Status: Completed! Sequel up soon

Hospital Beds and Memories

My Weird and Amazing Family

Jack and I had hung out a couple of times after the awkward bed situation. To be honest, I didn't even think Jack really thought about it a lot, but I did, I definitely did. Why? I don’t know. It was probably that the situation was a situation that was a lot more embarrassing and cringeworthy for the person rather than the other people involved. Do you know what I mean? Like somebody would remind you of something embarrassing they did around you, but you couldn’t even remember, or you just didn’t care. Something like that? No? Still don’t get it? Oh well, I do, I guess that’s all that matters.

This time Jack decided it would be a good idea to go have some lunch at a diner downtown. Of course, I didn’t say no. It was food for god’s sake! I mean, who doesn’t like food? Well, there a definitely people that don’t really like food, or don’t like it at all, but that’s not my point. It was always fun with Jack, especially when there was food involved. This actually made me think about when he would be going on tour again. He had told me that he tours most of the year and sometimes gets breaks, but he’d been here pretty long. He was bound to go on tour soon, right?

I turned the corner to the diner and saw Jack waiting outside for me. He wasn’t paying attention and was only looking at his phone, so I ran up and jumped on him. He let out the highest-pitched scream I had ever heard and he flinched away from me. I giggled at his reaction and teased him about it. He pouted at me and grumbled about getting me back, before pinching both of my sides. I let out a squeal (not as high-pitched as Jack’s, though) and hit him a couple times on his chest.

“No stop! You’re going to make me bruise!” Jack whined.

“Should have thought about the before,” I chuckled, “Plus, I wasn’t hitting you hard.”

“Hitting on me hard?” Jack nudged

“Jack, stop wanting to hear things I didn’t even say!”

Jack frowned in a joking way. I noticed somebody coming towards us and I nudged him.

“If anybody is hitting on you, it’s her,” I pointed at the, what looked like, 16-year-old girl that was wearing a shirt with ALL TIME LOW printed on it in clear white letters.

Jack looked over and grinned at her. The girl took this as a sign for her to be allowed to come over. She looked really excited, and when I say really excited I mean eyes wide and slightly jumpy. I watched her talk to Jack about random things about the band and him. She then asked for a photo.

“Would you like me to take it?” I asked.

She nodded and handed me her phone. I took a couple of pictures of them standing normally and smiling.

“Come on guys,” I exclaimed, “At least make a funny face!”

----

After taking a couple of pictures for the girl and having to explain that we were, in fact, not dating, we finally entered the diner. It looked like your classical old school diner: checkered black and white tiles, blue circular bar stools that were evenly spaced along along a bar that had a rim of the same tiles on the floor, and, of course, the red booths with white tables placed so everybody seated at the table could look outside. The place was oddly familiar, but I couldn’t quite wrap my finger around what it made it that way.

Jack and I slid into a booth so we were sitting opposite each other and made small talk. All was going well until a waitress walked up to us. She had bleach blonde hair that looked fried and coarse, way too many layers of makeup (especially lipstick, the red on her lips looked unnatural, but then again everything about her was fake), and was wearing a uniform that was obviously too small for her. Her boobs were spilling out of the dress and her butt nearly stuck out from the bottom, the 5-inch red heels not helping much either. As she neared I saw she was chewing gum, just like she always did.

“Shit,” I mumbled and tried hiding my face in my arms that were crossed on the table, but I was too late. She had recognized me, and what made it even worse was that she was going to be serving us.

She kept on disgustingly chewing her gum and twirled her hair around a finger after handing us the menus. “Ugh, it’s you again. How’s your brother doing?”

“Umm, he’s fine actually--”

“He’s still upset about our break up? Awww, well tell him I don’t ever want to get back together. I’m so much better off without him.”

“I never said--”

“Well, I’ll come back when you made your choice or some shit.” She went to leave, but suddenly saw Jack as if he wasn’t sitting there before, “Is this your boyfriend or something? I never thought you would be able to find someone, let alone someone like that.”

Before either Jack or I could correct her, she turned away back towards the bar, making sure to sway her hips in the process. I groaned and slammed my head against the table. People turned to look at what caused the loud slamming noise, but looked away when they saw it was just somebody nearly getting a concussion.

“Ok, so…” Jack whistled.

“That’s Brandylynn, she used to be my brother’s girlfriend, if you can’t tell. They dated for 5 months for some apparent reason. She broke up with him 2 months after I moved in with him. I guess she always hoped I would just stay for a couple of days. She’s always been a bitch. Like who the fuck is actually called Brandylynn!” I ranted with elaborate hand gestures.

“Well… she is. But she is definitely a bitch. Didn’t you know she worked here?”

“Of course I knew, but I forgot.”

“Memory thing?”

“No, the she’s-a-bitch-and-I-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-her-so-I-don’t-remember thing.”

“Ahh, that makes sense. We better choose what we want though, she coming back. Don’t want to anger the wicked witch of the west.”

I laughed and quickly looked through and decided, just before she stopped in front of our table.

“Ok, so expect to you have chosen, otherwise you better hurry up, I’m not coming back,” she said lazily through the chewing of her gum.

“I’ll just have spaghetti with meatballs,” Jack stated.

“And I’ll have the cheeseburger,” I smiled.

She looked me up at down through her eyelashes, “Are you sure you don’t want a salad? I would suggest it.”

“No, I’m fine with the cheeseburger, thanks.”

She ignored me and turned to Jack instead. “You know she has problems, right? She should probably be in a mental institute.”

Jack raised his eyebrows.

“You don’t know?” Brandylynn squealed with excitement. “She can’t remember shit about anything, but there’s probably other stuff wrong with her too.”

“Ooh, I know about that,” Jack said nonchalantly.

“Ugh, whatever." She snatched the menus away from us and put them back on the pile before walking to the kitchen.

Brandylynn spent the remainder of the lunch trying to bring me down and make Jack think badly of me. I guessed she just wanted him for herself, and I was right because Jack ended up getting a phone number on a piece of paper, which he ripped up as soon as we stepped out of the diner. Jack and I made fun of Brandylynn, which wasn’t that difficult to do.

We were walking to Jack’s car when we realized something.

“So, what do you want to do now?” Jack asked.

“Well, I still have to pick something up from my parents’ house, you can join me if you want. Afterward, we can go to mine and Cam’s apartment, which is more mine because I pay the bills and shit,” I suggested.

Jack agreed, and we both stepped into the car, Jack driving and me giving directions. Once again the houses started getting larger and larger and gardens were generously surrounding these houses, but we weren't at my parents’ house just yet.

“The gate should probably be open, they rarely close them this early,” I thought out loud.

“Gate?” Jack inquired.

“Yeah… Just a left here and then a right. It should be the second house on the right.”

Jack nodded and followed my instructions. Just like I had guessed, the gate was still open, and I motioned for Jack to drive up the driveway. He looked at it with wide eyes, passing through the gate and driving around the fountain surrounded by carefully cut shrubs and pink roses that were placed in front of the house.

“Holy shit!” Jack exclaimed.

“What?” I asked.

“Holy shit!” He gaped at the gray-stone two-story mansion that surrounded the fountain, symmetrical on either side. There was more grass, flowers, and shrubs that were taken care of daily, but there were no other cars.

“Is somebody home?” Jack pondered.

“Probably, the cars are most likely in the garage,” I pointed at a small building to the right of us.

“Ok, yeah, sure. Just have a separate building for your cars, and may I repeat cars, not just a car.”

“Shut up.” I playfully shoved him and got out of the car.

Jack quickly joined me as I rang the doorbell. An older woman with similar dark brown hair as mine opened the door. She was wearing an army green shirt and cream pants that got wider at the end. I reciprocated the wide grin she was giving me.

“Ireland!” She squealed and wrapped me in a hug.

I hugged her back and entered the entrance hall that had a double staircase leading to the 2nd floor. The walls were painted a color between cream and something a bit greenish, with an oak wood floor to match.

“Marcus! Come over here!” My mom yelled out, not knowing where exactly my dad was in the large house.

My dad, who was just wearing sweatpants and a blue t-shirt, came from around the corner. I ran up to him screaming ‘daddy’ and almost knocked him over. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me. I hadn’t seen him in such a long time, the last couple of time I visited my parents, my dad had not been home, so this was a rare occurrence.

“Be careful there, I’m no longer as young as I used to be,” He joked.

“You’re only 53, that’s not that old. Jack, here, is almost as old as you are,” I said remembering Jack was awkwardly standing in the large hall, watching me interact with my family.

“Hey, I’m only 27!” Jack argued.

“Well, let me introduce you guys. Jack, these are my parents, Marcus and Evelyn. Mom and Dad, this is Jack. He’s a random guy I found on the street, nothing much really.”

“Well, now I know what you think of me. I guess you won’t mind me leaving, then.”

“No,” I whined, “You have to drive me home!”

“Do I though?” Jack copied my tone.

“Yes you do, ‘cause I have double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream in the fridge that wants to be eaten.”

“You’re making this difficult, Ireland.”

“No, I’m not. But anyway, this is my friend Jack,” I looked over to my parents, “And I mean friend, don’t get any ideas. And we are going to go up to my room because I want to get something from it, I want to ask you guys something.” I dragged Jack up the stairs with me.

“Ok, use protection!” My dad called out after us.

“That’s what I mean with ‘don’t get any ideas’!” I yelled back.

I guided Jack through the corridors and opened the door to my room. There was quite a lot of space, but it was nowhere near the biggest bedroom in this house. I had actually asked for a smaller room because the open space apparently scared me. Spotlights were built into the ceiling and there were shelves hanging on blue bits of wall which were carved into the white wall. It was nothing special. I walked up to one of the shelves and took out two photoalbums. Jack looked at me with a questioning gaze.

“They contain photos of my childhood, but the photos of events I can’t remember are taken out. I just wanted to look through them and laugh at my terrible fashion choices,” I explained, opening one of them to the first page and smiling at the photo of my brother and me as babies covered in ink due to him having found felt-tip pens.

“Ok, but only if I can laugh with you,” Jack chuckled.

I gave Jack a mini tour of the house, including my brother’s room. Jack remarked that Cameron’s room was so far away from mine, but that I was able to hear the music he played. I simply replied by suggesting how loud the music was. I was actually surprised that Jack had remembered that detail. We had only known each other for a couple of hours, how could he even remotely remember something like that?

As I was explaining something about how the house was built, I noticed Jack staring at me like he was doing in the coffee shop when I was reading out my bullshit article. I had to snap my fingers in front of his face again, to shake him out of his trance.

After I had finished I went into the living room, where my parents were sitting. I told them what I was looking for, which made them smile. But there was still a burning question, which I was dying to ask.

“Do you guys know how I got this scar?” I finally asked. “Don’t actually tell me how, doctors orders and stuff, but just say yes or no.”

My mom’s expression changed to a frown. “You never told us whenever we asked you. You either froze up, changed the subject, or simply walked out of the room. All I can tell you is that it was pretty recent before the accident.”

Weird. What would make me act like that? It certainly couldn’t have been that bad, right?
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I feel like I should write something here since I'm used to writing an author's note at the end of every chapter, but I have nothing to say... so...