Hospital Beds and Memories

“Are you sure you’re going to be fine?” Jack asked as we stepped in the elevator.

It was the day after the award show and Jack and I woke up too late. After a night filled with a lot of… activities, we forgot to turn on an alarm to wake us up. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t that late, only 10 minutes, but I knew that the others would start hollering. They knew what happened after the whole event, so they were only going to assume the worst. But the worst did not happen!

I played with the strings on Jack’s sweater, which I was wearing. “Yeah, don’t worry too much.”

“I’m going to worry.” Jack held on to my hand and pressed the button for the ground floor, where everybody was already having breakfast.

I leaned into him and rested my head against his shoulder. He stroked his fingers through my hair and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. It was pretty cute how Jack could be so concerned. He would turn all his worry in to love and try to make me feel as good as possible. And I really needed it right now.

The elevator door opened and we both walked out and went towards the dining room. The whole group was already sitting at a table and perked up when they saw us. But they weren’t going to leave it at that. Of course they weren’t, this was All Time Low, they weren’t normal.

“They’re finally here!” Alex exclaimed and he leaned back in his chair and threw up his hands.

“Did you guys think there was still enough time for a quicky?” Rian chuckled and winked.

I ignored all the comments and sat down on the empty chair that was on the far end of the table, Jack sitting down next to me. Right now I wasn’t up to any of their shit and I couldn’t be bothered to talk back and argue with them. I just wasn’t mentally and physically prepared for that.

“Aren't you warm in that?” Zack pointed at what I was wearing. While I was in jeans, a tank top, a long sleeved shirt, one of Jack’s t-shirts, and one of his sweaters, all the others were in t-shirts and shorts. I shook my head; I was actually very cold and shivering a bit.

“She has a fever,” Jack clarified before anybody could ask me more questions, “and feels like shit.”

I nodded to agree and rested my head in my hands, suddenly getting a flash that made me feel really warm and sweaty. But it left after a couple of seconds and I was back to shivering. Yes, that was why Jack was concerned. I literally felt like dying… well not really literally, but you know what I mean. But because Jack was already so concerned about me only have a fever, I was becoming ever more skeptical about telling him about my leukemia. He would only freak out.

Alex mentioned something about them having to discuss something about the band, so Lisa stood up and announced she was going to get some food from the buffet, taking me along with her. We both took a plate and started putting food on them. But I knew that I wasn’t going to eat most of it when feeling like this. I would just make Jack finish it.

“So…” Lisa nudged me while taking her time, knowing the boys might take quite a while, “did you guys still get it on yesterday or did you truly go back and sleep straight away?”

I shrugged and mumbled, not really feeling comfortable talking about it. “Yeah, we did it.”

“Really?” Lisa looked surprised. “Alex and I didn’t leave much later than you did, because my feet were literally about to give out, and we couldn’t hear you. Hotel walls are thin, and we were right next to you.”

“We just aren’t loud, quite the opposite actually.” I filled a bowl with some fruit, thinking I would be able to eat that.

“You really have changed Jack’s ways,” Lisa chuckled and took an apple from a bowl, “there used to be nights we couldn’t sleep because of him. But how was it?”

“It was good, I guess… We did it twice and there was a lot of communication. It was basically Jack trying to find out which things I liked and didn’t like. Nothing that special…”

“But did he…. You know…”

“Did he what?” I asked her, feeling a bit faint and I really wanted to sit down.

“You know,” she came closer and whispered in my ear, “make you orgasm.”

I shook my head and giggled for a split second. “No, you must know how difficult it is. But I was satisfied, and he was too. And I guess that’s all that matters.”

Lisa smiled and agreed before leading us back to the table. A headache was starting to build up in my head and the laughter the guys were letting out when we returned didn’t help much. I sat down and Jack immediately took the bread and started eating it. But just like I had said before, I really didn’t care. I wasn’t going to be able to eat it anyway.

Then the guys all went to get some food. Lisa and I had already started eating, but I had only been able to eat some of the fruit when they all came back. Jack kissed the top of my head again before he sat down and continued to act like his normal self. But I was only very distant and was overthinking everything. I wasn’t just sick because I happened to catch something. My leukemia had something to do with it as well.

And that’s when I felt it starting to happen. I pushed my seat back and ran to the bathroom, locking myself into a stall before I grabbed a wad of toilet paper. My hand was already full of blood and I tried to wipe it off while subsequently holding something to my nose. This wasn’t necessarily a really bad nose bleed, it just didn’t want to stop. The toilet was full of bloody toilet paper and I could feel tears starting to form. I didn’t want to be like this; I just wanted a normal life like everybody else. This leukemia fucking sucked and it was only going to get worse.

Somebody else entered the bathroom, and I heard Lisa’s voice echo off the tiled walls, “Ireland, are you ok?”

“Yeah,” I tried assuring her, but my voice was shaky.

“Where are you? Do you need some help?”

I turned around while trying to grab some more toilet paper and opened the door for her to come in. She probably thought I came in here to puke, as she looked very shocked when she saw what was going on. “Oh my god! Are you ok! Shit.”

I nodded and let out a muffled, “yeah, it’s just a nosebleed.”

“Just a nosebleed! Ireland! This is a whole lot of blood! What’s going on!” She helped me with ripping off more toilet paper and flushed the toilet in order not to clog it later on.

“The toilet paper is just really absorbent, it makes it look worse,” I tried making up an excuse and noticed the bleeding was starting to die down.

Lisa fell for my lie and nodded, trying to clean off some blood that had managed to find its way onto my arms. My face was probably going to look like I had just been in a battlefield. I flushed the toilet once when I realixed it had finally stopped. This nosebleed had only made me use up a bit over half of the toilet roll. It wasn’t that bad. I washed off all the blood from my face and made sure to rinse my arms and hands to get rid of any of the dried up blood that stuck to my skin like it depended on it.

Before leaving the bathroom, I turned to Lisa. “Do I have any blood left over on me?”

“You’ve got some on the sweater,” she pointed at the hem where two perfectly shaped drops were staining the gray fabric.

“Oh fuck,” I sighed, knowing that it was going to be impossible to wash it out without any washing powder. “I hope Jack doesn’t mind.”

“He probably won’t.” Lisa let me go out before her by giving me a small reassuring push on the small of my back. Jack looked up at me as soon as I stood back in front of the table. He looked so distressed and anxious, worried if something bad happened to me.

I pulled on his sweater a bit. “I’m sorry I got some blood on this.”

“Oh, umm,” Jack raised an eyebrow at me while at the same time not trying to look judgemental. What I had said was very stupid. A girl just went to the bathroom and came back with blood on her. Of course he was going to think it was period blood!

“Nosebleed.” I cleared up as my eyes went wide with realization.

“You don’t have to go to the hospital this time, right?” He took hold of my hand.

“That was one time,” I rolled my eyes, trying to make the whole situation lighter, “but I think I’m going to go up and get ready already.”

Jack frowned. “Ok, want me to bring up any food?”

I shook my head and looked at the plate that was still completely full. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

He let me go afterward and I sloppily walked back to the elevator Jack and I just barely came out of a couple of minutes ago. I actually was starting to feel worse by the second, but still decided to enter our room and pack everything. While fitting everything back into the bags we had, the whole feeling of cold left me, and the warm suffocating feeling took over again. I desperately tried to take off the sweater and sat on the bed, trying to get myself to cool down.

But it didn’t go as easy as I wanted it to. My stomach started clenching and churning and my head started to make everything spin. This wasn’t any good. I groaned and rested my head in my sweaty palms, trying to think of happy things to make me feel better. But nothing worked. Instead, a wave of nausea hit me, and I had to make a run for the bathroom, my knees painfully hitting the cold tiles. I tried collecting all my hair in one hand before the contents of my stomach burned my throat and came out. This was definitely going to ruin my voice. I was basically spewing up only acid, nothing else, since I hadn’t eaten anything in a long time.

“Hey, baby?” The door to the room opened and Jack walked in. “Isle?”

The sound of me expelling more of the painful substance notified Jack that I was in the bathroom. He showed up around the corner and rushed over to me when he realized what was going on.

“It’s ok, baby,” he took over my hair and pulled it all back properly, rubbing reassuring circles on my back. I really needed a haircut, it was getting way too long.

I wiped my mouth with some toilet paper after I felt like I was finished and let Jack help me up. He wrapped me in a hug and I let my hands rest on his rest and I hid my face in the crook of his neck. We swayed to the left and right slowly and I breathed in his familiar scent. Something about him just made me feel so much better, even though I knew, in the back of my mind, that everything was really wrong.

“How are you feeling?” Jack ran his fingers through my hair, getting some of the tangles out.

“Terrible, but I’ll be fine,” I tenderly kissed his neck.

“We have to walk to way back to the bus, will you also be fine doing that?”

I nodded and let go of Jack reluctantly. “I’ll brush my teeth now and I’ll crawl into your bunk and sleep as soon as we get to the bus.”

“Ok,” Jack watched me put toothpaste on my toothbrush, “but I will join. I want to give you loads of cuddles.”

----

Jack managed to stuff all my bags into the tiny suitcase he had brought along, so I wouldn’t have to carry anything. We had just checked out of the hotel with the entire group and I couldn’t wait to get some more sleep. My energy was being drained in no time and I had resorted to only wearing my tank top.

The sun was beaming down on us and I felt like I could collapse at any moment. But the bus was only two more blocks away. I was going to make it; I could stay strong for a couple more minutes until I could slowly die in the air conditioned bus. Jack was walking next to me, but we weren’t holding hands or standing too close to each other. I was way too warm for that. Anybody that came too close only made me want to throw up again.

But my head was starting to feel heavy and the rest of my body felt like floating away. My pace started slowing down and in no time I could feel myself dropping to the floor. I started to brace myself for the impact, but somebody caught me before my body hit the hard concrete floor. They slowly lowered me to the floor and called Jack. All I could do was groan and try my best to keep my consciousness. Stuff was happening around me and I could feel arms wrapping around me before hoisting me up into the air. I lazily let my head drop against their shoulder, smelling the same smell I recognized from just minutes before.

I really couldn’t deny it anymore. My health was getting way too bad.