Hospital Beds and Memories

I walked out of my bedroom and into the living room. Today was the day. I was no longer upset about Jack, but rather shocked by the fact that my suspicions were confirmed. It was a fact that I had leukemia, it was no longer a theory my mom and I both had. For some reason I wasn’t afraid, but, like I had confessed before, I wasn’t afraid of death. I knew that I was going to die one day, it was inevitable, but now it was just going to come sooner than I had expected.

“I think I’m ready, I have everything packed,” I told my brother who was waiting for me.

“Are you sure? Let me check.” He walked into my room and searched through my duffel bag. “You are no way ready. This thing is half full! You’re lucky that I went out with mom and she insisted on buying you new clothes. I wasn’t going to give them to you yet, but there’s no way that what you’ve packed is enough. So, go get your toiletries ready while I’ll pack the rest of your clothes.”

I totally forgot I also had to bring toiletries. Luckily I had Cam here to help me. I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t even close to being prepared. Everything I could have forgotten, I forgot. But I had a good excuse, right? My memory was fucked up, so it was ok, or so I said to myself. I was actually just really stupid.

I went into my bathroom and took out a toiletry bag to put everything in. After having rummaged through all my drawers, I finally found everything I needed to bring along. This included my toothbrush and toothpaste, my usual makeup, makeup I only used for special events, a razor, some soap, and a plastic bag full of cans of dry shampoo.

Where was I going? To see Jack, of course.

Cameron didn’t know what caused me to change my mind about going, but he wasn’t stopping me. I had thought about it for a while and decided I really wanted to go. Did Jack know about this? Definitely not. Was I planning on telling him? Nope. But something told me that Jack was going to be waiting for me. If Abagail was telling me the truth, he wouldn’t just think I would give up on him and not show up. Jack wouldn’t forget about me promising to visit him.

When I came out of the bathroom, Cam was already gone and my bag was completely full. How the fuck did he do that? I managed to squeeze the bag of toiletries and the plastic bag full of dry shampoo into it, and barely zipped it up.

I quickly got changed out of my pajamas and into a batman sweater, some gray sweatpants, and some new gray Nikes my mom had gotten me not long ago. To make myself even more comfortable for the plane, I put on the new glasses I got a few weeks back after breaking my last ones when I had a seizure, and put my hair up in my preferred hairstyle: a messy bun.

I picked up the duffle bag and went out of my room. “Hey, Cam, where’s Taco?”

“I don’t know, probably sleeping on some chair at the dining table.” Cameron walked up to me and took my bag from me.

Oh, and Taco. Yes, I didn’t tell you guys about that yet. A couple of days after I was given the news, Cameron went out to get me a cat. Nope, I didn’t say that wrong. He got me a kitten. I was lying in bed when he came back and he just placed this cute little orange, black, and white kitten on my bed before walking out without saying a word. I was so confused, but he later explained why he decided to get me one. Somebody who he knew had a litter of kittens and Cameron had decided to get me one after I had my big fight with Jack. It was supposed to cheer me up. Now, the cat didn’t really have to cheer me up for the Jack situation, but it was nice to have a companion during this whole Leukemia thing.

“I still want to say goodbye to her.” I walked to what was her favorite chair. “I expect you take good care of her, ok?”

“Of course I will,” Cameron chuckled.

I found the kitten and stroked it over its head. It let out a high pitched meow.

“Goodbye, Taco. I’ll see you later,” I smiled.

----

Ok, so it was fucking late right now. My plane was supposed to leave at 11 am so I would be in Atlanta at 1 pm. But that didn’t happen. My flight was canceled for some reason, I couldn’t be transferred onto the next flight, then the flight I was put on had been delayed. It was 3 pm when I left. The worst of it all was that my phone had died at the beginning of it all and I couldn’t find anywhere to charge it. So I couldn’t call Jack or Cam. Nobody knew where I was. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic in Atlanta, so the taxi was able to bring me to the venue.

I got out and saw the long line already outside of the doors. Tons of teenage girls were chatting, singing, and some were even dancing. A lot of them had colored hair, but most of them were wearing All Time Low merch in some shape or form. I walked past the line and went straight to the security guard standing at a metal fence that was towering over me.

“Umm, I was told to give you this,” I got out my ID and something Jack had sent me to print out on the day I had bought the ticket.

I could hear some of the fans murmuring, asking themselves who I was. More stares were coming my way and I just wanted the security guard to hurry up with his checking over everything.

He got out his walkie talkie. “We have an Ireland Knight here. She has all the right documents, is she allowed in?”

A crackling voice sounded over the device, “Confirmed.”

“Here you go,” he gave me everything back and opened the gate, “the tour bus is right down there.”

I looked forward and saw the bus was just a couple of feet away. The stares of the fans kept following me. It was really starting to make me feel more uncomfortable by the second. To make myself feel more like I knew where I was going, I tried to put back the papers and my ID in my bag, but something caught my attention. There was a weird scream and I saw a figure running out of the bus and running towards me. The fans behind me started fangirling and screaming as well. It was Jack.

He didn’t slow down and grabbed my face to start kissing me as soon as he was close enough. Before I could even think about what was going on, his lips were on mine and I was kissing him back. Well, that was until I realized that he still broke my heart. I pulled away and slapped him across his face.

“Ouch,” Jack groaned, but didn’t let go of me, “I deserved that.”

I grinned at him and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him down to meet his lips again. He let his hands go down to my waist and pulled my closer. My bag had long already been put on the floor, so there was nothing obstructing us. I didn’t care about the fans that could maybe see what was going down. This was just between me and Jack. He broke the kiss and threw me over his shoulder, taking my bag on his other shoulder.

“Jack, put me down!” I whined and hit his back

“Nope.” He started walking towards the bus and opened the door to walk up the steps.

“Jack, I’m going to hit my head!”

But he just kept going until we were on the bus. I couldn’t see anything but Jack’s feet. This was such a splendid view.

I felt the blood rushing to my head, slowly suffocating me. “Can’t breathe.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t put you down,” Jack laughed and swayed me around, “not without hurting you.”

“Please, put me down!”

“I can’t!”

“I swear to god, I will kick you in the nuts if you don’t put me down now.”

“You won’t do that.”

Instead of answering I kicked him right in the balls. He dropped me, making me flip over his shoulder and hit the floor with a loud thump. I groaned and turned onto my back to see Jack bending over and holding his crotch in pain. The impact of the fall was definitely going to make me bruise; if me walking into the door very lightly got me to bruise, this was going to be a whole lot worse. I looked up and saw two guys sitting on the couch on the side, staring down at me. Well, this was awkward. Like I wasn’t shy enough already when meeting new people.

“I think I might have broken a couple of my bones,” I grunted and started to slowly get up.

“I think you might have broken my dick!” Jack exclaimed, still clutching where I had hit him.

I fully stood up and patted him on the shoulder in mock sympathy. “That’s your problem, not mine.”

He finally stood up straight and walked weirdly to sit down next to one of his friends, “I don’t think I can play tonight. Just tell the fans my girlfriend broke my dick,” he thought about what he had said for a couple of seconds, “let them interpret it how they want.”

Just like with Jack’s parents, I was still awkwardly standing and watching what was going on around me. Couldn’t I just hide away and not meet these people? They were giving me weird looks. And this was one two of them, there was still supposed to be one more, if you didn’t count the crew. According to what Jack had told me, the two guys here were Rian and Alex. Zack was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, umm, right,” Jack looked between me and the two guys, “this is Ireland. Ireland, this is Rian and Alex.”

Alex squinted at me before getting up. “I still don’t believe you have a girlfriend, it’s just impossible.”

I glared at him and nodded, this was the guy that I always heard in the background telling Jack that I wasn’t real. “You’re right. I’m just a prostitute he hired to come here. It’s not like I’ve had to put up with this guy for months. I’m earning pretty good money.”

“I really don’t know if you’re lying or telling me the truth. Jack is literally capable of everything.”

“Of course I’m lying. Do I look like a prostitute? Wait, no... Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

Jack tugged on my hand and pulled me onto his lap. He rested his head between my shoulder blades and wrapped his arms tightly around me. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Yeah...” I trailed his arms and hands with my fingers before shifting a bit. “I’m sorry for being very late, by the way, my flight got canceled and my phone died so I couldn’t contact anyone.”

Rian spoke up, “we weren’t sure you were coming anymore, but Jack insisted you were. Oh, and you can charge your phone over there.” He held his hand out for me to give him my phone and plugged it into the charger.

“I feel like we should do this like a job interview,” Alex suggested, “we ask questions and you answer. That way we will get to know you and see if Jack’s good enough for you.”

Jack took me off of his lap and placed me on the couch next to him. “But first you need to take your medication.”

I nodded, but froze before I could stand up. “Shit. I left it at home.”

“What! Are you going to be ok without it?”

“Probably not.”

“It’s not like she will die without it, right?” Alex joked.

I glared at him, he didn’t know, but still. “Anything can happen, you never know.”

Alex stopped laughing and gave me a serious look. It was like he was expecting me to laugh and say it was all a joke. But it was not. Maybe I was going to be fine, but I could also start having a ton of seizures.

“I think I might have some.” Jack walked toward the bunks and came back with a bottle of pills.

I took it from him and looked at him weirdly. “You know having these is illegal, right? I have a permit, but you don’t.”

He shrugged and gave me a bottle of water before sitting down. “I still have them from when I was given them at the hospital. You forgot to take these home. I guess they fell into my suitcase, I found them a couple of days ago.”

I popped the required dosage in my mouth and gulp some water down to chase them. “I forgot to take them this morning, shit. If I die, you know why.”

“You’ll be fine.”

I looked up at Rian and Alex. “So, are you going to ask me some questions or what?”