Status: Completed! Sequel up soon

Hospital Beds and Memories

Drunk Jack Leads To Fun

I checked my bags one last time to see if I was forgetting anything. My medication was in there, I had a couple pairs of clothes, and my laptop was also comfortably wedged in there. Today was the day I was going to be sent to the hospital and stay there for three days, which pretty much sucked. Jack was going to go to the Gaskarth wedding the next day and I would be stuck in a white sterile room. I mean, come on,[/i[ which one sounded more fun and interesting? The hospital, of course!

.... That was supposed to be sarcastic if you didn’t realize. I honestly didn’t want to go. What was the point of me having to be there three days anyway? I was doing fine and they could probably give me a check up in a matter of minutes. But, hey, doctor’s orders.

So, what did Jack and I do the day before we would be apart for three days? We played video games at two in the morning, that's what. We played until our eyes couldn't take it anymore, only stopping for good when Jack thought it would be a good time for me to go to bed. He didn't want me to be exhausted at the hospital, he said. It was basically a lazy day. There were beer bottles strewn across the coffee table (only two were mine, I couldn’t drink much with the nausea medication I was given), there was an empty bowl of popcorn that had been refilled three times and knocked over once, chocolate wrappers laid lonely and the floor, and blankets were covering the couch we had lived on for an entire day. You could also call this magnificent sight the leftovers of ‘date night’... Even though it wasn’t really a date, and it spanned more over day than during the night… Oh well. It still counted.

I felt bad for leaving Jack to clean up the mess the next morning, but he had sent me to pack my bags. To be honest, I had been planning to do it a week before I actually had to go, but I kept procrastinating, like I always did. So here I was, packing at the last minute, literally; we only had half an hour to go before we had to leave. So, that was completely on me. But then again, who didn’t leave packing until last minute?

I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist after I threw my phone and other small things in my bag. Jack’s soft warm breathing was slowly tickling my shoulder as I leaned into him, wanting to remember his embrace for when I was all alone in that stupid hospital room.

“Are you ready to go?” he mumbled, pressing his nose into my hair. Just as much as I didn’t want to leave, Jack also didn’t want me to go. But we both knew it had to happen and that it was only for the better. I just hoped the results would come out fine. There was no way I was going to stay at that hospital for any longer.

“Yep,” I replied, slowly walking out of his grip to pick up my bag. It felt like I was saying goodbye to him for a very long time, but it was only three days, and in reality I wouldn’t see him for only one of those three days. But it still didn’t feel right.

However, we still left. After a quiet drive to the hospital, neither of us uttering a word, I signed in and it was time for us to actually say goodbye. I told him to take good care of Taco, and promised him I would kill him if I found her dead when I came back. Jack, of course, said he would try his best, but that he couldn’t promise anything. He still hadn’t warmed up completely to the cat and would often be uncomfortable if she sat on his lap, but then again, he did allow her to sit on his lap, so, it was going somewhere! I was still convinced that they were going to love each other, even though Jack kept saying there was no way it was happening. It actually wouldn’t surprise me that they would be best buddies after this whole long hospital trip.

I was first sent to go get my blood taken, where they tortured me with a needle. You see, I wasn’t afraid of those things and I didn’t mind them, but the fact that they just couldn’t seem to hit the right spot and kept poking me just annoyed the shit out of me. It wasn’t that difficult to find my veins, right? Well, apparently they were difficult to find. So, they took a couple of test tubes of blood, leaving me very dizzy and lightheaded. But of course this didn’t hit me until later. So, although they told me I was allowed to stay seated for a while, I stood up to go to the ward where I was going to be staying. And that wasn’t a very good idea. I basically passed out at the reception and got myself a bruise on my head that looked pretty nasty when I put my hair in a ponytail. At least I didn’t have a concussion…

It just wasn’t a good day for me.

I already fainted and I still needed to get a biopsy and an MRI scan. Great, just great. Oh, and I was required to stay in bed because they were afraid of me passing out again. So I also could go around exploring the hospital, which I was allowed to do before all this shit happened. Ugh!

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The day of the wedding. I had stayed at the hospital for one night already and I was bored out of my fucking mind. Sure, Jack and I texted, but that wasn’t as nice as actually being able to talk to him. Why not edit those videos Jack and I were making? Well, that was done already. It was a lot easier than expected and I finished in no time. My job for the entirety of this hospital trip was already done.

I would have much rather gone to the wedding with my boyfriend to support his friends. But, nope. I was stuck in this place. All I could do was hope I wasn’t going to be forced to stay here for longer because my condition had worsened. Nobody had come in to tell me something terrible was going on with me, so I was just expecting everything to be fine. But I still couldn’t leave.

At least Jack was giving me occasional updates about the wedding. He told me how nervous Alex was getting as time passed, and I could only imagine what was going down. It also made me wonder what Jack would be like if he ever got married, making me feel a bit weird. I wanted him to get married, but I didn’t want to get married myself, but I also didn’t want him getting married to anybody else. It was weird. But Jack had told me countless of times that he would be ok with us staying together forever without getting married. And that somehow made me slightly accept the idea of marrying him one day a bit more. It was a weird situation.

The entire day just consisted me of trying to find movies on netflix that would be fun to watch. I probably spent more time trying to find one, than actually watching them. Every couple of minutes Jack would text me about how fun things were and how drunk people were getting. It was like he was trying to torture me, but I knew he didn’t mean it that way. However, eventually the messages just stopped abruptly, which was weird because he seemed to really enjoy telling me all these stories. But I just figured that his phone either died or that he was too drunk. Either way, I was still bored out of my mind.

Normally when in a hospital you are seriously sick and you don’t have the energy to do anything, but I felt fine. Ok, that was maybe a lie. I did take a couple of naps in the morning to pass the time, but it just meant that I couldn’t get back to sleep in the evening. I was just complaining all the time. There was nothing else for me to do.

As the time passed and it started to get later, less doctors and nurses would walk past or hurry along. Lights turned off and streetlights went on outside the building. I could see cars drive slowly on the roads, the traffic lights changing from red to green and back in a routine. Everything was too calming and in case I haven't emphasized enough, boring….

The door to my room suddenly burst open before the person coming in their their best to close it as quietly as possible. I snapped my head to the sudden noise and couldn’t help but laugh at what I was seeing. There, in the small hallway where the door to the bathroom was, stood Jack. His hair was no longer in its usual swoop and looked pretty flat. The suit that he was wearing was obviously danced and partied in, as everything sat a bit crooked. It was obvious that he was holding something behind his back as he stumbled in.

“Jack!” I giggled, actually really happy to see him, but knowing he was pretty drunk, “what are you doing here!”

“I brought you…” He trudged the last couple of steps before moving one of the chairs closer to me, falling sloppily onto it, and showing what he was hiding, “wedding cake!”

“How drunk are you right now?” I laughed, looking at the big piece of cake that I would never be able to eat all by myself. I was wondering if they gave everybody big pieces like this at the actual wedding, or if Jack had just managed to get me a big piece like this especially for me.

“Very,” he said without hesitating, somehow making two plastic forks appear from one of his pockets. I did not know how he fit them in there, because those forks were way too big for those pockets, but it seemed to work. “But not drunk enough to forget forks!”

I took one of the forks and tried a piece of the sweet course. And holy shit was it good. Of course it was good, I mean this was Lisa and Alex we were talking about. “Who even let you in?” I asked while Jack enjoyed some of the white frosted cake as well.

He froze up and looked at me with wide eyes, “somebody was supposed to let me in?! I just walked right in and nobody stopped me!”

“Oh my god, Jack!” I snickered. He was way too drunk; a sober Jack would never just wander through a hospital to find me without asking somebody first. The fact that he was here with cake already proved my point! I didn’t even know if I was allowed to have visitors or if I could eat this stuff, but I didn’t really care. The cake tasted exceptional and I actually didn’t feel bored to death anymore.

After we finished the delicious goodness, Jack decided it was a good idea to climb into the hospital bed with me. No, he didn’t give me a warning or anything before, nor did he take off his shoes. He just stood up and started trying to find space to lie down beside me. I rolled my eyes at his tipsy actions, and made space for him. He was so going to have a hangover in the morning.

But at that moment I didn’t really mind. Just like when we just started dating, Jack and I always found a way to be around each other, even if it wasn’t supposed to happen. It was nice knowing this still hadn’t changed.