Hospital Beds and Memories

Cameron entered the hospital room again. It was currently 5 pm and I was ready to leave this place. I had spent a lot of time at hospitals, yet I always hated them. There was something about the smell that gave me the creeps. Strangely enough, it didn’t really faze me that a lot of people had died in the building. Everything was just too sterile and clean. It didn’t feel right.

“So, I signed you out. The only thing you still have to do is choose if you want to go home or stay with Jack.” Cameron stood at the end of the bed.

I looked over at Jack who had hopeful eyes and grinned at me goofily. “I think I’ll stay with Jack.”

Cameron nodded. “Ok, I think I’ll go home then and clean up all the broken stuff in the kitchen…”

“I broke stuff?”

“Umm, yeah. You kinda hit a shelf on your way down.”

It totally explained the random scratches and bruises I had which definitely weren’t from me hitting the ground. Cam told me that I had hit a shelf with some glasses on it so there was a lot of glass on the floor, which he hadn’t been able to clean up yet as he hadn’t gone home since I was admitted to the hospital. Apparently, both Jack and Cam had stayed here the entire time. When Cam was sent to the waiting room while they did tests on me, he had panicked and called Jack, which I guess was eventually a good thing. I didn’t know exactly what Jack and I were, but at least we had reunited and were friends again.

I watched Cameron leave and turned to Jack. “Can you help me up?”

Jack nodded and stretched out his arms for me to take. After he pulled me up he quickly planted a kiss on my lips. If it weren’t for the fact that I was in a hospital gown, meaning my butt was exposed, I would have totally deepened his kiss, but I let him only peck me. I told Jack to turn around before turning to the pile of clothes Cam had brought along before he chased down the ambulance. Since he had quickly taken clothes in a matter of seconds, he had forgotten to bring some things and brought a weird choice of clothes. Sweatpants were fine, panties were fine too, but a tight shirt without a bra was not. Of course, Cam wouldn’t bring a bra, he wouldn’t dare touch those, well only if they were mine.

“Aww fuck,” I mumbled.

“What? Is everything ok? Can I turn around?” Jack rushed out.

I wrapped my arms around myself so Jack wouldn’t be able to see anything, “sure, you can turn around, but don’t laugh. Cam forgot to bring me a bra and it isn’t really working.” Another problem with having big breasts. First of all, you can’t find dresses, second of all you can’t wear a tight (or any) shirts without a bra. Literally everything could be seen.

Jack looked at me, my arms obviously not really hiding anything, and blushed. “Umm… here, take my hoodie.” He took off the black clothing article and handed it to me. I quickly put it on and zipped it up. Although I was only like 5 inches shorter than him, the sleeves still reached just over my finger tips.

“Sorry about that,” I mumbled at I put my shoes on and tied the laces.

“It’s ok, you’ve seen me naked before, this isn’t anything near as bad as that." Jack smiled.

“But still… I don’t really feel comfortable, not even around Cam or my parents.”

Jack wrapped his arms around me and looked down. “Well, I think you're beautiful and shouldn’t be ashamed of your body.”

“It’s not that,” I untangled from his embrace and collected my pills and anything else I had to take with me. “I don’t care what other people think about me, especially my appearance. I just have this weird thing about showing anything, I don’t know why… Let’s just go.”

Jack nodded. He obviously wanted to ask me more questions but didn’t. I was grateful for that, because I would honestly not know how to answer them, it was probably a thing from my past that I couldn’t remember yet still stayed with me. As we started walking Jack tried to hold my hand, but I quickly yanked it away. I looked up at him, hoping I hadn’t made him upset, but I clearly did. He had quickly looked away from me when our eyes met and he was staring at the ground with a solemn look.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I apologized. “I just have palmoplantar hyperhidrosis which means my hands are constantly sweaty. I’ve had it since I was really young, and people always get grossed out by it.”

“You have a lot of medical problems, don’t you?” Jack chuckled and grabbed my hand anyway. I was waiting for his reaction, but he didn’t do anything except for walking on while holding my hand. He only let go after to help me into his car, even though I had told him I was fine and could do everything by myself.

I snuggled into the leather seat that I had been in so many times. Jack’s car was a whole lot better than Cam’s. This car wasn’t as beat up and old, but that was probably also because Jack rarely used it since he was on tour most days of the year. Cameron still had the car he had gotten in high school. Back then it was pretty awesome because it was a brand new car that nobody had at school, but now it was just another car on the road. Now, don’t get me wrong, Cam’s car didn’t look bad or anything, it just didn’t have leather seats and all the accessories Jack’s had. Cameron really did take care of his car, but since he had gotten lazier, he didn’t clean it as often anymore. He only did it when I forced him to. The seats had smudges of sand and the floors weren’t the tidiest, but it still worked perfectly, so I wasn’t complaining, nor was he.

“I can’t wait to take a shower,” Jack chuckled as he took a right. “I didn’t care in the hospital, but I really feel disgusting right now. I probably smell really bad.”

I tried laughing, but I only breathed out louder through my nose that normal, like the laugh you would do if you saw something funny on the internet. It wasn’t what I wanted to sound like, but I couldn’t change that anymore.

“Are you ok?” Jack briefly looked at me before turning back to the road.

“Yeah, just exhausted.” I rested my head against the window and let the cool glass lower my temperature. I had a mild fever, but the doctors told me it would be gone the next day, I was just too fatigued for my body to function properly.

“Hmm, well it’s six pm already and we’re almost home, so how about we order something to eat, take a shower, and then go to bed? I’m pretty tired myself.”

I nodded and watched out of the window. The sun had just set and everything felt normal. That was until something unexpected happened. We neared Jack’s house and I saw two cars parked in the driveway. Somebody was at his house and I didn’t know who. I wasn’t ready to meet any people.

“Umm… Jack…” I panicked. “What were you doing before you left for the hospital when Cameron called you?”

“I was hanging out with my friends,” Jack answered.

“Well, I think they’re still here.”

“That’s probably because I quickly left the house without giving a reason… They must have been so confused where I disappeared to…”

“Jack,” I whined.

“Relax, it’s just my friends.”

“I don’t want to meet them when I look like this.” and when I don’t know what we are, I thought.

“Ok, fine, I can’t drive up on my driveway anyway, I’ll just call them.”

Jack literally called one of his friends and told them to ‘fucking get out of my driveway, there’s no space for me’ and then hung up the voice. It definitely earned a giggle out of me, making Jack smile a toothy grin. I was glad Jack was back in my life; I was laughing again and, although I felt tired, I felt energetic around him. It was something about his personality that got everybody hyped up.

As we were waiting for his friends to come out, I suddenly felt really dizzy. “Um, Jack do you mind it I get out? I’m feeling a bit, um, weird.”

“Yeah, sure.” He unlocked the car by pressing a button. “Just be careful, I don’t want you to crack open your head on the road.”

I nodded and carefully got out of the car before hurrying to the sidewalk and sitting down. The world around me was spinning and I tried to steady it by hiding my head in between my legs. I heard cars starting up and driving around. There were voices and one of the cars left, while the others were still running close to me. One moved up the driveway to the right of me and the other was still humming in front of me.

“Yo, Jack, are you going to be ok?” A voice called out; a voice that I had heard before.

Footsteps came hurrying but stopped a couple of feet away from me. “Yep, everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“One day I will find out what happened. You can hide it for now, but not forever.”

The car disappeared and I felt Jack’s arms wrapped around me before I was hoisted up into the air. My head was still disoriented and the only thing that helped was closing my eyes.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Jack cooed.

----

I had had another seizure, but luckily I was safely in Jack’s home. When I had ‘woken up’ Jack was there with me and made sure I felt protected and secure. The only problem now was that Jack wouldn’t leave me out of his eyesight. He was terrified that something would happen to me. I assured him it was highly unlikely for me to have another one so soon, but he replied by arguing that it was only highly unlikely and so still possible. All I could think about was how badly I agreed to what Jack had said in the car. I really wanted to take a shower.

“Jack,” I caught his attention from the movie he had put on, “can I please take a shower?”

“Yeah, sure.” He took my hand and led me into his bedroom before opening the door to his bathroom. I didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but it was definitely not what I had in mind.

“And I mean alone.”

“But--”

“I’ll keep the door unlocked and open. You can keep talking to me the entire time, but don’t look at me. If I suddenly stop talking, you can come in.”

Jack thought about it for a while before nodding. “Why are you so uncomfortable with showing me your body?”

“I’m uncomfortable with showing anybody my body, remember?” I corrected him. “Now, can you give me something to sleep in, because this is way too uncomfortable.”

Jack took out the same shirt that I had worn the same time I had stayed the night here, and also pulled out a pair of his boxers for me to wear as well. I thanked him and went to go into his bathroom, but he turned me back around and lifted my chin. Jack slowly leaned forward and moved his lips against mine in a slow pace. It was short and sweet, yet full of passion; it could still go in any direction, and I decided which one I wanted it to go.

“You chose the wrong girl to have a one night stand with.” I pulled away and smirked.

“Darn it, I only wanted to be your friend so we could have sex,” Jack joked along.

“Well, that’s too bad, loverboy. Now turn around so I can shower.”

Jack pouted and tried to do puppy dog eyes, but it wasn’t going to work even though it was very cute. I shook my head and trod into the bathroom. He playfully groaned and huffed, “fine. One day I’ll see you naked though.”

“Maybe one day, but today is not the day.” I checked one last time if Jack wasn’t looking. He was sitting on the bed with his back towards me and I started undressing.

Jack and I talked the entirety of my shower. It was mainly me telling him about all the things I had seen while I was in my super short coma, except for the last part which woke me up. I described the mountain range I had often seen from a beautiful lake. Ice was cracking on the chilly water and the sharp gray rocks had a thin layer of snow on them. I had never been cold in the scene while it was common sense that I would have been in real life.

When it was Jack’s turn to shower, he immediately got undressed as he was walking past me and into the bathroom. I had seen him butt naked once again and he didn’t seem to mind. For some reason, I felt like it was going to happen a lot more. He really had no shame and now that we had kissed it was like an extra confidence boost. Jack really was a crazy guy, but I liked that about him. I guess I could use a bit more crazy in my life.