Hospital Beds and Memories

I was standing in front of the house that was so familiar to me, having just rung the doorbell. Jack was standing to my right. In case you were wondering, today was the day I got to babysit Emily again. But for some reason, Jack insisted on coming with me. My brother was going along with John and his wife, and Jack was afraid something would happen to me. I hadn’t had a seizure for two days, so I didn’t know why he worried so much. The new medication seemed to be working.

The door opened and John let us in. I forgot to mention to him that Jack was coming as well, but then again I didn’t know about it either until I was just getting ready to leave. John was looking at us with a questioning look, but didn’t say anything. I was going to have to explain this, but even I didn’t understand why Jack wouldn’t let me go alone.

I sighed. “Jack’s too afraid to let me go anywhere alone, don’t mind him. I also don’t know why he followed me here.”

“Excuse me,” Jack argued, “you might have a seizure. I don’t think a three-year-old will know what to do.”

I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t had a seizure in two days, I’ll be fine.”

“Exactly, two days, that’s been long already, you never know what will happen!”

“I’m not arguing with you about this." I turned back to John. "So where’s Trisha and Emily?”

“Umm, Trisha is almost ready to go, and Emily is--” he was cut off by the small black-haired girl running up to us from the living room. She yelled out my name and I picked her up.

I grinned down at her excited face. ‘Hey, you’ve grown so big already! How old are you now?”

She clumsily showed three fingers. “Three!”

“Wow! Already! You’re so grown up already!”

She giggled as I put her down, and held my hand before starting to drag me along. “I got new pens for my birthday.”

Just before we went around the corner, I saw Trisha walking down the stairs, so I called out. “Hey Trisha! I’ll see you later!”

“I see Emily’s already taken you, have fun!” Trisha shouted back.

Emily and I entered the large living room. It was pretty obvious that John and his wife were a lot better off than me and Cameron, but that was probably because John had actually gone to university and managed to get a job and Trisha also had a good part time job. They were 4 years older than us, so John had just finished school when the band started. Cameron, on the other hand, was always in bands and didn’t even plan on going to college. Lucky for him, the band was doing pretty well... until they broke up. But now there was a big chance they were getting back together, with a different drummer and guitarist, that is.

Emily led me to the low table with all her drawing equipment. She immediately started explaining everything to me, from colors to how to use felt-tip pens. Of course I already knew everything, but I acted interested and ask her some really obvious questions. She looks so happy to know more than I did.

A couple of minutes later I heard the front door open and close, and Jack walked in. He took a seat on the tiny chair next to me. Emily looked up from the drawing she was working on and stared at Jack without much emotion.

Jack shifted a bit uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “I’m Jack, I’m a good friend of Ireland. You’re Emily, right?”

Emily kept staring at him and didn’t say anything. She only nodded slightly and looked really shy. I decided to make her a bit less uncomfortable. “You were showing me how to use these markers, I’m pretty sure Jack is interested in them as well. He only knows how to write his name with a black one.”

“That’s silly,” she giggled.

“Hey, some people really like it, ok?” Jack chuckled at Emily. “But Ireland is right, I do want to know, these things you’ve drawn are really pretty. I want to draw like that.”

“Here.” She handed him a handful of markers and a piece of paper, just like she had done with me a couple of minutes prior.

Soon we were all drawing in quiet. Emily was drawing her own thing, I was working on writing Emily’s name graffiti style, and I had no clue what Jack was doing, but he seemed pretty concentrated. He had his tongue stuck out and everything. It was actually pretty cute, if I say so myself.

“Hey, Ireland, look, I drew you,” Jack whispered to me. I finished coloring in the shape before looking up at Jack. He had drawn a stick figure with boobs, of course he would draw that. Why wouldn’t he?

I grabbed it out of his hands and crumpled it up. “Jack!”

“That was my masterpiece!”

“No!” I stuffed in my pocket to throw away later.

“What did he draw?” Emily asked innocently but also curiously.

“Nothing,” I said and hit Jack. He hit me back and cowered away, causing me to hit him again. We ended up having a cat fight and Emily laughed at us. Eventually we stopped, but only after having realized it was going nowhere.

“So, Emily, what did you draw?” Jack asked.

She held up her drawing after quickly finishing. I could make out she had tried to draw me, Jack, and her. It was always so cute and funny seeing children trying to draw people, but many adults couldn’t do much better either. But kids had a good excuse, adults didn’t. There was only one thing about it that seemed off.

“My hair isn’t red and black,” Jack laughed, “it’s white and black.”

“But you can’t draw with white on white!” Emily explained in a childlike manner, “and I think this looks really cool!”

“It does look really cool,” I agreed. “Jack, we should dye your hair so it matches the drawing.”

“No way,” Jack shook his head.

“Come on. We still have so much time! You can always bleach it again. All we have to do it go to a store and buy some red hair dye.”

“No.”

“Please!” Emily and I said at the same time. I even used the puppy dog eyes, I knew it would convince Jack.

“Ugh, fine. But only because you’re looking at me like that. You are paying if I have to bleach it again, though, ok?” Jack compromised.

“Ok,” I nodded with excitement, “but I promise you’ll like it. It will look really good.”

“So we’re going on a shopping trip,” he said with fake excitement.

“Can we go to the park playground as well?” Emily asked.

“Umm, depend on how late it is,” I told her.

“It’s 4:30 right now.” Jack read from his phone.

“We still have time then.”

----

Emily and I were playing catch for a while until I decided to sit with Jack on the bench and Emily went to play with other kids at the park. I was completely out of breath, and I didn’t even run that much. What was wrong with me? I really needed to start working out again. Jogging had never made me this out of breath.

Jack gave me a fake judging look. “Out of breath already?”

I nodded and leaned against him. “Yeah… I don’t know…. why. I should.... start… running… again… in my free time.

“Is it really that bad?”

I took a couple of more heavy breaths. “Yes, but it was worth it. Emily had fun.”

“Yeah.” Jack gave me a loving look, but suddenly his eyes bulged out. He grabbed my arm, which you could see because I had taken off my jacket before I had started running. “Oh my god, did I do this.”

I looked down at the big bruise that had formed, and frowned, “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it before.”

“It probably happened when we were ‘fighting’.”

“You think so? You weren’t hitting me that hard and I don’t remember hitting my arm against anything that should leave a bruise like this.”

“Are you anemic?” Jack asked seriously.

“I don’t know… I don’t think so… They probably tested me, though, right? They basically tested me for everything. I’ll find out when I get my results. This never happened to me before, so I don’t think it can be that.” I was talking a bit too fast. But there was a reason for it: the thing that was going on when I was six years old. Why didn’t I think of it before? No. It couldn’t be. It had been 17, nearly 18 years. There was no way it came back; it couldn’t even be an option.

“Let’s just ignore it for now,” I suggested and put on my jacket, “if it really was serious, I think the doctors would have informed me by now.”

“You think?” Jack asked skeptically.

“Yeah.” I nodded, but it was more like I was trying to reassure myself than Jack.

“Ok, then, umm,” Jack tried changing the subject, “you really are good with kids. Are you sure you never want to have any of your own?”

I laughed, “yeah. I’m still pretty sure. I won’t ever be a good mom and I just don’t feel like ever having kids. It will be too much work and I won’t be able to do much anymore. Plus, the thought of a human being growing inside of me is terrifying.”

“Ok, fair, so you’ll just be stalking other people’s kids instead?”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Yes, Jack, I’ll be doing that instead. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “Alex always talks about how he’ll have kids one day, which will be awesome, but I’m not sure if I want that as well. I mean, I’m still pretty childish myself, there’s no way I can take care of a tiny creature. But then there’s also my brother and sister thinking of having kids, and those babies would be so cute, but I don’t think I can handle it. Right now we tour so much, it will almost be impossible. If I have kids I actually also want to be there for them. I guess I’ll just go with whatever my girlfriend/fiancee/wife wants.”

“Well, right now you’re with me, and I say no kids. So you don’t have to worry about that.”

“One day, I might, though.”

“Maybe… I can’t believe we had the ‘kids talk’ before we even had sex. Our relationship isn’t really happening in chronological order.”

“Hmm, right, let’s talk about marriage, then. Would you ever want to get married?”

“To you?” I questioned.

“In general,” Jack said simply and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“I’m going to say no to that as well. I don’t really get the concept of marriage. You sign some paper, you have a party, you wear rings, and that’s it. Why does that need to prove that you love somebody? You could spend your life together without doing that. But then we get to the part of spending the rest of your life together with another person. It’s another thing that just scares me. It’s such a weird thing. But, hey, I said I would never have a boyfriend, and look where I am now.”

“I think I might want to get married sometime,” Jack explained his opinion, “I don’t know if I ever will, though. It’s another thing I don’t know the answer to until later in the future. I don’t think anybody would ever want to get married to me,” he laughed.

“Maybe I will get married to you someday,” I looked up at him.

“No, you won’t,” he retorted.

“Yeah, you’re right, I probably won’t.”

Jack leaned down and pressed his lips against mine, but before anything could happen, a small voice appeared. “Ewwww!”

We broke apart and looked at Emily who was standing in front of us. She had scrunched up her face and covered her eyes, but was peaking through the gaps between her fingers. “You are just like mommy and daddy! They also always do that!”

“Oh, really?” I asked her.

She nodded and climbed onto my lap. “Sometimes in bed as well.”

Jack and I gave each other a look. This could either be something innocent, or the thing we were both thinking. Let’s just hope it wasn’t the latter.

Jack, once again, managed to change the subject. “How about we go back, I’m sure you’re hungry.”

Emily nodded and we all stood up, but Jack got another idea. “Do you want to sit on my shoulders?”

She giggled and I helped Jack get her up.

“Hold on tight,” Jack shouted before running away.

I decided it would be better if I didn’t go running; I was already feeling lightheaded I did not need to faint today. Maybe it was a good idea for Jack to come along. I did not know whether I was going to be ok or not.

----

After having some mac and cheese, we put a chair in the upstairs bathroom and made Jack sit in it. There was no way he was going to get out of this. He was going to dye his hair, whether he liked it or not; he wasn’t getting a choice. I looked around for an old towel I could use and got all the stuff ready. Emily and I poured all the contents into a plastic bowl.

“You don’t want to get this on yourself, ok?” I told Emily, “it won’t come off if you do.”

“That stuff’s scary!” Emily backed away and tried getting onto Jack’s lap. He helped her up and she fidgeted around.

“Are you sure you know how to do this?” Jack double checked with terrified eyes.

“Yes, I promise you I know. I have a brother who used to be a punk kid, I’ve done it countless of times. He couldn’t dye his hair himself!” I laughed and put on the gloves before making my way over to him with the dark red creamy substance.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Jack, stop freaking out. I’m only doing the white streak, you can always bleach it if you hate it.”

“But baby!”

“She’s not a baby!” Emily squealed.

“Exactly.” I gave Jack a playful look. “Emily, distract him so he’ll stop talking.”

Emily slapped her hands against his cheeks and squashed them together. “You have a big nose.”

“He does, doesn’t he?”

“Hey!” Jack exclaimed, but it was muffled because he couldn’t move his mouth. “I love my nose! Why do you guys keep making fun of me!”

“‘cause it’s funny,” Emily giggled.

I started smearing the hair dye on Jack’s hair with the brush; I actually managed to do it without getting it in his black hair. To say I was proud of myself was an understatement. Yes, I lied to Jack about knowing how to do it exactly. I had done it often, but Cameron only dyed his hair a couple of times before we were 16. After that he died his hair nearly every month or even before. I guess I still had skills, but didn’t know about them.

We waited for the time that was on the box before Jack washed it out. What was once blonde was now blood red, and, god, did it look sexy. It actually turned me on, and nothing ever turned me on, or at least not like this.

“I actually like it.” Jack turned to me.

I ran my fingers through his hair and bit my lip. “I do too.”

He noticed the small gesture and raised his eyebrows, “Oh, so it has that effect on you.”

“Just wait ‘til it turns pink, I won’t be able to keep my hands off of you.”

“I don’t think I'd mind that.”

Jack took a couple of pictures with his Snapchat before asking to take a picture with Emily and me for twitter. I covered my face with my hair, so nobody would be able to recognize me. Why didn’t I want anybody to recognize me? Well, I didn’t like having photo’s taken of me, I liked being the one taking the photograph. And, I just didn’t want Jack’s fans recognizing me yet, I first wanted to meet his friends. In case you were wondering, the fans who found me on twitter also didn’t know what I looked like. I had never posted a picture of myself; my profile picture wasn’t even a picture of me!

Emily and I both kissed one of his cheeks and Jack took the photo before posting it on twitter.

Since it was already 7:30 pm, we decided to put Emily in bed. We had tired her out enough; John had told Jack that she could be a spaz and say up until 9 pm if she wanted to. So we did something right. She fell asleep almost instantly.

Jack and I went back downstairs and turned on the TV before cuddling up on the couch. He was lying against the backrest and he had pulled me against his chest. Luckily this couch was big enough for two people to lie on next to each other, so I wasn’t afraid to fall off, especially with the grip Jack had around me.

He propped himself up on an elbow and I looked up at him before running my fingers through his freshly dyed hair again. “The red really makes you look hot.”

“Good.” He smirked.

“If it weren’t for the fact that I was a virgin and that it would be really weird and rude, I would totally fuck you on this couch right now.”

“We’re not going to do anything until you are ready.”

“Hmm, I love you.” I smiled.

“I love you too.” Jack quickly pecked my lips before we both started watching TV.

I started drifting off even though It was still so early. Playing with a three-year-old really was trying, I had no clue how parents were able to do it every single day. Another reason to never have kids: exhaustion. But I was only 23, I still had a long time to change my mind, which would probably never happen. Jack kept on placing soft kisses on the top of my head, and I was asleep in no time.

---

When I woke up Jack was nowhere to be seen. Somehow he had managed to leave without waking me up, a skill I had yet to master. Maybe he had just gone to the bathroom or gotten something to drink, but after 5 minutes I started becoming skeptical. I got up from my position and started looking around the house. He was nowhere on this floor; not the study, kitchen, dining room, nor the pantry.

I went up the stairs instead and found Emily’s bedroom door open, so I peeked in. Jack was seated on the edge of the bed and was talking to Emily, who sounded like she had been crying. I leaned against the doorpost and watched them interact. He made sure she was feeling ok and made her laugh before even reading her a bedtime story.

Jack was definitely going to be a good father someday. The girl he was going to have children with was going to be very lucky.