Status: Completed! Sequel up soon

Hospital Beds and Memories

When We Talk About The Future, Tears Will Fall

For the first time in ages, I was in a car again. Jack still knew where he had parked his car despite the fact that he had moved it several times over the course of the months I had been at the hospital. I wasn’t planning on coming back for a long time except for my checkups. Jack and I were going home forever. After collecting all my belongings and signing myself out, I got to leave the dreaded place. No more staying at the hospital overnight. It was all over. All I had to do now was make sure I didn’t get cancer again. Easy to say, difficult to do.

“Are you excited to go back home?” Jack asked me as he placed his hand that was on the gearshift onto my hand that was on my lap, curling around it so he could hold it.

“You see, I was actually planning on spending my entire life at that hospital,” I said sarcastically, not even wanting to think about spending even more time there than necessary, “I actually planned out to have my wedding there sometime in the future.”

“We will not be getting married at the hospital chapel,” he made clear, shaking his head as if I was actually serious. “Our wedding will be the best wedding ever! Our friends and family will be there and you’ll look absolutely beautiful. We’ll get married wherever we want and then make sure we have the awesomest reception ever! And I won’t be able to keep my eyes off of you just because you’d look so stunning and captivating.”

“I was just kidding, Jack.” I laughed to hide how awkward and uncomfortable I was feeling. I did not want to be thinking about weddings, I wasn’t ready for that; not even close to ready!

“We’re still getting married someday, though,” he retorted, standing his ground. Since I had started dating him, I kept telling him I didn’t really like marriage all too much, but I kept making subtle hint that I might want to in the far future. I didn’t think he’d be taking them so seriously.

“But not anytime soon,” I responded, wanting to see how far he was actually going with this. For some reason this was actually scaring me. I could imagine spending the rest of my life with Jack, but getting married?

“Well, I mean…” He fumbled around with my fingers as he kept his eyes on the road.

I looked at him with wide eyes. I seriously couldn’t believe anything he was saying. There had to be a hint to tell me he was just messing with me. This couldn’t be happening right now. All I made was an innocent joke. I frowned, my heart dropping. “Jack…”

“What?” He quickly glanced at me, seeing my expression. “Stop looking at me like that!”

“You’re scaring me,” I whispered, tearing my eyes away from him and looking at our hands that were still intertwined despite what was going on.

“How am I scaring you?” He slowed down as we approached a red light, but it turned back to green before we came to a full stop, meaning he couldn’t look at me while I gave an explanation.

“I don’t want to disappoint you. ‘Cause I do love you a lot, and I do see myself spending the rest of my life with you, because I’d never want to break up with you. But I’m not ready for marriage, whether it be to you or anybody else. I don’t want you to propose to me and then have me reject you, because that feels wrong, since I really do love you so much, but saying yes is wrong too. I’d practically be marrying you unwillingly. There’s so many people out there that are like ‘I can’t wait to marry the love of my life’, but to be honest, I can wait. I don’t know what’s making me feel this way, because there’s nothing that’s stopping me other than myself with no reason.”

“So how do I ask you if you’re ready without it basically being a proposal?” Jack asked, ignoring most of the heartfelt things I said. I didn’t know he was this set on proposing to me someday.

“I don’t know, Jack,” I sighed, letting go of his hand while mine continued to get sweatier by the second, “I could propose to you instead?”

“No, no, I want to propose to you. I’ve been pressured into being the one that proposes since I was young, now I also want to do it. What if I make it some epic proposal, like flash-mob-on-Times-Square epic?” He tried snaking his fingers to intertwine with mine again.

But I retracted my hand as quickly as possible, shaking my head wildly. “Don’t you ever dare do something like that! If just a living room proposal already makes me feel like I need to marry you because I love you, imagine what that will do!”

“Ok, then what about--”

“Just not anytime soon, Jack.”

He turned completely quiet after that, immediately making me feel very guilty. I was trying to make him see it from my perspective, but maybe I had to see it from his side instead. One of us was going to have to choose what the other wanted, and it didn’t necessarily have to be him agreeing with my plans. Why did I have to make this more difficult than necessary?

“I-- I guess I can marry you if you really want,” I mumbled, my voice nearly failing me, a small crack in the middle of my sentence.

“No, Isle, I don’t want to marry somebody who doesn’t want to marry me!” He tried to stay as composed as possible, trying to keep his voice calm and at level, but it still managed to raise.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, flinching away from him just slightly. I didn’t want us to fight, especially on a day like this. This was already the stupidest thing to fight about, yet we managed to make it happen. I didn’t know what to do to make it better. If I tried to assure Jack that I really did want to marry him I’d be lying, but if I didn’t do that I’d hurt him.

“Come on, don’t cry,” he muttered, driving the car up the driveway of our house.

“I’m not crying,” I seethed, getting out of the car as soon as we stood still.

I grabbed my bag out of the backseat and rushed to the front to find it already unlocked. Without waiting for Jack, I slammed the door open, ready to hide from him. But I was met with the sight of my brother walking through our living room without a shirt on, a bowl of yogurt in his hand. I made brief eye contact with him, wiping away a tear that had just managed to fall from my eye.

He slowly start backing away, shovelling a spoonful of yogurt in his mouth, “I sense that you guys are fighting… I’m just going to…”

But before he could rush away, I dropped my bag to the floor and ran away first. I picked up Taco along the way, since she coincidentally just jumped off the couch, and held her close to me while I shuffled as quickly as possible to the guest room. After putting Taco on the unmade bed, I slammed the door shut and curled up on the mattress myself.

I hadn’t planned on becoming so emotional about this. We were either going to drop it, or come up with a solution calmly, just like we always did. But something about seeing Cam there just embarrassed me further, only making the guilt ten times worse. I felt like I was in the wrong here, but didn’t want to cheat myself either.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Cameron shouted not-so-nicely to Jack, loud enough for me to hear where I was. It was all that was needed to make me break out into a loud sob, pulling a pillow close to me while Taco stood at the closed door, begging to be let out.

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hurt her,” Jack fumed back.

“Then why the hell do I hear her crying right now!”

It was silent for a while after that until heavy footsteps came towards the bedroom. Taco ran out as quickly as possible as the door opened and Cam came walking in. Some part of me wanted it to be Jack coming in and telling me that he understood, like when we talked about it for the first time when we just started dating. But Cam was going to have to do.

He closed the door again and sat down on the bed, rubbing his hand up and down my spine. “What did he do?”

I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to stop my crying, and shook my head. This wasn’t Jack’s fault, it was all mine. “I-- I’m not good enough for him.”

“Did he tell you that?” More anger rushed through Cam’s veins, ready for him to lash out on Jack.

I hook my head once again. “I can’t give him what he wants.”

“What?”

I was just going to have to be straightforward if I wanted Cam to understand. There was no way I could make this vague and then have him help me. This was too specific. “Jack wants to get married, but I don’t.”

He froze. “Jack proposed to you?”

“No,” I hiccupped, hugging the pillow closer to myself, “he want’s to in the future, though. I just told him I didn’t know if I would ever be ready. And I don’t have a good reason behind why I wouldn’t want it.”

“Is it because you don’t love him as much as you make it seem?” He suggested carefully, slowly saying his words to try and make sure he wouldn’t offend me.

“But I do love him; I love him so much, Cam.” Tears started rolling over my cheeks at a faster pace again.

“I know,” he whispered, now tracing his fingers over my arm. He thought for another while, trying to find another way to cheer me up or at least help the situation. “You know, you should think of this as sexual consent. There’s two people involved. One person wants to have sex, but the other doesn’t. There can’t be any forcing, or it’s rape. So, what should the person who does want to do it do?”

“Find another person who does want to have sex,” I sighed into the pillow, not getting where Cam was going with this. How was this supposed to help me?

“What about if he only wants to have sex with that one person?” He waited for me to respond, but when I didn’t make a noise, he decided to answer himself. “He should wait, maybe he’ll get lucky later on.”

“So, you’re saying that Jack shouldn’t marriage rape me?” I questioned, frowning at my twin brother’s logic.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

“But how is that supposed to help me?”

“Well, umm,” he shifted so he could see me better, “it just shows how you’re not in the wrong. You shouldn’t feel bad and make him do something you don’t want.”

Before I could ask him to elaborate on how it was supposed to end the argument, there was a knock on the door, Jack appearing through a creak. Cam gestured for him to come in and got off the bed himself. He switched places with Jack, so that we could talk. After Cam disappeared down the hallway, Jack let out a breath and a small smile.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he mumbled, resting his hand on my cheek and running his thumb underneath my eye to catch the last tears that still resided on my face, “it’s just-- I love you so so much. It isn’t an excuse for me being such a dick, though. I should be happy enough to get to spend my time with you. It shouldn’t matter if we’re married or not, as long as we are together everything will be fine. As long as you’re going to be here and I get to call you mine, I’ll be happy with anything.”

I grinned and pulled him down to kiss me. He moved over to he could hover over me better, even though I couldn’t help but smile into the kiss the entire time. Jack continued to move his lips against mine, however, running his hands down my sides.

“Hey, guys, please don’t have sex in the bed I’m sleeping in for the time I’m here,” Cam popped around the corner, “by the way, I stocked up your condom stash.”

“Stocked up our condom stash?” I raised an eyebrow, not knowing Jack and I had one of those. Sure, we had a place where we kept them, but why would Cam go around trying to find it, only to ‘stock it up’.

“Yeah, I couldn’t risk you getting pre-guh-nent the first day you’re out of the hospital.”

I was about to say a witty remark about how we didn’t need it, that we could control ourselves even after such a long time, but Jack had already picked me up bridal style to bring me to our room. He definitely had a different idea, and I wasn’t complaining.