Hospital Beds and Memories

Christmas. My favorite time of the year. Dad was home, mom was cooking dinner, family came over, and it was pleasant. This was my first Christmas since the accident, the last one I remembered was when I was still 15. Moments like this really made me hate the fact that I couldn’t remember shit. But then again, if it was always this boring before we got to give presents and have dinner, I actually didn’t mind forgetting. I was listening to a conversation my dad was having with some of my uncles. Well, I wouldn't really call it listening if I almost fell asleep every 2 minutes. My cousins were either a lot older than my brother and me, or a lot younger, so there was nothing I could do with any of my family members. My brother and I were always the odd ones out, not fitting in any of the age groups.

I was shaken awake by my phone buzzing in my pocket. Thank god, I finally had an excuse to step out of the room. I took my phone out when I was alone in the hallway, and I saw it was Jack. For some reason I found myself sighing in relief and answering with a smile.

“Hello,” I raised the tone in my voice at the end.

“This gift is amazing! Thank you so much!” Jack thanked.

I chuckled. “Well, I tried.”

“Everybody here is looking at me weird. They think I got this gift for myself and that I’m speaking into a phone that isn’t even on.”

“They don’t think I’m real?”

“Nope, but this ‘Jack Barakat Survival Kit’ really is awesome. Thank’s for the Jack, don’t worry I won’t drink it without you, like it says in sharpie. I also really like the bra that you claim is not yours. I don’t really get why you got me a rubber chicken, but they’re always fun to annoy people with.”

There was another male voice that I could hear, “Jack, stop talking to your imaginary girl. She isn’t real, get over it.”

“You could put me on loudspeaker if you want…” I suggested.

“Yeah, I will in a second. Did you get anything awesome?” Jack replied.

“No, we haven’t opened our gifts yet, but we will in--”

“Field! We have been calling you for ages! Dinner’s ready!” Cameron interrupted.

“I’ll come in a second,” I said holding my hand up for him to wait.

“We’re not going to wait on you anymore.”

“Ugh, fine,” I turned back to my phone, “I’m sorry Jack, but I have to go, I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“That’s ok, Isle. Have a merry Christmas.” Jack shrugged off.

“Merry Christmas Jack,” I smiled and hung up my phone.

Cameron pulled me along to the dinner table and my family members chorused something along the lines of ‘there she is’. I giggled at all the annoyed and relieved faces. My family could get really hungry, and if there was food on the table but they weren’t allowed to eat yet, they could get quite bothered.

“Sorry,” I apologized, “I was calling one of my friends.”

“Oh, which one?” My mom asked delightedly.

“Jack.”

“Isn’t that the guy who came over some time ago?” My dad asked as he grabbed the spoon in the large bowl of vegetables.

“Yep, that’s Jack.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” My aunt, Doreen, gushed. She always wanted to know about my relationships or potential relationships, all I knew was that I always had to disappoint her. I actually started thinking that I would never have a boyfriend, but I didn’t care.

“No, I’m sorry,” I chortled.

“Aww, what a shame.”

The rest of dinner I spent stuffing my mouth with food. Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything alcoholic to drink because I was the designated driver between my brother and I. Cam never allowed me to drive his car, except in situations like this. All I wanted was some alcohol. My aunt kept giving me relationship advice, even though I had no use for it, and my younger cousins were getting louder and louder. Cam noticed that this was too much for me and was probably going to give me a headache, so he suggested going home after ‘present time’, as the young kids called it. Of course, I had also gotten some gifts. Somehow all my gifts were coordinated: a new coral duffle bag, jogger pants and a sweater, and a new pair of shoes. Everything to be used for dancing. However, my brother broke the pattern and gave me a phone case with a ‘caticorn’ on it. I must admit that it was the funniest thing I had seen in awhile, which was pretty pathetic.

----

When we got home I was pretty pissed off. Cam had promised there would be something for me to drink. But there was nothing as I rummaged through the kitchen cabinets. Great, it was Christmas and I wasn’t going to get drunk, or at least a little bit buzzed. I was about to give up when there was a knock at the front door.

“Who’s ready to finish this bottle!” Jack screamed as I opened the door.

“I totally am,” I took the bottle from him and made my way to the kitchen, “you came just at the right time… even though I didn’t even invite you and have no clue why you’re here.”

“My senses were tingling.”

“Are you sure those were your senses and not your dick?”

“Hey!” Jack interjected. “I’m the one who makes the dick jokes here!”

“Too bad, I’ve been around you for too long.” I opened one of the cupboards and pushed away the shot glasses to take out two larger glasses. If we were going to finish this bottle, there was no way it would happen with shots.

Jack laughed at my choice of glasses and followed me to the living room where Cam was seated. He saw what we had and his eyes widened. I knew exactly what he was going to ask.

“No,” I warned, “you had enough at the party. You’re too drunk already. Go to bed.”

“I’m not as think as you drunk I am,” Cam slurred before stumbling to his bedroom, only to pass out after he barely closed the door.

I laughed and put the glasses and bottle on the coffee table. Jack immediately made himself comfortable on the couch, and I jumped on next to him. I actually hadn’t gotten drunk with Jack before, nor had I ever had a drink around him, so this was going to definitely be a new experience. He probably thought I was a lightweight, but I was nowhere near it. I guess I used to drink a lot in the 5 years I didn’t remember, despite me thinking of myself as quite a calm person.

There was a loud thump from Cam’s room.

“Is he ok?” Jack worried.

“Yeah, there’s a large chance that he fell off whatever he passed out on before,” I laughed. “It’s funny because he made the most cliche mistake in his last sentence.”

“What?”

“Seriously? You didn’t hear it? He mixed up the drunk and think in ‘I’m not as drunk as you think I am’.”

“Really? I didn’t realize… Weird.”

“Yes, very weird, but you are weird in general,” I leaned forward so I could open the bottle of Jack Daniels and pour it into the glasses. I made sure to start off with not too much, just about half an inch. Jack took one of the glasses out of my hands and watched me as I downed mine in no time.

“Somebody’s eager,” he chuckled, “what went so horribly wrong that makes you drink like that?”

I looked at him with a flabbergasted expression, “Drink like what? I always drink like this. But if you want to know, Christmas is a lot more boring than I remember it.”

“Well, that’s probably because the last Christmas you remember was when you were 15, 16? And, you know, you’re going to get drunk pretty fast if you continue drinking like that.”

“Meh, I’ll see, and isn’t it our goal to finish the whole bottle?”

“This is why I like you so much,” Jack smirked at me, “Now, tell me why your Christmas was so boring.”

“I just don’t care about sales and stock markets, but I also don’t care about a new My Little Pony toy, nor do I care about how extremely ‘hot’ Justin Bieber is and how 12-year-olds want to have his babies.”

“Sounds like an adventure.”

“My whole life is an adventure.” I filled my glass again, clinked it against Jack’s, and we both gulped it down.

Over time the small amounts started getting bigger and bigger. Before I knew it my glass was a quarter full and I was already feeling pretty drunk. I looked at Jack and saw him looking at me with a stupid grin. He was also drunk as fuck. For some apparent reason I started laughing at Jack’s nose. It could have been that his nose just suddenly looked weird, but it was probably the alcohol taking over my whole system. No matter what, I still was determined to have that bottle emptied completely.

“You know,” Jack garbled, “you are so so pretty… so pretty… so… pretty.”

I tried shaking head, but failed miserably. “Nooooo… you’re the pretty princess here.” I sloppily put both of my hands on his cheeks and squeezed them together, making him do a fish face.

He took hold of my hands, and removed them from his face. “Thank you, I really appreciate that. Since I was a little boy, I’ve always wanted to be a pretty pretty princess.”

“Good, now give me more.” I held out my glass, begging him to fill it up. Somehow he managed to pour it in without spilling it all over the floor. If I were sober I would probably have been impressed.

“I would totally fuck you if you were some random girl and not my best friend,” He put his face into my breasts. I pushed his head away, so it was on my lap instead. “But I’m not going to, because you’re my best friend.” He repeated himself.

“Good, because I don’t want you to fuck me.”

“That’s very insulting,” Jack slurred.

That was the last I could remember. Stuff must have happened afterward, though. The bottle was empty and we were both asleep on the couch when Cameron came in loudly and woke us up. I groaned and moved out of my uncomfortable position that consisted of me laying half on the couch, half on Jack. As I sat up I felt a pain shot through my head, making me feel dizzy instantly. Of course I would have a hangover, this was to be expected. Jack shuffled around so he was also sitting up, but he seemed a lot more ok than I was. Another stabbing pain made it’s way to my head and quickly intensified. I groaned again, but this time in pain.

“Ouch, hungover badly?” Jack sympathized.

No. This wasn’t an ordinary hangover. The headaches I usually got weren’t this bad. This was a whole lot worse. Never have I ever had a headache like this during a hangover. The pain sharpened and spread further. I could feel the way it slowly moved to either side of my head and my forehead. Suddenly it felt like I had been shot, blood pooling out of my head. I screamed out in pain and doubled over, hiding my head between my knees as if it would make the cramping stop. There was a voice beside me and I felt something stick into my left arm. The aching subsided slightly, but was still there, trying to eat out my brain. My screams turned into sobs and I felt someone make me rest my head in their lap as they stroked my hair.

I could hear Jack whisper as the pain continued to decrease, “shh, it’s ok.”

I held back my sobs and tried to control my breathing. Crying would only make it worse, that’s what my doctor told me. At first, it would be relieving, but after a while it would only use up the fluids in my body, giving me a normal headache on top of the weird headaches I used to get a lot after I was released from the hospital. I dared to open my eyes and saw Cameron crouching in front of me.

He grinned at me. “I haven’t had to give you a shot in ages.”

It was true, the last time he had to give me one was when his band was still together. Something must have triggered it. It wasn’t the alcohol, I had had more than this before. Maybe I had just been stressed a lot lately. This definitely was the worst Christmas ever.

“How are you?” Cam asked me.

“I just want to sleep,” I mumbled, closing my eyes once again. I managed to keep them open to see Cameron nod at Jack. After that I felt myself being carried away. I had no clue where I was going, but I assumed I was being brought to my bedroom. The person who was carrying me put me down on the bed and put the covers on me. Their presence started to leave, and I promptly felt lonely.

“Please stay,” I whispered not caring whether it was Jack or my brother in the room, “I’m scared.”

Footsteps made their way back to me and the body got under the covers, bringing heat along with them. An arm wrapped around me and I could feel slow breathing against my neck. I felt secure and comforted, just like when I used to climb into bed with my parents when I was a kid.

“I’m staying, I’ll protect you,” Jack muttered and moved some stray hair out of my face.

He was able to bring back that feeling that I missed so much from when I was a child.