Hospital Beds and Memories

So, yes, I decided to delete my Twitter account, even though no one had asked me to. I didn’t do it for myself, but for Jack. And it was totally worth it. His face lit up brightly when I told him that it was now gone off of the internet. Sure, he would have loved to find a way to stop the hate without me having to do that, but that was just not how it was going to work. He could say something, and ask the fans to stop, but who were we kidding? That wasn’t going to work, and it would only make it worse. The kids just managed to twist everything around to make it seem like I was doing something bad:

- Ireland quickly ran when the band went into the venue? It must be because she hates All Time Low and doesn’t like the fans; it wasn’t like she could feel a nosebleed starting and knew there would be more chance to find tissues or toilet paper in the venue, than in the bus.
- Jack didn’t look in their direction? No, it wasn’t just because there were so many other people, but because Ireland was either hurting him mentally or taking all of Jack’s attention.
- Ireland didn’t say hi back when the one fan shouted hi at her? She was just a bitch that didn’t care about Jack’s and All Time Low’s fans; there was no way it was because she couldn’t hear the fan over all the other people screaming.
- Somebody saw Jack pay for everything when they had some time off? Ireland was totally a gold digger that just wanted him for his fame and money. It wasn’t because Jack was not allowing himself not to pay, nor did Ireland ever offer to pay him back.
- Ireland’s just a stuck up bitch that just doesn’t care about Jack or the band, or any of the fans. She is only together with Jack for his fame and money. And for some stupid reason Jack actually thinks Ireland loves him, and is too blind to see how shitty of a person she is.

You could add so many things to that list, it was insane. Even though it wasn’t really hurting me, I just couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Some comments were actually violent, threatening me. I just couldn’t do anything without being judged. It was like I was the celebrity followed around by paparazzi, rather than Jack being the one that you could actually call famous to a degree. All I wanted was to be able to love my boyfriend and me myself, but the fans obviously didn’t like that. Maybe, just maybe, if I had known that this would have happened, I wouldn’t have kissed Jack in that hospital bed.

But no. I shouldn’t think about that. We were happy together, and that was it. Final. Done. Ok.

Now, on a whole other note, I was completely sick again. I had been feeling a bit better, but now I felt worse than before. My immune system was just too bad, and feeling like this just wanted me to go home soon. Luckily, though, I was going to go back in a couple of days. Soon the chemo was going to start, and I’d have to be careful with where I went. Maybe you’d think I would get sick often now, but it would be even worse later on. The chemo would just destroy me, and I just hoped Jack wouldn’t get fed up with me. After this tour, they were going to be home for just over a month. Alex was getting married, and they were going to go on a honeymoon, new music was going to be written and demos were going to be recorded, and they just felt like a long break wouldn’t be that bad. However, it did mean Jack was going to be around for very long and would be able to see me slowly deteriorate. That was the only sucky thing about it.

Anyway, I was very sick again. I had bags underneath my eyes, my skin was pale, I constantly felt cold, and one of Jack’s zip up hoodies was my permanent residence. Feeling like this was completely and utterly useless. Not only wasn’t this nice for me, but I was pretty sure I was also ruining it for the others. And I didn’t want that. I did not want to be the one to ruin everything. But my wish obviously didn’t come true. I mean, when do they ever come true?

“Are you going to come with us?” Jack asked me while he stood up from the couch, after Rian had announced that they were going to leave.

I shrugged and put my feet, which Jack had taken off his lap, on the floor. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go, do I?”

“I thought you’d might have wanted to stay here and sleep.” He took my hands to pull me up.

“No,” I shook my head and pulled the hoodie down to cover my legs a bit more, “it’s boring here all by myself. I’m coming with you guys.”

Nobody seemed to object, so we all went out of the bus and made our way a couple blocks down. Now, you might be asking yourself where we were going, so I’ll tell you. The guys had a day off, and this college close to the venue they were playing at offered for them to use the gym, you know, one of those multipurpose courts, so they didn’t decline. Some crew members were also coming, so they had enough people to play a couple of games.

We were standing at a traffic light, waiting to cross a busy crossing. Cars were zooming past and the guys were fooling around a bit, not enough to do anything dangerous though. I would have probably joined, if it weren’t for the fact that I felt like shit. But that wasn’t the important part of the point in the story. Only when the light turned green, did something, you could call important, happen.

Jack was the first to go to cross the road, but I noticed something was off; something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it. Either I was going to die right now, or I had a weird gut feeling, and I was actually rooting for the latter. Jack was laughing and stepped onto the road, but something in me snapped.

I screamed out his name and pulled him off the road, causing him to fall onto me. We collapsed onto the floor, his weight fully on me. The rough road was burning against my skin and I just hoped I didn’t create a wound that was too big for me to handle. Everything seemed to be going so fast at that moment.

“What the fuck!” Jack shouted in shock rather than anger.

I was about to apologize, when a car suddenly zoomed past, speeding and going through a red light. Ok, so, that happened. I actually saved Jack’s life… [i[woah. Everybody turned to look at me with astonished faces. I definitely wasn’t the only one who I surprised. Jack could have been in the middle of the road now, run over, blood pooling around him, dead as can be. But he wasn’t. He was right here, on top of me, crushing me to the floor.

“Holy shit,” Zack muttered while trying to process everything that had just happened.

“How did you see that coming?” Rian asked, completely flabbergasted.

“I didn’t,” I sighed and looked at Jack, “are you ok?”

“Yeah,” he groaned and rolled off me, “are you?”

“I think so,” I nodded. Jack got up first, before pulling me up. Luckily, neither of us were seriously hurt. This could have turned out so much worse. Jack could have been dead, or I could have been bleeding to death. But we were both fine, and neither of us was actually hurt--

“Blood!” Alex shrieked and pointed at my right arm, “aah!”

I gave him a weird look before checking out what he was freaking out about. There was a cut on my arm, caused by a sharp stone on the pavement. I actually considered it more of a scratch than an actual cut. But, yes, there was more blood than normal, but what would you expect?

I just hummed in response, “it’s not bad, it’s just a scratch.”

“But there’s a lot of blood,” he emphasized, causing Jack to take a look, agreeing with him.

I rolled my eyes and acted like it was the most obvious thing ever. “That’s how my blood works. This really isn’t bad, it will stop in a bit.”

---

So, the wound continued to bleed for quite some time, but it wasn’t life-threatening. I did, however, obviously choose to sit out while everybody else was doing sport. All I was doing, was watching them, not really having anything I could do on my phone anymore. At least it was better than sitting on the bus all by myself, I guess. Now I could still chuckle at how they messed up, and at the fights they had about the rules. They would always look at me if they weren’t sure who was right. I guess being sporty had to mean you knew all the rules from all possible team sports.

The guys had just started playing basketball, but some of the crew members had to get back to start or finish setting up. So, nobody was really left to actually be in the teams. Instead, everybody was shooting hoops and dribbling around the place randomly. Basketball was the second most loved sport in my book, so I was pretty bummed I couldn’t join. But it was for the better. I needed to relax and not overdo myself. We all know what happened last time. This time I wasn’t going to make that mistake.

A basketball rolled toward my feet, where I was sitting against one of the walls. I picked it up and looked around who I had to throw it back to. When I saw Alex from the opposite side of the gym, looking at me with no ball anywhere around him, I was about to send the ball to him, when he stopped me.

We made eye contact and he shouted, “you should try throwing it in the basket!”

“I really shouldn’t.” I shook my head and threw it right at him, so he could catch it without having to move.

He looked astonished. “You should, though! That throw was amazing!”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” I shrugged and shuffled back properly into my sitting position, "it’s that I shouldn’t.”

“One try won’t hurt!”

I just couldn’t resist it; I had to do it. That orange ball was just screaming at me to be picked up and thrown. There was no way I was not going to do it. This was what I basically grew up on. Cam had this thing where he had to play guitars if he saw them, I had it with sports. It was like an addiction.

I trudged up to Alex to go and take the ball from him. One try wouldn’t hurt, right? I ignored the sick feeling in my stomach that got worse with each step. The need to vomit got worse, but I had been able to keep it down a couple of times already, so I felt like I could do it again. So, I took the ball from Alex, getting a large grin from him.

“Wooo!” Jack ran up to me and stopped just before he ran me over, making his shoes squeak, “if you get this in, I’ll buy you ice cream.”

“Ice cream?” I questioned, my stomach really not liking that idea.

“Coffee?”

I shrugged, not really thinking I could drink anything warm at the moment. My body was already heating up so much with me having a fever again; there was no way I could drink anything that hot.

“Or something else,” Jack changed his offer once again, “anything you’d like.”

“Buy me a diamond ring,” I joked, thinking about the many times Jack told me to forget about the price and just say what I wanted. But then I realized what else that could mean. So I stopped my chuckle and squinted while turning to look at Jack. “I did not mean it that way.”

“Yeah, figured,” Jack laughed at my own mistake. At least he was cool enough with the subject to laugh about it. There were so many guys that would totally misunderstand everything or overthink it. Maybe having talked about marriage so soon in our relationship was a good thing. Now we were able to make comments about it without things getting tense or awkward.

“Just get me a bottle of water,” I told him and bounced the ball a couple of times, before shifting my attention to the hoop. I shot the ball, it going perfectly through the hoop and net. But, it did not go as perfectly for me. My stomach completely flipped and I ran to where I knew the bathrooms were.

My knees hit the cold tiled floor, causing pain to surge up my body. I skid a bit, letting the last of the distance be closed. Maybe it was a bit disgusting sitting on the floor of a public bathroom, but I really couldn’t give a fuck. As soon as I hugged the toilet bowl, I spewed out the contents of my stomach. This all really wasn’t a good idea. I should have probably stayed on the bus, like Jack originally thought I was going to do, and I certainly shouldn’t have let myself be convinced so easily. This was all my fault, nobody else’s.

Not even a few seconds after I had started vomiting, Jack was there with me. He sat on the floor with me, held my hair, and trailed his fingers up and down my back, trying everything to comfort me. When I stopped for a bit, he shuffled so I could sit on his lap more comfortably while I could still hand over the toilet. But things only got worse. I started throwing up again, but once that was done, the nosebleed started. Not only was there stomach acid coming out of me, but also red liquid. Great.

“Are you ok?” Jack asked when he realized I had stopped, but was still in the same position.

I groaned, not liking the taste in my mouth and not wanting to get any blood in it, “nosebleed.”

“Oh.” He stretched to reach the toilet paper and gave me a wad of it. I pressed it against my nose after I felt like the worst of it had dripped into the water. After flushing the toilet to get rid of the disgusting mixture, I rested backward into Jack, and laid my head against his chest. He moved up even more so he could lean against the wall, making both of us more comfortable. I closed my eyes, and could feel myself falling asleep. This was all so tiring and I just wanted it to stop happening.

“Oh shit--” Alex came into the bathrooms to probably go check up on us, “umm… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to push you too far.”

I shook my head, barely moving it, and my voice came out really weak, “it’s not your fault.”

After that I just couldn’t stay awake anymore. I fell asleep in Jack’s embrace on the floor of a bathroom, but woke up the next morning in a similar position, but in a bunk.