Hospital Beds and Memories

Jack and I were standing outside of the cafe. I hadn’t been there before, but it looked like a really nice place. There were already traces of coffee aroma outside and the atmosphere inside seemed comfortable and warm.

“They’re already inside, I can see them,” Jack looked through the large window as we walked past it, “I’m actually nervous.”

“If you’re nervous, how am I supposed to feel?” I chuckled and held Jack’s hand tighter. “They’re your parents, you know them, I don’t”

“It will be fine, I promise.” He kissed my forehead before opening the door. “You look really hot by the way.”

“Well thank you, I actually sort of tried.”

Jack lead me to the table. There was an older couple sitting next to each other on one end of the table. They looked older than my parents, but then again Jack had a much older brother and sister, and my parents had Cam and me when they were pretty young. My mom was 27 when Cam and I were born. I didn’t plan on having kids, but if I did I would wait until my mid-thirties. Luckily there was nothing to worry about, I still had at least 10 years.

The man and woman stood up and both gave Jack a hug. I just stood there awkwardly; I wasn’t good at meeting people. They exchanged some short words before all the attention was on me. I really did not know what to do. Like I had told Jack long ago, one thing I wanted to change about myself was how shy I was.

Fortunately, Jack spoke up, “so, this is the person I wanted you guys to meet. This is Ireland, my girlfriend. Ireland, these are my parents.”

“Hi.” I timidly waved.

“Before you start calling us Mr. and Mrs. Barakat, please call me Joyce, and this is Bassam,” Jack’s mom smiled and pointed and the man. She then looked at Jack. "You never told us you had a girlfriend.”

“That’s because we have only been together for just under two months and I’ve been on tour for half of that time,” Jack explained, “but I’ve brought her here to meet you now.”

“Well, why don’t we take a seat?”

Jack sat opposite of his father and I went to sit opposite of Joyce but Jack stopped me. “I would like to appreciate how beautiful she looks now. Normally she wears sweatpants and sweatshirts, so it’s a nice change.”

“I do not!” I exclaimed and sat down.

“Yes, you do.”

“Only because I’m either at the hospital, just gotten out of the hospital, or because it’s the day after I had to stay at the hospital. So far I have not had to be admitted, so I thought I would take my chance and actually wear something normal for once.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.”

“Good.”

There was some silence and Jack’s mom smiled between me and Jack before asking me a question, “so, Ireland, tell us a bit about yourself.”

“Sure, what do you want to know? There’s not much to know about me. I can tell you my age, which is 23, I have a twin brother, umm, yeah, I’m not that interesting,” I explained and pushed some hair behind my ear.

“She’s lying!” Jack interrupted. “She’s really awesome and interesting.”

I rolled my eyes, “Not really.”

“There’s so much stuff, though. First of all, she’s amazing at photography, my profile picture on twitter is a photo she took when we just met each other. She nearly fell into a river to take it. And she dances. Like, seriously, it looks awesome. I saw her give lessons once.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t dance as much anymore. I only get to once a week because my doctor told me to cut back. I also rarely get the chance to go out and take photos; I can’t drive anywhere anymore and I’m too busy going in and out of the hospital.”

I looked up at Jack’s parents and saw they were pretty confused with a hint of worry. They were probably wondering what I meant when I said I was always at the hospital, but they didn’t want to be rude and ask. I didn’t mind them knowing, though. If I was planning on being with Jack, his parents should also know.

“I’m sorry,” I chuckled, “I forgot you don’t know what’s wrong with me. Well, neither do I. I can tell you what I know, though. I got in a car crash and 21 years old, the doctors said I was going to die, but my parents held on and kept me going for a year until I finally woke up from my coma. The only problem was, I didn’t know I was 22 already, I thought I was 16 because I’m missing a chunk of my memory, but Jack here has somehow been helping me remember stuff. So, then a couple of weeks ago I had a life threatening seizure out of the blue. Since then, they have been doing tests on me. Yesterday I came out of the hospital again because two days ago I had a terrible nosebleed. They don’t have all my results yet, and nobody knows what's wrong with me so far. And that’s basically my life story.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bassam gave me a sympathetic smile.

“It’s ok. I’m used to it, I think it’s harder on Jack than it is on me. He doesn’t really know what to do.”

“I’m getting better at it, though!” Jack argued, “I know how to deal with your seizures and I know some sign language!”

“You do? Already?”

“Well, just one thing…” He proceeded to sign ‘how are you?’

“Pretty impressive... “ I signed back my answer ‘OK, and you?’

“I still have a long way to go.”

“You should know ‘ok’, it will be pretty important. Only knowing the question isn’t that useful.”

“Ugh, I’ll just ask your brother to help me out sometime. He knows the most common things.”

Exactly after Jack said ‘my brother’, my phone started ringing. And of course, coincidentally it was my brother. But then again, who else would actually call me? I didn’t have any friends. Jack and Cameron were literally the only ones that would contact me.

“I’m sorry, it’s my brother, there isn’t any reason for him to call me, so I’m going to answer in case it’s an emergency,” I said before I picked up the phone.

“It’s ok, go ahead.” Joyce smiled at me.

“Hey, Field?” my brother's voice came from the other end, “I’m at home right now. And I was wondering how to work the oven…”

“The oven? Why do you need that?” I furrowed my eyebrows.

“It’s an emergency, trust me.”

“Umm… Cam? You never need the oven, what the fuck are you trying to do? You will burn the place down.”

“Oh come on. I’ve gotta learn sometime. I don’t know how this thing works and it really is an emergency!”

“What is the emergency?”

“I’m trying to make a pizza.”

“So, you’re calling me to tell me you’re having an emergency. And your emergency is that you can’t figure out how to turn on the oven to make a pizza.”

“Exactly! Help me here, Field! I don’t know what all these weird symbols mean!”

“Oh my god,” I groaned. “Ok, send me a picture of the box and of the oven. I’ll circle exactly which settings you need to put it on.”

“Thank you! You’re amazing! You literally saved my life!”

“Yes, ok, glad I could make sure you’d live for another day. I’ve got to go now.”

I hung up before he could say anything back. Cam really was the weirdest person alive. I just didn’t want him to burn anything, so I was going to help him. He sent me the picture and I quickly edited them so the right settings were circled in red. At least he was trying to learn new things.

“I am terrified to go back home now,’ I chuckled and out my phone away.

“What why?” Jack asked.

“Because Cam is trying to use the oven.”

“Oh god no. He’s going to burn the building down!”

“That’s what I said!”

Jack turned to his parents. “She lives with her brother. He used to look after her, but he then lost his job and it was Ireland’s turn to care for him. Let’s just say he was pretty lazy, but now that Isle is having problems again, he’s trying to get back out and do things.”

“And some of them are pretty terrifying, like this one,” I added matter-of-factly, “my family is pretty weird.”

After that, we ordered some drinks and some food. Small talk was made the entire time and Jack’s parents got to know me while I also got to know them. They were actually very nice, not that I expected anything else; it wasn’t even like they were testing me to see if I was good enough for Jack. I guessed they trusted Jack and his own decisions, his love life wasn’t much of their business anyway.

Jack reached out to try to steal some of my food, but I hit his hand away. Using the trick I had learned at a young age, I quickly took a bite of his food without him noticing until I put it in my mouth. He gasped melodramatically, “you bastard!”

I shrugged. “It tastes pretty good.”

“How did you even--”

“I have a brother, I know the tricks. It’s survival of the fittest, you know.”

“I don’t think I can trust you anymore.”

“Sucks to be you.” I stole more of his food and grinned while I was eating it.

“Stop stealing my food!” He whined and tried taking a bite from mine again. This time I actually allowed him, I wasn’t actually against him eating my food. You know what I mean? But Jack actually looked pretty satisfied when he was able to get some of my food without me hitting him.

We finished off our food and Jack paid the bill. I insisted on paying some of it, but Jack refused. He even told his dad to keep his wallet in his pocket and not even try. Jack’s reason was that there were probably going to be many other times for us to pay. I didn’t mind if that was actually true, I liked Jack’s parents and being around them was pretty fun.

“How about we go for a walk in the park down the road?” Bassam suggested.

Jack shrugged and looked at me for an answer. I put my hands up. “Don’t look at me. I have nothing to do, so I don’t mind.”

“A walk it is then.” Joyce smiled and put on her jacket.

I picked up my bag and followed everybody out. As soon as we started our walk, Jack took hold of my hand and brought me closer. I happily intertwined my fingers with his so our grip was tighter and inseparable. Jack’s father started walking beside me.

“So, Ireland, what’s your family like?” He asked.

I looked at him and pretended to think. “Well, my brother is really weird. He used to be in a band, actually, but they broke up. And my parents are really amazing. My mom and I are pretty close, have been my entire life. My dad is rarely at home, but I still see him every chance I get. His job requires him to travel a lot. But I guess it will only help me when Jack is gone for long tours,” I looked at Jack, “which reminds me, when are you leaving again?”

Jack seemed to be counting in his head, “in six days, for two months.”

“Oh, that’s not that long. I can survive two months. But, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to come visit you this time.”

“What! Really?”

“Yeah, I checked up with Val, and she told me I needed to be two and a half weeks clear of seizures. So far it’s not going well, but when this medication kicks in, it might work out.”

Jack knocked on my head. “Ok, brain, so here’s the deal. You don’t mess with her, and we will be cool, ok?”

We were walking down a long pathway with tall trees on either side, their branches were hanging above us, their leaves barely starting to grow. It was only March, so there wasn’t much exciting happening; trees weren’t blooming yet, and flowers hadn’t started growing, but soon it would happen and I would be able to take tons of beautiful pictures. Spring was always the best time of the year.

We walked past a pond and Jack pointed at the ducks. “Look, it’s your spirit animal!”

“Jack!” Joyce started scolding him, but I cut her off by running towards them.

I quickly took my bag from my back and took out some bread I had in it for some reason. To get on the same level as the ducks, I squatted and tried my best not to fall over and hurt myself. I broke off small pieces of the white bread and threw them into the crowd, watching as the ducks hurried towards the crumbs. When I had thrown about half of the bread, a shadow came from beside me. I looked up and saw it was a little girl, who looked 2 years old, and she was crying.

“Hey,” I tried calming her down, “are you lost?”

She nodded and wiped some of her tears away while still frantically crying.

“Do you know where your parents are?”

She shook her head, making her brown hair swoop.

“Oh. How about we wait here to see if they come? We can continue feeding the ducks. Do you want to try?”

Too shy to talk, she nodded and I told her to hold out her hand. I ripped off a piece and gave it to her. Together we made smaller pieces and laughed as the ducks got confused and didn’t know where to go anymore. Some even started fighting about one piece while another one was just a foot or so away.

I looked up and saw a man and woman looking around and panicking. “Hey, are those your mom and dad?”

The girl looked at where I was pointing and nodded. I couldn't get the attention of the couple, so I asked the girl if she was ok with me picking her up. Once again, the nodded and I walked the short journey to the opposite side of the lake. The mom saw us and looked so relieved.

She ran up to us. “Thank you so much! We looked away for a second and she disappeared. Thank you so so much.”

“It’s no problem, we were feeding the ducks until we found you.” I smiled and gave the child back to her mother. She wriggled around until her mother put her down, and ran towards her father.

“I really can’t thank you enough.”

“It really isn’t a problem. I’m just happy I found her instead of some creepy person.” I felt a tapping on my leg and I looked down to see it was the girl with a toy in her hand.

I squatted down to ask her what it was, and she handed it to me as if she wanted me to keep it. “You want me to have this?” I looked at the plastic horse I was given.

She timidly nodded and took out another horse, one that she was going to keep. I felt bad walking away without giving something back to her, so I rummaged through my bag and found a keychain with a plush duck attached to it. “Here, have this. It’s to remind you of the cute ducks and that you have to be careful while playing. You shouldn’t go too far away from your parents.”

Something twinkled in her eyes as she looked at it. It was like this gift was the best she ever received. She let out a small ‘thank you’ and hugged it close to her chest. I stood back up and told her I needed to get going after I saw Jack and his parents looking at me from where I was feeding the ducks. They thanked me again, and I went back to my boyfriend.

“Sorry about that,” I excused, “she was lost.”

“You handled it pretty well,” Jack looked impressed.

“How would you have handled it?”

“Not as well as that,” Joyce chuckled, “Jack knows what to do with his fans and with his nieces and nephews, but he does not how to deal with strangers’ kids.”

“Well, I got a plastic horse, so I must have done something right.” I showed them the brown miniature horse I was given.

“Are you actually going to keep it?” Jack asked as we started walking again.

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “I try to treasure any memory I can.”

----

After the walk, Jack and I said goodbye to his parents. They told us they would love to do something together again and Bassam even told Jack to make sure to care for me and not screw it up. I guessed they actually liked me. They didn’t even care about my health problems. It was like it was just another thing about me, not something that controlled me. I was afraid they wouldn’t have thought I was good enough for their son because my condition could get in the way. Nobody knew how serious it was, maybe I could drop dead in the next couple of seconds, but it could also have no effect whatsoever.

Jack had driven me back home and decided to come up. But when we got there, something unexpected happened. We opened the door to find another voice talking to my brother… A voice I recognized. Jack gave me a questioning look and I raised my shoulders. Neither of us knew what was going on.

We walked further into the apartment and found my brother talking to another man who had his back towards us. I took a couple of seconds to register what was going on before I finally knew who the person was. No fucking way. What was he doing here!

I let out a squeal, making him turn around, and ran up to him to give him a hug. “John! What are you doing here?”

He hugged me back tightly before letting me go. “I was here to talk to your brother, I was thinking of starting up the band again, I actually found a new lead guitar player and drummer. But he isn’t sure if he wants to start again.”

I glared at my brother, “Cam. No. You know you want to.”

“Maybe…” Cameron whistled.

“Exactly. You do. You’ve been playing the guitar again, and your voice is probably fine.”

“You sing?” Jack directed to Cameron from behind me. I totally forgot he was here.

I took this time to introduce Jack and John to each other. “Oh, yeah, right. Jack, this is John, John this is Jack.”

John stared at Jack with wide eyes, making Cam chuckle, “I had a similar reaction, but it’s a daily thing for me now.”

“Oh, umm, sorry,” John excused and looked away quickly.

“So, John, how’s everyone doing? How’s Emily?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Everything’s good. And Emily’s three years old now. She actually asked about you a couple of times, she misses you.”

“Aww, I miss her too! I want to see her again soon.”

“We actually need someone to babysit her the day after tomorrow, if you want you can do it.”

“Yes!” I might have said it a bit too quickly, but I was so eager to see the little girl. I always used to babysit her during hometown shows and over time we had grown really close. She was really fond of me and I enjoyed seeing her spaz around.

“Ok, that’s settled then. I’ll text you later after I’ve discussed it with Trisha.” He smiled. “I have to go now, or else she will get mad at me for not coming home before dinner.”

As soon as he left, Jack picked me up and ran towards my room. I laughed as I was hanging over his shoulder, the blood rushing to my head and my lungs barely filling with air. He closed my bedroom door and put me back on the floor, not allowing me any time before he grabbed my neck and started kissing me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the movement our lips made. His hand was still firmly holding me, but not tight enough to hurt me; it was supportive and loving. My fingers slithered up and played with his dark hair. Together we were becoming one.

We pulled apart to catch our breath and I stated, “bed?”

Jack nodded and followed me to my mattress. He got on top of me and connected our lips again. I let my hands glide over his chest before going up and resting them on his back and shoulder blades. Jack’s hands went to my legs and rested just above my knees; I didn’t think much of it yet. My heart was beating fast and adrenaline was pumping through me. I couldn’t resist biting my lip as Jack started trailing kisses down my jawline and onto my neck. But when his hands started wandering up to my thighs, underneath my skirt, I started becoming more uncomfortable. He kept going until his hands reached the waistband of my panties and his fingers hooked onto it. I tried stopping him, but it came out as a moan instead. He started tugging on my panties, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jack,” I managed to say this time and moved his hands away.

He stopped, froze, and then broke apart before looking at me with concerned eyes. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I got so into it, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so sorry.”

“Jack, it’s ok.” I tried calming him down.

“No, you told me before that you don’t have any memory of doing it, I shouldn’t have just gone for it.”

This was it; this was my chance to tell him. It would only be awkward if I brought it up another time. “I’m still a virgin.”

“What?”

“I’m still a virgin, haven’t had sexual intercourse, didn’t ever do anything sexual with someone else, I don’t know, how else do you want me to explain? I understand if you’re uncomfortable with that.”

“No, it’s not that. Just, how do you know?”

“I asked Cameron, we always tell each other everything. I know the entire story of how he lost his virginity, and I’m scarred for life because of it.”

“So you can’t remember simple things, but you can remember that?”

“Well, it was when we were 14, of course I remember that.”

“He was 14!”

“Yeah, and he regretted it, so he got me to wait. When did you lose your virginity?”

“Umm, that doesn’t matter,” he tried distracting me by pecking me on the lips.

I giggled, “that early?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack urged and grinned down at me.

“I bet all the teenage girls in your school really wanted the guy who was in a band.”

“Yeah, everybody really wanted Alex…”

I hit his chest lightly. “You know what I mean!”

“Yeah. The weird thing is there are still tons of teenage girls that want me.”

“Oh, competition,” I joked.

“Never,” Jack shook his head, “you’re the only one I want.”

“You’re the only one I want.” I smiled back shyly.