Hospital Beds and Memories

As I stirred around in bed, I realised I wasn’t cuddled up against Jack anymore. It was a rare occurance for us not to have any contact while we were in bed, asleep or not. Even when we turned on the TV to watch a movie on netflix, I would be leaning against him, or his head would be in my lap. So, to get the warmth back again, I turned around to lay my arm over his chest. However, there was a large emptiness, my hand instead hitting a fluffy object. I opened one eye to see what was going on and was met with Jack’s side of the bed made, Taco have decided to reside next to me instead.

I let out a sigh, petting the cat that I had just accidentally hit pretty hard. She closed her eyes again, softly purring as my hand kept making constant movements. I wished I could curl up just like her, fall asleep wherever I wanted, and not have a care in the world. But my reality was harsher than that. I actually had to take care of myself and other people around me. At least I was getting a lot better and didn’t have to be stuck at a hospital anymore.

I shuffled closed to Taco, putting my head next to her. “Where’s Jack, hmm? Where’s Jack?”

She didn’t reply in any shape or form. But what was I expecting? This was a cat we were talking about. Many people might say they are heartless creatures, and they have a point. A dog would totally have made me follow to show where my boyfriend was. But, you know, I still had a fluffy cuddle buddy and that’s all that mattered to me. There are some nasty cats out there, but Taco luckily turned out to be one of those that didn’t scratch or bite for no reason. I mean, come on, Jack even loved her and he would have refused to let a cat in his house if it weren’t for me. That must have meant something.

“I guess I’ll have to go find him myself.” I stopped petting her and threw the sheets off me, making sure that I didn’t scare Taco in the process.

Only wearing one of Jack’s old t-shirts and my underwear, I made my way way downstairs. Another perk of not being in a hospital anymore, I got to wear whatever I wanted without feeling embarrassed. All the nurses and doctors had probably seen many naked people during their careers, but that didn’t mean I was going to happily skip around without any pants on. At home, however, I could walk around naked and nobody would look up. Well, that’s a lie as well. Jack would definitely be staring at me, and if there were guests, it wasn’t exactly the best outfit choice either. But you get the jist. Since Cam had gone up to New York to visit Tay, I also didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

Eventually, I found Jack in the kitchen, emptying the last grocery bag. Somehow he had managed to wake up early and done the groceries, so that we didn’t have to do them later. After not being at home for such a long time, our food supply had kind of expired, so we were basically out of food. Something told me that all the cabinets were full again, though. Knowing Jack, most of the food he must have gotten was junk food.

I sneaked up behind him, slyfully wrapping my arms around his torso. It only made him jump a little, already immediately knowing it was me when I buried my face in between his shoulder blades. I had missed being able to do coupley things like this. The only thing we had yet to do was go out on a date, but I had been too tired for that anyway. Maybe soon.

“Morning,” I mumbled into his back, breathing in his scent. He smelled like the shampoo he always used, mixed in with his deodorant and hair products.

“Hey,” He chirped back, putting some articles in the fridge, “just let me finish this and I’ll give you a good morning kiss. I want to mean it.”

“Ok.” I grinned, letting him go so he could do his job quicker.

I decided to wait and sit on one of the counters, watching him put the last couple of things in the fridge. He picked up all the empty plastic bags and put them in a drawer so we could reuse them later on. Once that was done, he turned around and placed himself in between my legs, leaning in to give me the kiss he had promised. His hands were firmly placed on my thighs while I had mine lightly around his neck to keep us steady.

“Hey,” he smiled, breaking away from me, taking his time to look into my eyes.

“Hi,” I whispered back, going back to kissing him. He squeezed my things lightly, but that was not the direction I was thinking of this going. I broke away from him again so that I couldn’t go any further.

“Your eyebrows are growing back,” he pointed out, reaching out and running his thumb over the left one.

“I know,” I said excitedly, not being able to wait until my hair would actually be there again. Right now, it was pretty ugly. It had started growing back, but only in thin strands that stuck up. It also wasn’t growing back brown, but ginger, like my hair when I was three years old. “It just sucks that all my hair everywhere is growing back. I actually enjoyed the whole not having to shave thing.”

“Nobody’s forcing you to.” He chuckled before dipping down and starting to kiss my neck.

I decided to change the subject, having wanted to ask him something for quite some time. I didn’t stop him from the sensual act, instead letting my fingers get tangled in his hair. “I was thinking… you might hate this idea, but still. Since we’ve know each other for exactly a year now--”

“I left the best impression,” he murmured, not letting his lips leave my skin.

“Yeah, not everybody has made me question their sanity by trying to get me to change my coffee order. And you kept staring at me, which is totally a normal thing to do.”

“Only because I thought you were so beautiful.”

I couldn’t help but snort, making Jack part away from me and give me the most serious look ever. He inspected my face to see any signs of me joking, but when he saw I wasn’t, he shook his head. “You are the most beautiful human being I know, don’t ever think otherwise.”

“I wasn’t saying that,” I laughed, still appreciating his comment, “I was just thinking of the fact that we were friends for quite a while before anything happened; you can’t tell me that was your first impression!”

“But it so was!” Jack blurted out. “You know, I had actually intended that day at the park to be our first date, but it didn’t exactly work out that way.”

I gasped, “oh my god! I didn’t even realise! I’m so sorry about totally blowing that off.”

He shrugged. “It all worked out in the end, right? I’m actually pretty glad that it went this way. We actually got to know each other before getting into a relationship. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have been together for this long if it hadn’t happened this way.”

“I would have just been another notch in your bedpost,” I snickered, remembering the countless girls he used to sleep with on a weekly basis.

“No offence, but it probably would have been true. But it all happened like this for a reason. I accidentally found my soulmate.” He went back for my lips, his hands trailing underneath my shirt and holding my hips firmly. I could tell he wanted this to go a specific direction as he traveled down my jaw and back to my neck, this time trying to leave his mark.

“About that suggestion I was going to make,” I started again, pulling him away from my neck, “it doesn’t involve you giving me hickeys.”

“Awe,” he groaned as I also removed his hands and put them back in place, but over my shirt instead, “I thought it was going to be some sexual act for this important milestone!”

“No, that’s for our anniversary in February,” I smirked knowing that he’d now be counting the days until that would happen, “just let me get to my idea. All your fans know about me is my name and that I’m dating you. Oh, and they’ve been updated on the whole cancer thing. So, I was thinking of letting them ask me questions. Like a Q&A.”

“And how are you planning on doing this? How are their questions going to get to you?” Jack raised an eyebrow, not really sure of my plan.

“Twitter.”

“Last time I checked you didn’t have social media accounts because I made you take them down since there was too much hate for my liking.”

“But you do,” I poked his nose, batting my eyelashes to try and convince him, “and we already talked about potential hate on our youtube channel, so you can’t say anything about that! Plus, do you really think they’ll give me as much hate on your account, on the account of their idol?”

“Ok, fine,” he sighed in defeat, “but only because I have this feeling you’ll leave me sex-less for two weeks, which is the worst because I’m leaving in two weeks, meaning I’ll be sex-less for more than a month, and I can’t deal with that.”

“You know me too well,” I giggled.

----

I had my camera set up on a tripod in the living room. Jack had tweeted out that I was going to answer questions just an hour and a half ago, and the replies were quickly building up. Even Alex had decided to join in, contributing his own very strange question. There was no way I was going to be able to answer all of them, I’d probably only have time to do maximum 10 of them. However, many of them were similar, asking about my relationship with Jack. There were also a couple that weren’t about Jack which I was determined to have a look at.

“You’re going to be ok?” Jack double checked one last time. I didn’t know what he was going to do while I was filming, but he wasn’t going to be in the video itself.

“Yeah, I got your phone, the camera is charged, I think I’m set,” I told him, looking through the viewfinder one last time to make sure everything was in frame before flipping the screen around so I could awkwardly see myself talk while I was sat on the couch.

I started recording and sat down. Before I could even start an intro, Jack walked behind the couch to go to the stairs and burped loudly. I turned to look at him and frowned, scrunching up my nose.

“That was actually pretty impressive.” I nodded, getting a smile from him.

“Thanks, m’lady. What you do it just let it build up and then let it all out. It’s a skill,” Jack advised as if it were some difficult craftsmanship before disappearing upstairs.

I took a deep breath and turned back to the camera which had recorded anything. This video was me probably just sitting there awkwardly not knowing what I was doing. It was going to be way too long and I’d probably never think of stopping the recording in between, making me edit something that was one hour long into a ten minute video. At least it was something that would keep me occupied for a while.

“Ok, so I don’t know how to start this,” I started off, the camera completely focused on me, “the house is completely quiet right now, which is a rare occurrence, especially since I’m not the only one home right now. I feel like I’m being watched, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I find Jack staring at me from the stairs at some point in this video. Anyways, I stole his phone and twitter for the time being. So, if for all you stalkers out there wondering what phone Jack Barakat has, here you go,” I held up the black iPhone 6s and shrugged at how plain it was. The only cute thing was that his background was actually a photo of us back when I still had long hair -- his background was often a photo of something else, but he’d switch every couple of days. “I guess I’ll get started then.”

I unlocked Jack’s phone using my fingerprint and started scrolling through the tweets, trying to find anything that stood out. It might have been a better idea to do this beforehand, but I was still getting more questions as time went by, and I didn’t want to miss anything that popped up last minute. “I guess I’ll start with the couple of you asking about how I’m doing. So, I believe many of you guys know this already, I mean, it did cause All Time Low to stop touring for a while. But a couple of months ago I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I won’t get into all the boring details I had to deal with, but it’s basically cancer in the blood. Things went good for a while, but then it all went downhill quickly. I’m not sure if Jack has told you guys, but they expected me not to make it. I wasn’t responding to any of the treatments anymore, so they told me that it was better for me to go home and live my last couple of days there. Me being stubborn, however, convinced Jack to have a mini road trip to Disney World in Florida. I’d never been and if I was going to die, I would have wanted to have gone there at least once. We did that, and the next day All Time Low had a show in Florida. That’s where things went very bad. I could have died, and I basically did at the show. However, Jack still stopped the show and called an ambulance. From there they brought me back to Baltimore, and I was in a medically induced coma. They tried out this new treatment that would work, but it was very harsh. I managed to survive that somehow, which they also hadn’t expected. I got a bone marrow transplant from my twin brother, and yeah, I’m here now. Things seem to be going pretty well right now and Jack’s ready to get back into it all again. You all know about the UK tour in March already, and I can’t tell anymore, but I do have insider information. Now, let’s get into the stuff you guys really want to know.”

I looked through the questions again, most of them were about Jack, so I decided to just answer some of those. “How did Jack and I meet? It’s actually a very cliche story,” I laughed, bringing my legs up onto the couch and towards my chest, “it was exactly a year ago today. I was a little late to work--this was back when I still gave dance classes and would take photos for random small magazines--but I still decided to get some coffee. I walk out of the door just as Jack walks in, making me spill the coffee all over the front of my shirt and the photos I had to send to this magazine. He insisted on buying me new coffee and he’d basically ruined my photos. I wrote some bullshit explanation behind it, and they fell for it, so that was good. I brought Jack to my dance class despite not knowing him at all, and yeah. That’s how we met, but not how we got together, though, that’s a different story.”

“Why do I stick around Jack? Well, umm, I’m not sure actually. I don’t know why I’m with him or why he stays with me, it’s just the way it is. Like, I don’t choose who I fall in love with. Jack and I were friends, best friends even, and it just happened. Like, he could have broken up with me whenever he wanted these nearly 9 months we’ve been together. I feel like many people believe he’s only with me, because he was ‘stuck,’ because I was sick and it isn’t socially acceptable to break up with somebody who’s terminally ill. If that were the case, he probably wouldn’t have slept in a hospital chair every night for months on end, and he probably would have let me die when I nearly did, and he probably would have broken up with me by now. I can’t really change how things have gone.”

There were many people asking if we were every going to get married or if we were going to have kids. To be honest, I felt way too uncomfortable to answer those questions. If Jack initially had trouble with understanding why I didn’t want to get married, then a couple of thousand teenage girls definitely weren’t. As for the kids, I just didn’t want them. I loved kids, but having my own just wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t as if I could actually have them, there was a high chance that chemo just completely took that option from me.

“My favourite jam-slash-marmalade? What?” I thought I came across the most bizarre question, but when I saw that it was Alex who had asked it, I couldn’t help but answer. “Well, Alex G-Ga-gaskan-gaskak… I’m sorry how do I pronounce this name?” I acted like I was trying my best to read name and twitter handle. “Yo, Jack! Come here for a sec!”

Footsteps thundered down the stairs, Jack appearing at the bottom as if he were a dog who had just heard the word ‘treat’. “I heard sex?”

“No, sec as in second,” I corrected, motioning him to come over. He pouted and sighed dramatically, but still made his way over to me. “How do you pronounce this name?”

He took the phone from me and also frowned. “I think it’s A Lex Gayskank.”

I got the phone back and tried again. “Well, Alexus Gorestank, or as your twitter handle says, Aleexall Time Low. I don’t really eat jam or marmalade, so I unfortunately cannot answer your question.”

“She likes blueberry jam,” Jack said out of nowhere.

“Apparently, I like blueberry jam. I’ve never tried it, but--”

“Blueberry jam is her favourite, you should get her blueberry jam as a gift, she’ll love it. It’s how I got her to go out with me.”

“Well, there you have it, blueberry jam.” I just accepted it as an answer if that was what Jack wanted.

“Oh my god, I can see myself!” Jack suddenly exclaimed, leaning in closer over the backrest to see the small screen on my camera, “It’s better than a mirror!” He proceeded to unbuckle his belt and pull down his jeans. However, when he reached for his boxers, I was quick to stop him.

“Jack!” I shrieked, slapping his hands away and holding up the waistband so he couldn’t even try. “I don’t care what you put up on the internet, but don’t do it when I’m in the room!”

“Wait, you’re telling me we aren’t filming our sextape right now?” He gasped as if I had betrayed him. “But the blueberry jam!”

“No…” I shook my head as my eyes went wide. I knew this wasn’t serious at all, but there was no harm in playing along.

“Your hand’s very close to my dick right now.” He blinked, not moving an inch.

I stared right into his eyes. “Deal with it.”

He slowly reached down for his jeans and pulled them back up, quietly shuffling away to the kitchen. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Over time, this whole talking to a camera thing was getting a lot easier and I felt a lot less awkward. It was like I was having a normal conversation with somebody.

“What’s your favourite sex position? What type of question is this?” I furrowed my eyebrows and decided to skip this. Why would I ever answer something like this? Not that I had many options other than the two most simple ones, but still.

“I like it when the girl...” Jack suddenly started answering loudly from the kitchen, using many words I was going to have to censor out, my facial expression slowly turning disgusted, “and then the guy…” he continued using more words I hadn’t expected to come out of his mouth, let alone in a video.

“Is that even physically possible?” I choked, not being able to get a weird image out of my head. It was going to be stuck in there for quite a while.

“I don’t know, I just made it up,” he walked back in the living room to go back upstairs, “we should try, though.”

“No, no we shouldn’t.”

With a small shrug, he left again. I was sure that the suggestion would come back later, only it would be during a more convenient time when it was more fitting. Not like I would ever say yes to anything like that. I mean, jumping from what we did to whatever crazy idea Jack had, was definitely a bad idea. They say you need experience before trying something more difficult, well the same counted for sex in my book.

“What do I do while Jack’s on tour? Well, the first time he went on tour, we were just friends so I just dealt with it. Then the second time, we just got together, but it wasn't for long. Third time was a little later and I flew out to see him, which was when I also met Alex, Zack, and Rian. The fourth time was when I got really sick, so things didn’t really go well then. What I guess I’m going to do next time is cry in our bed with a picture next to me. No, I’d probably go out to see him again and take my time to figure out what to do with my life. I can’t be having a midlife crisis at 24.”

“You’re just dating him for fame. Why, yes, yes I am. You see, I only got together so that the whole world would get to see my amazing mime-skills. People keep telling me to give up on my dream, but all I needed was a man who already has a million followers. I truly believe people will finally recognize my talent now.” I joked, wondering if people would actually believe that. When I realised there were probably way too many fangirls who would, I decided it would be best if I made sure they knew it was a joke, I didn’t need this blowing out of proportion. “Of course not, but it would be pretty amazing to be able to mime. Like I said before, I don’t really decide who I fall in love with. If that were the case, I probably would have been with somebody that isn’t gone at least 300 days a year. Like, I don’t mind now and I’ll always support Jack, but I grew up with my dad being gone most days of the year because of work, so I know what it’s like. I’ve also already been recognized when Jack just had made our relationship a bit more public, and it wasn’t the nicest thing ever. I was left with a black eye and many bruises all over my body after that. It’s why it took some convincing to let Jack make me this video. ”

“What is it like dating our favourite manwhore Jack? Well, I’ll agree, Jack used to sleep with quite a lot of girls, but I don’t believe it was as bad as he tries to make it seem. Yeah, I had my fair share of times when I had to go and save him from girls that wouldn’t leave his bed, but it slowed down drastically before we started dating. And he hasn’t cheated on me… I think…” I thought a little, wondering if anything had ever happened, so I shouted once again, “hey, Jack!"

“What!” He yelled back all the way from one of the rooms upstairs.

“Have you ever cheated on me?”

“No!”

“Well on that note,” I turned back to the camera, “goodbye.”

I turned the camera off.