Hospital Beds and Memories

Bang. Bang. Bang. There was a loud knocking on the door. Jack and I had fallen asleep in the back lounge after the whole thing. We talked a bit more about the whole thing, mentioning that I was to start chemotherapy as soon as I got back home, how bad everything was, and all the side effects. Jack was fully supportive, and I was so surprised he didn’t get mad at me. I had expected him to blow up and get mad at me for keeping it from him. But, no. He was probably too shocked to do any of that. Maybe he would get mad at me later when he processed everything. But for now, he was still very concerned and was protecting me from things that were inevitable.

“Guys, you better be fully clothed in there!” Alex shouted through the door and knocked a couple more times.

I didn’t want to move and let go of Jack just yet, so I faked that I was still sleeping. Not moving and keeping my eyes closed, I made sure that my breathing stayed slow and steady. I didn’t even snuggle closer to him, which I really wanted to do, to make it more believable. Without him holding me, I knew I would feel cold and empty. Jack, however, woke up. I could feel him move and look at me. He ran his fingers through my hair and kissed me temple carefully, trying not to wake me up.

The door opened and Alex walked in. “Oh, is everything ok in here?” He seemed pretty surprised to see that Jack and I didn't even need to make an attempt to put our clothes back on.

Jack only hummed in response and continued to play with my hair. I could just feel that he was upset. His breath was getting more uneven by the second, like he was trying his best to hold back tears. But I still didn’t do anything but lie still; he needed to let it out, and I knew that he would try to act strong if I woke up. He wanted to be strong for me. Eventually, I fell water drop down on my cheek. Jack was definitely tearing up.

“Hey, dude, are you ok?” Alex took a couple steps closer to us.

“Yeah,” Jack’s voice cracked and I felt my heart break into two. This was my fault.

“I know you’re not ok,” Alex told him, “but I’ll leave you be for now. You seem to want to be alone…”

Jack didn’t reply but Alex still left. I couldn’t take it anymore. He was shaking badly and I knew how hard he was trying to hold it back. I could not just leave him be right now… It would be the wrong thing to do. I let out a small groan, so he knew I was awake, before I wrapped my arms tightly around his tense body.

He wiped away the tears, “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be,” I helped him lie down beside me properly again and let my hands travel up to his hair. I tangled my fingers in the flat hair and let his head rest on my shoulder. “It’s ok.”

I let Jack cry in the crook of my neck. In the past couple of hours, we had both shown a completely different side of ourselves. We had both never cried around each other, and now, in one go, we both nearly had full-blown mental breakdowns. It was weird how our relationship worked, but we needed this. Bottling everything up would only make the end result worse, just like I knew. It had only been a while and we were already crying like this, I could only imagine how bad it would have been if we would have kept it in.

Knowing how bad the doors could block sound, I knew the rest of the band could probably hear Jack crying his heart out. Seeing and hearing Jack like this was heartbreaking. I felt like I could cry as well, but now it was my turn to be strong. He was there for me during the night, now it was going to be there for him. But what made this whole situation weird was the fact that he was crying about me, while I was also the one comforting him.

“I-- I don’t want you to leave me,” Jack sobbed and hiccupped for air, “p--please don’t l--leave me.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” I whispered and pulled him closer, hoping he would realize. “I will do anything to make sure I don’t have to leave you.”

We stayed like that for a while. Jack kept begging me to not leave and I kept assuring him I wasn’t going to. But I didn’t know that. Things could always go completely wrong. Maybe I still had years, but it was also possible I only had days. I didn’t know how things were going to go, but I was determined to stay alive. It was not my time to leave yet.

After Jack finally quieted down, I kissed him softly. His cheeks were still wet and his eyes were red. Jack was always the one to be goofy, but now he showed a whole different side. But it didn’t make me think any different toward him, if anything it only made me love him even more. He was still my goofball, but I felt like I knew him even better now. This was only going to make us stronger.

“Do you maybe want to go out and get some coffee or something?” I asked him after I wiped away his tears.

He nodded and took a deep breath. “I think that will do us good, get some fresh air and get out of this place.”

“Exactly.” I was the first one to get out of our tight hug.

Jack looked me up and down and frowned. “You still have blood everywhere…”

“Well, I’ll go change then,” I gave him a quick peck, “and you might want to put on a shirt.”

“You don’t think everybody would love to see me shirtless?” Jack tried to joke, but the same happiness and foolishness that was always there when he joked was no longer evident in his voice.

I grinned at him nonetheless. “Not as much as I do, or your fans do.”

He stretched out his arms so I could pull him up from the couch and he placed a kiss on my forehead before we both went out to the bunks. My clothes were covered and splattered with quite a lot of blood, a lot more than what I remembered from the night before, but everything was such a blur. I looked through my duffle bag to see if I could find anything that was comfortable enough for me to wear. Jack was right, I wore sweatpants more often than I wore normal clothes. But, hey, you can’t blame a girl for wanting to wear something comfortable.

“Hey, I’m repping you today.” I showed off my outfit, which consisted of light gray joggers, black vans, a black All Time Low shirt with the future heart logo with flowers in the background, and a white zip-up hoodie to keep me warm.

Jack seemed to cheer up a bit. “Well, I think you look amazing with my band’s name on your body.”

“Good, you can’t seem too far out of my league. I have to keep up with your good looks,” I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the front lounge. The whole band was sitting there, and even two or three crew members. I knew they probably heard some of what had happened, and they all gave us sympathetic smiles, something I really hated.

“We’re, uh, going to be out for a bit,” Jack told them and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in time for sound check.”

Everybody nodded and let us go, so we stepped out into the fresh air and I immediately felt better. I didn’t know about Jack, though. We just wandered around and tried to find a cafe. There was no talking going on between us, but it also wasn’t an awkward silence. I guess you could say we were both evaluating things.

When we finally found a place that looked nice, we entered and got our coffees. I, of course, got a normal black coffee, and Jack got something else. We took a seat at a small table and sipped on our hot drinks. Once again, there was only silence, but we kept eye contact, gave each other small smiles, and the hands that weren’t around our cups were intertwined together. I thought we were going to stay like that for the entire time, but Jack spoke up.

His face scrunched up like he was going to ask me a question. “So, how are things going to go?”

“What do you mean?” I put my hot cup down on the table.

“When are you going to have chemo? Where is it going to be? How will you get there? Etcetera.” Jack also put his coffee down and turned very serious.

“Well,” I started thinking out loud, “first, I will leave to go home. When I get there, I will start to pack all my stuff in boxes. Then, I will start chemo a couple of days before you come back, which is earlier than originally planned. I’m guessing either Cam or my mom will bring me to the hospital and bring me back home. Then, when you come home, we will move all my stuff into your house. I will have to go to the hospital weekly. If you want, you could bring me there when you’re home, or my parents will have to do that. And, yeah.”

“Wait, you want to move in with me?” Jack’s eyes went wide and I saw some more life return to them.

I nodded and chuckled, “I thought we already determined that.”

He grinned and kissed my hand. “I love you so much. And of course, I’d bring you to the hospital whenever you need me to… but what about when I’m on tour? Will you be fine at home all alone?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged and started playing with his calloused fingers, “I guess we will see when the time comes, you’ll be home for quite some time.”

“Ok,” he gulped down the last of his, now nearly cold, coffee, “I’m going to go to the bathroom and as soon as you finish we can go back.”

“Ok,” I smiled as he stood up and gave me a quick kiss before walking to where the bathrooms were situated.

I sat there with both my hands around my cup, looking around the place. Cafe’s always had such a nice homey feeling. It wasn’t like it was just some random shop, it always felt cosy and warm. I sighed and took another drink of the beautifully bitter coffee, when suddenly somebody stood next to me. I looked up to see a girl around the age of 16 standing there.

She smiled at me and pointed at my shirt. “You like All Time Low too?”

“I guess you could say that.” I nodded. “My brother is a much bigger fan, though.”

“Awesome!” She seemed to be so happy to have found somebody that liked the same music. “Are you also going to your show tonight?”

“I’m planning to. Their shows are pretty amazing. They actually love their fans, unlike many other musicians.”

“You’ve been to their shows before! This is my first one! I really love their music, but I’m not one of those girls that freak out over the guys. Their music means a lot to me, though.” sSe put her blonde hair to one side, so it wouldn’t keep falling in the way when she was talking.

“I completely understand,” I told her, causing her to grin again.

Jack appeared next to the girl. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Now I know why I recognize you!” The girl pointed at me.

Jack still didn’t seem to know what was going on, so I clarified it for him, “she’s a fan of your music.”

“Awesome,” he nodded approvingly and smirked, “are you coming to the show today?”

“Yes,” the girl gushed, “I finally convinced my parents to let me go, and I’m so excited.”

Jack sat down back where he was sitting before, “maybe I’ll see you in the crowd.

“Maybe,” she smiled before turning to a sound, “I have to go, but I just want to say I totally disagree with the others, I think you guys are perfect for each other. Bye.”

“Bye,” Jack gave her the signature smile he gave to fans before turning to me, “what was that about?”

“What was what about?” I acted oblivious and finished my coffee.

“You know what I mean,” Jack glared at me, trying to get me to spit out what I knew, “the whole disagree with others and thinking that we are perfect for each other. What was that about?”

“Nothing,” I said way too fast. Damn. I should have waited a bit after thinking for a while. Now he knew something was up. Shit, shit, shit. Jack couldn’t find out! He was going to crazy, and it would be another thing I hadn’t told him about!

“Ireland…”

Well fuck.