Hospital Beds and Memories

“Are you sure you want to come with me now and not show up later with the others?” I asked Jack for the millionth time that day as I sat down on the bed to pull on my shoes.

At first, the plan was that everybody (that is Zack, Rian, Alex, and Jack) was going to go to my brother’s place at the same time as me. However, we soon figured out that that wasn’t going to make any sense. I was only coming over so early because they wanted me to sing for a new cover they were doing. Why should with? So, I suggested that they come over later to hang out rather than bore themselves to death before any alcohol was involved. They all seemed to think that that was a good idea, also leaving them some time for themselves. However, Jack still insisted on coming along with me rather than the other members of his band.

“I just want to hear my pretty girlfriend sing,” he pouted as he stood leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door.

“You’re probably going to be bored out of your mind, though,” I warned him once again and got up from where I was sitting. “It’s not that I don’t want you there, because I do, I’m just thinking about you.”

“Sweet,” he grinned and took his phone out of the charger, “so you’re letting me come with you!”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop the smile that crept up onto my face. “Fine. But I’m driving.” I ran over to where the car keys were placed on the dresser before Jack could reach them.

“Oh god,” he turned pale and stared at me with wide eyes, “are you sure about that?”

“Yeah!” I nodded enthusiastically and bounced out of the room, completely ready to go. Jack had driven me around for ages, now it was my turn to drive him. It even meant he didn’t have to deal with LA traffic! He should be grateful that I wanted to do this.

“Wait, are you actually being serious?” He followed me out of the apartment and down to the elevators, which weren’t too far away from where we were staying.

I turned around and walked backwards to frown at him. “Why? Don’t you think I can do it?”

“It’s not that you can’t do it, it’s just… safety.”

“Jack,” I whined and entered the elevator, pressing the button to bring us to the garage, “I drive at home as well. I know how to drive! There’s nothing to worry about. Why would I suddenly not be able to drive here? Sure, Californians don’t exactly follow traffic rules, but it’s not like you’d be any better in avoiding other people's mistakes.”

His eyes were fixed on the keys I was holding in my hands, a plastic tag with all the info from the car rental company on it. “And I completely agree with that, it’s just… I don’t know.”

“Oh my god, Jack,” I groaned and got off the elevator as soon as it was at our floor, “just say you’re afraid because I used to get seizures!”

“I, umm…”

“My seizures have gone along with the cancer. I don’t need any medication anymore and I’m in the clear for driving again. Don’t freak out so much.” I explained and used the keys to unlock the car, making it easier to see where we parked it. I stomped over to the driver’s side of the red car that just flashed its lights.

“No seizures?” Jack double checked as he pulled the handle to open the passenger’s side.

The menacing glare I gave him was enough for him to squint his eyes and flinch away, scrambling to get in the car. I shook my head and got in myself, still happy to have won this small dispute. Jack just watched me, close to biting his own nails, hoping everything was going to go well. I just put the keys in the ignition and grinned as I heard the car hum.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Jack then asked me, starting to really get on my nerves.

“Yes, of course I know where I’m going!” I exclaimed, my grip on the steering wheel tightening, until I realized he did have a point. “Just not how to get there…”

“I’m already looking it up on my phone,” he sighed and reached into his pocket. However, as he pressed the home button, he let out a frustrated groan. “My phone didn’t fucking charge! God dammit! I guess we’re using the battery for navigation… goodbye, my friend.”

“I’m sure Cam has a charger to revive it.” I gave Jack a pat on the shoulder while he put his phone in the holder on the dashboard.

Soon enough, his phone started giving me directions and showing a display of all the roads available. I drove out of the garage, but not without Jack cringing when I had no other choice that to make a very tight turn around a wall because the car was too long. Even though I acted like I didn’t know how nervous he was, I could sense the tension in his posture. He just didn’t have any faith in me, while I knew exactly what I was doing.

And it turned out me driving was actually a good thing. It wasn’t until we arrived and I parked next to a car already on the property that I realised that Jack’s phone had died about halfway through the journey. I had reached out to take his phone, only to freeze completely and get a sick feeling to my stomach.

Jack immediately noticed something was wrong. “Is everything ok?”

I nodded, but felt all the blood drain from my face, as I shakily handed the phone to him. “Your-- Your phone’s dead.”

“I already expected that to happen, it doesn’t matter. There’s no reason to be so freaked out about it.” He laughed, thinking that I was acting so weird because I thought he was going to do something for making him use up his phone battery.

“It died about 20 minutes ago…”

And that was when realization hit him as well. We both knew that this was the right address, but neither of us knew how we had managed to get here without the navigation on anymore. Somehow I had managed to drive us here without any directions. I couldn’t remember not knowing where I had to go, and I felt like I was just driving around Baltimore, where I knew exactly where to go. Jack and I stared at each other, hoping that the other knew any answers. But all we were doing was searching each other’s eyes.

“How about we go inside?” Jack suggested and took off his seatbelt before slowly turning in his seat to opened the door.

I nodded and did exactly the same, hoping I didn’t seem too fazed by this. It was obvious we both didn’t know how to react. We probably both knew it had something to do with my memory, but I couldn’t pinpoint a certain event. I really tried recalling anything from this place, but nothing came up. It was all still a big fog, clouding a chunk of my life. Something happened in LA, something happened here specifically. But what?

I stared out at the one story house in front of me. It was painted a weird olive green and didn’t exactly seem like the best place to live. To be honest, I didn’t even know how four guys managed to live there and have a small recording studio built into it. I really tried to imagine what the inside could possibly look like, but it still seemed like a stranger’s house to me. Not even an imagination came up. It was literally just blank.

Jack knocked of the glass of my door, making me jump and nearly let out a little scream. He was bending down to give me a questioning concerned look. As I just looked back at him without doing anything, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “are you coming or what?”

I shook my head to get me out of the phase and actually got out of the car. If I couldn’t find out what it was, it was better to ignore, right? I mean, I could pester Cam until he told me, but then again he couldn’t tell me anything, and maybe he didn’t know either. Well, he obviously had to know. I mean, I knew how to get here and he was living here now. Maybe he used to live here some time ago?

I took hold of Jack’s hand after I locked the car, letting him lead me to the front door. To make it seem like I really was ok, I reached up a little to give him a small soft kiss on his cheek. He smiled down at me and gave by hand a squeeze. By the way his eyes flickered down to my lips, I knew he was contemplating whether or not he wanted to kiss me on the lips now. Just as I saw that he was just going to go for it, the door opened. One of Cam’s band member was standing there in his underwear to welcome us.

“Hey,” he smiled despite he was practically naked, not even caring that we saw him like this, “the other’s are just finishing off Cameron’s vocal tracking, so they sent me out to open the door. Sorry I’m in my underwear, but I was last to wake up. I already recorded the drums yesterday evening.”

He let us in and I looked around. The place was definitely a whole lot larger on the inside. As soon as you entered, the was a large living room that had a built in kitchen in one of the corners and a table they used as a dining table. Then around this one room, there were doors to several other ones. I counted seven in total. I assumed four of them were used as bedrooms, once was the recording studio, and the left over were bathrooms. But, still, nothing seemed familiar.

“You’re Carter, right?” I double checked before I did that awkward thing where I wouldn’t know their names for my entire stay and get in trouble for it later.

“Yep, that’s me.” He grinned and pointed at the one door directly to our left. “The other’s are in there. I’m just going to go put on some clothes and then join you guys again.”

I nodded and was this time the one to pull Jack along with me. We entered the room and I was greeted immediately with Tay coming up to give me a hug. She whispered something about being glad that she wasn’t the only girl in the group of girls. Even though we had literally seen each other the day before, it was still really great to see her. We immediately clicked and although I didn’t have the best experience with befriending girls, I could see Tay and I getting pretty close.

She went to go sit back on the old black leather couch against a dark green wall. The room was pretty small, but that was mainly because of the soundproof chamber built into it. There was a drumset placed behind the glass and a microphone just in front of it. I knew for a fact that they only used this place to record demos or covers, and that the real shit was recorded at an actual recording studio. While the mixing board was still pretty impressive, I could tell that this wouldn’t lead to the best sound ever, however it was already a lot better than using just a computer and a microphone to do everything. There was also a piano placed against the far wall, but I had no idea how they recorded anything from that. It didn’t have any obvious wires that suggested and recording equipment around it. I just knew they had used it in covers before.

John and Charlie were both standing at the mixing console, flipping some switched and pushing some buttons. However, John was a bit more preoccupied with something else. He was facetiming someone at the same time, and from the squealing noises I could tell Emily was on the other side. I hadn’t seen her since I surprised Jack by singing with my brother on stage. She still sounded like the same spunky three year old, though.

John waved at me and picked up his phone before coming over. He smiled at Emily and pointed the screen at me while it was still on front facing camera. “Look who’s here!”

“Ireland!” She yelled in delight, causing me to beam back at her. “Is uncle Jacky there as well?”

Jack put his head on my shoulder to get in frame as well, saying hello to her. Emily managed to get even happier when she also got to see him. I don’t know how Jack did it, but he had won over the love of the little girl only after meeting her twice. But then again, he did do something similar to me.

John decided to finish his call in the living room while Cam and Charlie started instructing me what to do. I didn’t know we were going to be starting as soon as I arrived. Well, I did come over to sing for them, and we only had a couple of hours, so it actually made sense. I didn’t really know what I was doing, only having done this once before, so it could be that I messed up a couple of times.

“Ok, so all we still need are your vocals,” Cam told me, getting up from the couch and taking over where John had been before, but instead of actually working, he sat down in the office chair, “we actually were productive for once and finished all the instrumentals yesterday and finished my vocals this morning.”

“So, I just have to sing and you’re done?” I asked and got out my phone to look up the lyrics of the song once again. Like, I knew the songs, I knew some of the lyrics, but I hadn’t memorized it all.

“Yep, so go into the booth,” he pushed me towards the glass door and opened it before shoving me in, “and, Jack, take a seat wherever you like. There’s drinks in the kitchen; our cupboard broke yesterday, so all the glasses are on the counter.”

“I’m ready to be social,” Charlie clicked one last button and looked up only to realize the recording process was ready to start yet again, meaning he had to go back to work. At least they had the intercom on so that I could hear what they were talking about. “Really? Are you being serious right now? You tell me to back up what we have so far and you don’t even let me say hi to the people we’ve invited over. Now, I seem like a dick!”

“Don’t worry, you’re good,” I laughed and everybody looked at me. So that was what it was going to be like? Every time I said something while in this booth, all eyes were going to be on me. Well, great.

“So, how about we start with the backing vocals first?” Cam then suggested and told me to put on the headphones.

I unlocked my phone again and pulled up the lyrics to Just One Yesterday by Fall Out Boy. Cam ran me through what I had to sing, which was basically what Foxes sang in the original song. They let me listen through what they had so far, and it was pretty weird only hearing Cam’s voice with barely any backing vocals and then a whole part where he didn’t sing at all. Jack was just doing stuff on his phone the entire time, probably occasionally taking a picture for snapchat. Eventually Tay joined him, and they just started trying out weird filters together.

And then, finally I actually got to do what I came here for. Cam’s voice filled my ears as the song started playing again:

I thought of angels
Choking on their halos
Get them drunk on rose water
See how dirty I can get them
Pulling out their fragile teeth
And clip their tiny wings

I first started off with the basic soft background vocals that weren’t too prominent as the track continued.

Anything you say can and will be held against you
So only say my name
It will be held against you
Anything you say can and will be held against you
So only say my name

Later on, I had to track the parts sung in between the things Cam sung, but for now they were left out:

If heaven's grief brings hell's rain
Then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
For just one yesterday
Oh, I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
Still I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
For just one yesterday
For just one yesterday

Letting people down is my thing, baby
Find yourself a new gig
This town ain't big enough for two of us
I don't have the right name
Or the right looks
But I have twice the heart

Anything you say can and will be held against you
So only say my name
It will be held against you
Anything you say can and will be held against you
So only say my name (name)

If heaven's grief brings hell's rain
Then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
For just one yesterday
Oh, I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
Still I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
For just one yesterday
For just one yesterday

My verse was also left out to be recorded separately. Apparently that all came later when ‘my voice was warmed up’.

If heaven's grief brings hell's rain
Then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
For just one yesterday
I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
Still I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
For just one yesterday
For just one yesterday

“That was great!” Charlie smiled while pressing a button to save it as a track. “Let’s take one more to tweak stuff.”

That ‘one more’ turned to many, many more. Cam kept finding things for me to redo. Sometimes I just got to sing one line ago, other times it was just a verse, but occasionally he would just want to scrap it all and make me start again. It was absolutely horrible. I didn’t even know he was such a perfectionist.

“Cam,” I whined when he tried me to do it all over again for the fourth time, “you’re going to wear me out before I get to do the extra parts in the chorus and my verse! Can’t I come back and redo this later? Or do you want me to lose my voice before I get to the important part?”

“Ok, fine, but only because you need to be able to do those long notes,” he replied with a sigh. “Let’s start out with that extra stuff for the chorus.”

Once again, the song started playing for me, this time one of my backing tracks placed behind it as well. It was strange suddenly have to sing other lines than before.

If heaven's grief brings hell's rain
Then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
(I know I'm bad news)
For just one yesterday
(I saved it all for you)
I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
Still I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
(I know I'm bad news)
For just one yesterday
(I saved it all for you)
For just one yesterday

I did that for all of the choruses, and I could tell that Cameron so badly wanted to get me to redo things. He was practically bursting to give me a whole list, but he took a deep breath and smiled, telling me we were going to my verse next and then coming back to all of the other parts. However, that’s when the doorbell rang again.

Jack jumped awake from the place where he was slowly starting to fall asleep. Normally, I would have laughed or felt sorry for him, but I had warned him he would be bored and I just didn’t see the humor in having to be so long in the place. We could have finished a long time ago and could have gotten the party started. Really, I didn’t hear any differences in the tracks he was debating on using.

“I’ll get it,” Jack yawned and took the opportunity to leave the place. He knew it was probably Alex and the others, or he wouldn’t have even thought of getting up and going to the front door of a strange house.

When Jack was gone, I just stared at Cam with an unamused face. I saw that he had headphones on, listening to all of my tracks, a notepad in hand to make notes of things that could be improved.

“You know, you’re an asshole when you’re recording other people,” I told him while putting a hand on my hip.

Tay chipped in from her position on the couch. She was lying down and originally had her feet in Jack’s lap. “Agreed!”

Just then, Jack came back with his three band members, making the small room completely crammed. He introduced the two bands to each other, nearly messing up Charlie’s and Carter’s names. Luckily he was able to catch himself before he did, and I didn’t think anybody really realized, it just sounded like he had some weird voice crack, which was laughed about. But that only helped to break the ice.

“Oh, she’s in there!” Alex suddenly exclaimed and pointed at me with a grin.

I lightly waved back at him until I suddenly realized there were nine people on the other side of the glass watching me. It was like I was some animal at the zoo or something. I chuckled awkwardly, “is everybody going to watch me now?”

Alex decided to answer by sitting down in Jack’s lap, moving Tay’s feet which had found their on it again before. At first, he put them on his lap, but then Rian squeezed onto the couch as well, moving Tay’s feet so they were on the floor again. She let out a small annoyed groan, only to hang them over Zack’s shoulders, who had chosen so sit on the floor with Carter and lean against the couch.

I just glared at Cam again. “You made a horrible mistake, brother.”

“Well, sister dearest,” he batted his eyelashes at me as if that were going to make me be any less mad at him, “what is this abominable aberration?”

“You do realize you left me the most difficult part to do with many people watching me, right? I will probably mess up.”

“You’ll do fine.” Without giving me a warning, he started playing the track again and cutting off the communication from outside to inside.

I started telling him to turn it off, but he just acted like he couldn’t hear me, which was just complete bullshit. I knew for a fact that all they could hear was my voice at the moment, well, with the music in the background. But my voice for sure was the loudest. He was just being a big dick. And nobody was even helping me. Jack even sat there, not doing anything to defend me.

But then the piano already started playing and I had to sing. I looked at my phone to follow the lyrics while I hoped I didn’t mess up the melody.

If I spilled my guts
The world would never look at you the same way
And now I'm here to give you all my love
So I can watch your face as I take it all away, away, away, ay ay ay

And then the long note...

If heaven's grief brings hell's rain
Then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
(I know I'm bad news)
For just one yesterday
(I saved it all for you)
I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
Still I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday
(I know I'm bad news)
For just one yesterday
(I saved it all for you)
For just one yesterday

When the song finally ended, they allowed me to hear them again. There was loud clapping and cheering even though I felt like I could have done so much better. Even Cam was clapping along, nodding as if he was very impressed.

Jack was the first one to actually make a comment. However, instead of it being something that made sense, he hollered, “girl, lemme get yo number!”

“Jack, I’m pretty sure you have my number memorized and I can’t even do that,” I told him in a matter of facts tone, shaking my head at his silliness.

He pouted, but eventually admitted that it was true. But then again, I also kinda knew his number by heart. You know, if there’s an emergency, I’d call him, not my parents. Although, I did know their number as well, coincidentally…

“But I still want to have the pretty girl’s number,” Jack insisted.