I would let him. But when I thought about him being with Abagail I got a weird feeling. It wasn’t right. She wasn’t supposed to be there. They just couldn’t, they didn’t like each other like that. That was supposed to be me.

I stopped. Did I actually say that? Was that really how I felt? I imagined how things could be between Jack and me. We would be able to share more of those amazing kisses and we would be together, not just in the same room together but together together. A smile crept onto my lips. Maybe it wasn’t that bad, maybe I actually liked Jack. And if Jack didn’t feel the same way about me I would be able to deal with it. I wouldn’t ruin our friendship because of something like that.

But our friendship was already over. He wasn’t coming back. I messed up. I had to wake up right now, I had to call him. My eyes finally began to move but wouldn’t open just yet. I was so close.

----

I rolled my head to my left and managed to open my eyes slightly. It was blinding and I couldn’t see anything so I closed them again. Somebody was holding my hand, their fingers intertwined with mine. I had to notify them that I was awake. With the power I barely had, I squeezed the hand, hoping my gesture was strong enough for them to realize. There was movement and I heard shuffling before there was an unemotional hum. The movement stopped, they hadn’t realized. I let out a sigh, I didn’t have any energy to do anything else. A hand touched my face and caressed it. The fingers were callused. This was either Cameron, or… or Jack. I tried reopening my eyes and saw it was the person I hoped it would be. Jack was sitting in an uncomfortable chair and was looking in the other direction.

“Jack,” I whispered in a croaking voice with barely and sound coming out.

But it was enough for Jack. He snapped his head towards me and his eyes widened. “Ireland! You-- you’re awake!”

I hummed in response as I slowly started getting more energy, just enough to nod my head. Jack stared me in the eyes and showed me the smile that made his eyes crinkle up. Before I knew it, he was standing up and leaning in towards me, but before his chapped lips touched mine he pulled away.

“Uh… Sorry.” Jack stammered.

I shook my head and managed to raise my hand so I was able to pull his face towards me. Our lips crashed together and Jack didn’t hesitate to start kissing me. My fingers were tangled in his greasy hair while his nose pressed up against my cheek. I was running out of breath pretty fast, but I didn’t want to stop. There was no time to pay attention to the details. I couldn’t think about the way his smell comforted me, or the way his fingers lightly touched my skin. The only thing in this moment was the desperation of kissing Jack.

“Hey, Jack, I’ve got your coffee-- oh shit!” Cameron was barely standing in the room, stiffened up and his eyes tightly shut. Jack and I pulled away and for some apparent reason, I actually didn’t mind Cameron walking in on us. I was relieved to see him, even though the last time I actually physically saw him was when we were fighting.

“Can I opened my eyes?” Cam slowly lowered the one hand he had raised up to his chest.

“Of course you can. Now give me my coffee.” Jack reached out for the cup and quickly took sips of the hot drink. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks and really needed the caffeine boost. Suddenly he looked up in realization and stopped drinking. “I should probably call the nurse.” He stretched out to push a red button that was close to my bed. If I could have pressed it by myself I would have, but the last of my energy was gone. All I wanted was to sleep.

Cameron finally answered the question I had been wanting to ask. “You’ve only been out for 4 days. You, umm, had a seizure… it was pretty bad…”

A seizure. I hadn’t had them in ages. They had started after my coma and they started becoming more frequent. I was put on medication and after a couple months I was in the clear. It was pretty weird. My doctor told me they wouldn’t come back, but something happened and I had one while Cam and I were fighting. It did declare why I felt like complete and utter shit though.

Val walked in holding a clipboard and smiled at me. “Hey Ireland, how are you doing?”

I tried talking, but nothing came out. So I sloppily signed out that my throat was too dry. She nodded and asked Jack to help me sit up before handing me a plastic cup of water. I carefully but quickly drank it, not minding the burning sensation in my throat.

“I’m fine, just a bit all over the place,” I croaked out in a quiet voice.

“You’ll probably feel better after getting some sleep, which I’m happy to tell you, you get to do at home. So, you’re going to have to take your medication again, as I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to be a one-time thing. I want to go against it as soon as possible. I’ve got the two things you need here.” She placed two bottles of pills on my bedside table. “One is a daily dose, and the other is for emergencies when you feel seizures coming up.” She proceeded to tell me the exact doses I had to take. I was glad Cam and Jack were here because everything she said didn’t register. The only thing I remembered was the last thing she said, that I was to stay here for a couple more hours before it was 100% sure that I was allowed to go home.

Val left and I slowly scootched down in my bed so I was lying down again. I grabbed Jack’s arm and cuddled around it. Jack chuckled and kissed my cheek as my eyes began feeling heavy. I didn’t care if this would eventually get uncomfortable for Jack, he would be able to carefully move his arm out of my grasp later on.

“Ok guys, sorry to interrupt, but how long has this been going on for? Last thing I remember was Ireland going to go on a date with that Brian guy,” Cameron piped up. I snorted when he mentioned Brian. There was no way I actually wanted to go on a date with him and I didn’t want Jack to get the wrong idea. Apparently, he didn’t because he ran his fingers through my hair and brushed away anything that fell into my face.

“I don’t think Ireland is able to answer this,” Jack replied, “so I guess I will, but I don’t really have an answer. Let’s just say something happened and then what happened when you walked in happened. I think I’ll leave details out until Ireland can also talk, she might have her own idea of the whole thing.”

I nodded and snuggled against Jack’s arm, trying to get as close as I could. The last thing I remembered was Jack kissing my forehead and him telling me to go to sleep. Cameron’s and Jack murmuring low voices lulled me to sleep.