Hospital Beds and Memories

Ok, so what Alex said meant we weren’t just going to go downstairs to the hotel’s pool. There was no way for me to leave earlier if I felt like it. I didn’t really want to go swimming, but I knew that if I said that I wouldn’t want to go, Jack would also not go anymore, causing Alex to rethink everything and then it would result in them not going anymore. Maybe I could just get away with sitting on the edge, keeping an eye on all of our stuff.

And so, against my will, but without showing it, we went to a swimming pool for the rest of the day. I brought along the bikini I had bought as well with Tay since I didn’t have anything else with me that I could possibly wear other than underwear. The only problem was that I wasn’t exactly ready to wear the bikini yet. It was something Tay had convinced me to buy to keep me motivated to reach my desired body. And, if you hadn’t realized, I wasn’t exactly there yet. I was still too skinny, and I was trying to get better, but that didn’t mean I felt good about myself yet. So, yes, if you guessed that this was the reason why I didn’t want to go swimming, then you were right. I was fine with my body as long as it was only me and Jack, but now there were more people I knew plus a handful of strangers. I could already feel the way people were going to judge me for my ribs that were sticking out just a bit too much and my hip bones still showing. Of course I knew those opinions didn’t matter, and of course I knew they were all wrong because I actually was trying to improve, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid.

I had stolen one of Jack black t-shirts and had stuffed it in the bag along with everything else so that I could wear it while I was technically in my bathing suit. After having to split up with the guys to go to the gender assigned bathrooms, I quickly changed into the Navy and white striped bikini and pulled on the shirt right after before anybody else in the changing room could glance in my direction. There were only a couple of moms with their very young children and some older people in the changing room, but they were always the quickest to judge. Elderly people always hated how people looked and acted these days and parents hated anything that wasn’t the way they wanted their kids to be. So, basically I was the perfect target.

I prayed for the guys to be waiting for me on the other side so that I didn’t have to stand there awkwardly until somebody showed up. There was nothing I could distract myself, I put my bag in a locker, only wearing my swimsuit and Jack’s shirt along with slippers. Jack had the towels, and I just hoped he didn’t forget to take them with him. Luckily for me, as soon as I opened the doors to the pool, there were four guys fooling around like they always did. I walked up to them and sneaked my hand into Jack’s grip. He jumped a little at my touch, but smiled as soon as he saw it was me.

“She’s here!” He exclaimed happily and continued to hold my hand as we found a place to sit. Eventually, we decided to all stay on these large-step like things that were much like bleachers. Jack pulled out the two towels he had underneath his arm and showed them both to me. “Would you rather have the adventure time one with Jack the dog on it or the one with Pikachu?”

“That is a very difficult decision indeed,” I put a finger to my chin and acted like this was an important life decision, “I really do like your choice of towels, but I’m going to have to go with Pikachu.”

“Good choice,” he nodded with an impressed look and laid out both towels for us.

I sat down and looked around. There weren’t many people except for the people I already mentioned and some other people around our age. All kids still had to go to school, but I could imagine this place being completely packed. It would nearly be impossible to find a place to sit and keep your towel, but we had many choices. I also was pretty happy that there weren’t many people even though I wasn’t planning on taking off the shirt I was wearing. I did understand why the guys wanted to go here. It wasn’t the coolest swimming pool of course, but there were three slides. If you would have taken me here a couple of months ago or a couple months later, I would have been just as excited, but I just couldn’t match the enthusiasm this time.

“Hey, you wanna go in? We’re going.” Jack tapped my shoulder and pointed at himself, Alex and Rian. However, I realised Zack was still sitting here, not looking like he was planning on going swimming yet, so I took it to my advantage.

“I think I’ll stay here and keep Zack company, but maybe in a bit,” I told him as if I really was still thinking of joining them later on. I ignored the pout he gave me and told him to go. It didn’t take much longer for the boys to rush off and for screams to follow soon after.

I brought my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my shins, just staring out at the place, watching elderly people trying to get their exercise and mothers teaching their babies how to swim. Of course the crazy guys were also in the mix, but I didn’t really take much notice of them. Nothing seemed really out of the ordinary, until my eyes landed on a guy on the other side of the room. He had dark brown, nearly borderline black, hair that was buzzed on the sides and slightly longer on the top. His skin was tan, showing off his abs that were much like Zack’s. And as far as I could see, he had quite a chiseled face. The weird thing, though, was that he was staring at me.

“You know, Jack’s not going to like you staring at other guys,” Zack interrupted my thoughts. Getting me to break away my gaze from the man.

I shook my head and frowned, “I’m not staring at other guys.”

“You sure? What about Mr. Hot-Guy over there?” He raised and eyebrow and nodded in the direction of where I was looking before.

“I wasn’t staring!” I gasped and hit him with one of my slippers, making him cringe away slightly. “He was staring at me. Plus, I don’t think he’s that hot anyway.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” He winked in a teasing way. “Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

“No, really! Jack has nothing to worry about and he knows it.”

“Okay.” he raised his hand up in defense, but I could tell that he was still skeptical and not believing me one bit.

“Trust me, he’s more worried about us talking than me looking at a complete stranger,” I retorted, making him look at me with raised eyebrows as if asking me why it would be that way, “you must remember that Jack initially freaked out a little when he found out you were my real first kiss, but then after I talked to him, he dropped it completely. I must have said something that makes him trust me completely.”

“I figured it was because he just found out about your cancer…”

“Nope,” I shook my head with a smile, letting him know I didn’t take any offense to what he said, “it was something else. I can tell you what it is if you want, but you’ll be the only other person to know other than Jack. Not even my brother or parents know.”

“Will it make me have to carry a weight on my shoulders constantly?” He squinted his eyes and sat up a little more.

“No, it will only make you believe me. There isn’t really a reason why I haven’t told other people other than it never randomly coming up in a conversation.”

“Ok, then, tell me.”

“Well, I’m demisexual,” I told him and started explaining before he could ask me what it was, “which means I don’t feel sexually attracted to anybody unless I have an emotional bond with someone. So, that guy over there, who I know is good looking, doesn’t really do anything for me.”

“But for Jack it’s different?”

I nodded and leaned back onto my arms. “Yeah. We first became good friends, which is where the emotional bond comes in place, and then later we got together. So, basically our relationship is the perfect example for what I’m trying to explain.”

“I think I know what you mean.” He grinned and looked out towards his bandmates and best friends who were splashing each other. “Do you mind if I go join them?”

“No, go ahead.”

“Are you going to come along?” He stood up and held a hand out for me to help myself up with.

I shook my head and waved him off to make him go. “No, maybe later though.”

He gave me a thumbs up and walked off to join the others, but not before giving the guy from before a strange yet stern look. I don’t know what it was, but this stranger was making me feel uncomfortable. He didn’t look threatening, nor did he give me looks that suggested he had the wrong intentions, but there was just something off. I just wished I could place it. There was nothing about him that made me think of something. All he was was some guy that gave me occasional curious glances. I would have tried to figure out, but I felt weird looking in his direction after what Zack had said. Maybe Jack would misinterpret my looks, and I didn’t want to disrespect him like that.

Speaking of which, Jack came bouncing up towards me, water dripping down his body, and sat down on his towel. “Why are you not joining us?”

I snapped my head towards him and gave him a look as if I had no idea what he was talking about. “I told you, I was going to come, just not yet.”

“Hmm.” He nodded and shook his head afterward, making droplets of water fly everywhere. I squealed and tried to hide myself behind my arms, but he grabbed me and brought me close so he could hug me.

“I swear to god, if you ever do that when you’re sweaty, I will chop your balls off.” I pushed him away and peeled his arms off me.

“So no kisses after shows or working out?” He pouted but let me go nonetheless.

I shrugged, knowing that he would still do it no matter what, especially if he knew it annoyed me. I could already imagine that stupid grin he would have on his face when I would be squirming around in his disgusting clammy grip. He would really enjoy pestering me in a way like that. Not giving him a definite answer would maybe take away some of the urge to do it.

“Ok, and now you tell me the real reason why you don’t want to go swimming,” he changed the subject back as quick as he had originally done in the first place, “is still because of what happened this morning?”

I shook my head vigorously, wondering why he decided to bring that up again. “No, of course not! Although I’m pretty sure my ass is bruised from last night…”

“Please don’t remind me, it only makes me feel horrible!” He groaned and ran a hand over his face, but he wasn’t going to drop the subject soon. “So, why don’t you want to go swimming?”

“I told you, and I will keep telling you, in a bit,” I insisted, hoping he would just drop it. There was no sudden need for me to willingly jump in the water, so I was going to stay out of it.

“Ok, but at least take the shirt off,” he demanded and started to reach of for the hem, “at least make it look like you want to be here.”

“But I do want to be here!” I argued and watched with fear as he started to pull the fabric up.

“You sure about that?”

I nodded and slapped his hands away, only making his determination stronger. He tried a couple more times, only to be forced away by me, until he decided it wasn’t going to work that way. I’d like to remind you that he wasn’t just going to give up. Instead, he decided it would be a good idea to tickle me, poking at my sides and getting reactions from me. I kept trying to get him to stop, really not liking what he was doing, but he continued to annoy me. Well, that was until I forcefully pushed his hands away with a frown and let my head rest in his lap even though his swim shorts were still soaked.

“What’s wrong?” He sighed, softly running his hand through the short hair I had.

“Nothing,” I mumbled in response.

“Something has to be wrong for you to act like this. I have a theory, but feel like it’s way too far fetched. If it not about last night, this morning, or the pill, then is it-- Could it-- Are you-- Are you uncomfortable with the way you look, more specifically your body?” He asked, making it sound like it really was something that was way too strange to think about and that there was no way of it being a possibility.

But my silence took too long.

“Isle, please tell me I’m wrong,” he pleaded in a hushed tone, his fingers no longer making the soft calming movement over my scalp.

“I don’t know…” A single tear dropped from my eye, unnoticingly mixing in with the chlorine water on Jack’s legs. “You already know how uncomfortable I am, remember the incident before I got to meet your parents?”

“What incident? Noooo, you never dropped your towel in front of me. Never did I ever see you naked before you wanted me to, nooo, not at all.”

I couldn’t really grin at his reaction even though I felt like I normally would have. “Exactly, that one. I was already uncomfortable around you, and now I’m practically naked in front of a handful of strangers. Sure, it’s normal at a swimming pool, and I shouldn’t really care about other people, but it’s kind of difficult when I look like this.”

“Look like what?”

“Jack, you and I both know I’m too skinny at the moment.”

“Yeah, but you’re getting better!” He countered, going back to stroking my head lightly. “You’ve come so far already, and there’s no doubt you’ll be completely back to normal in no time. I’m so proud of how well you’ve been doing. You just happen to still be in the recovery phase right now, and that’s completely normal and ok. I actually think you’ve been doing way better than anybody expected. So, don’t let some strangers who don’t know your story control your life. They might have their own opinions, but we all know that they’re invalid because they don’t know about your progress. Stop thinking about the negative, and look at the positive. You already look a lot healthier than when I left to go to LA, and a whole shitload better than when you just left the hospital.”

“Ok…” I whispered with a sniffle.

“So, we’re going to wipe those tears away, and we’re going to kiss that pout away,” he made me sit up and look at him before wiping away the stray tears with his thumbs and carefully kissing my lips, “and that shirt is going to come off, we’ll ignore anybody who is rude, and lastly we’ll have fun.”

I gave him a watery smile, but still reached down to take off the shirt in one swift motion. Immediately, I already felt a lot more exposed, but nobody except for the guy from before and Jack were looking at me. Jack stood up first and held out a hand to me, which I grabbed and allowed him to pull me up with. Our fingers stayed intertwined as he slowly guided me to the pool and entered via the gradual steps. We managed to walk up to where the others were since they were still in the shallow part of the pool.

“Look who came with me!” Jack exclaimed with a grin, showing me off.

They looked at me and let out a small cheer. The funny thing was that they were more focused on my boobs that were on display rather than my ribs that were poking out as well.

Jack made sure to make me go on all of the waterslides. I let Jack go crazy a couple times with Alex, but he insisted on going on them with me as well. He’d make me sit down first before he went right behind, a leg on either side of me. I really was stupid to let something hold me back from having fun like this. Luckily, Jack helped me realize that.

A bit later, we all sort of went our separate ways. I don’t know what the other’s went off to do, but Jack and I decided to just stay in the pool and float around for a while. My legs were wrapped around his torso, and my arms loosely circled around his neck, while he kept me up by ‘innocently’ putting his hands on the backside of my thighs. Our bodies were practically pressed together, just a couple of inches of water left in between. Mostly, we talked, but occasionally we sneaked in a couple of kisses as well. Whenever we were positioned in the right direction, I could still see the guy giving us occasional glances, but Jack didn’t seem to realize at all.

“Really, though, you don’t even know what you do to me. All you have to do to turn me on is stand there. No, not even that! I just need to think about you!” Jack tried to persuade me. Somehow, our conversation had gone from talking about what they’d been working on to Taco to this.

“Oh, come on, I have to do at least something to get your attention. I need to do a specific action or wear something, right?” I pointed out, not believing he really thought that way about me.

He shook his head in protest. “I promise you, you could be wearing the dirtiest old sweatpants and a raggy shirt, and you would still turn me on. All I have to do is think about what could happen, and I’m done.”

“Well, you better stop thinking about it, then!”

He stayed quiet as he looked down and back up at me. “I think it’s a little too late for that…”

“Jack!” I giggled as I felt exactly what he meant. “Think about something else.”

“It’s not that easy! I can’t just stop thinking about you!”

“Ok, well then… umm…” I broke away from him when I suddenly got an idea. I moved my foot down a little to make it nearly touch the floor, but knew he wouldn’t see what I was doing anyway. “Ow!”

“What’s wrong?” His eyes immediately snapped back and forth between my eyes and me clutching my foot while trying to stay above water.

“I don’t know,” I said while acting like I really was in much pain, “I just hit my foot against the floor and cracked it. Oh my god, it really hurts.”

“Umm…” he hooked his arm around my waist and brought me to the edge of the pool before lifting me out and putting me on the side. I brought my ‘injured’ foot up and inspected it, while Jack was also trying to figure out what to do. I just had to make sure he didn’t ask for the lifeguard’s help.

“It’s like there is this whole cramp throughout my foot,” I groaned as I tried to massage the knot out of my muscles.

“Point and flex it,” he instructed and I gave him a weird look, “trust me, running around weirdly onstage gives me a fair share of cramps as well.”

I shrugged and did as he told me to. If he was focused on all that, then I was fine. The only problem was that I didn’t know when it was ok for me to stop. I obviously didn’t know when to act like a specific movement really did hurt was too much, and I couldn’t drag this out for too long without making it seem too dramatic and making him worried too much. Apparently, I was taking too long, because Jack decided to hold my foot and help me.

“Let’s see if this helps,” he pushed my toes upwards so my foot was being stretched in quite an uncomfortable way.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I pushed his hand away easily, deciding I wasn’t as good of an actor as Jack thought I was.

“Wait, what?” He furrowed his eyebrows and slowly retracted his hands.

“It wasn’t hurting in the first place.”

“Huh?”

“Well, is your boner gone now or not?” I asked as if it was obvious this was my plan all along.

He looked down once again and looked back up at me, his mouth agape. “Wow…”

“I was assuming seeing me in pain like this was going to turn you off.” I shrugged, pretty pleased that it happened this fast.

“And that it did,” he nodded and pushed himself out of the pool to sit next to me, “now, if you don’t mind, I have to pee.”

I rolled my eyes with a chuckle. “Yeah, ‘pee’.”

“No, honestly!” He raised his hands up in defense as he stood up. “I wanted to go before, but I couldn’t exactly go out, and then I wasn’t just going to leave you here to fend for yourself!”

“It’s nice to know you care so much about me,” I put a hand on my heart before pushing him away lightly, “now go before you contaminate this water!”

“Ok.” He gave me a thumbs up and grinned before rushing away as quickly as he could without slipping.

I bit my lip trying to keep my smile at bay as I watched his awkward speed walk. Looking around to see if there was anybody I could join, I saw Zack and Rian sitting back where all our towels were. I decided to carefully get up and go to them so I could wrap myself in a towel and call it a day. I really tried my best not to slip, making sure I didn’t step right in the middle of the tiles but more towards the edges and the spaces between. To be honest, I could still feel some pain in my lower back, I didn’t need it to get worse from falling down again.

However, just as I was approaching the steps were Rian and Zack were sitting, a voice behind me made me jump. “Hey, Ireland.”

I turned around to see who the voice belong to, only to be met with the dark brown hair and a chiseled face, green eyes accompanying all the features. “Holy shit, you scared me.”

“It’s so great to see you!” He smiled confidently, but his body language showed how unsure and uncomfortable he actually was. I just stared at him, trying to place his face, but he didn’t even seem familiar. “It’s been what, four years now? I see you’ve moved on. Did you move back to LA?”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I asked him, making his smile drop and his eyes fill with a sad tinge.

“A-are you being serious right now?” He muttered, his facial features showing a mixture between betrayal and heartache. “I get that you’re mad for what happened, but you need to understand that I’m still so sorry. It was wrong of me to do, and I don’t know what I was thinking! The least I could have done was make sure I didn’t let you slip away.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about…” I tried to look for an escape, but I couldn’t think of anything.

“Just talk to me this once, and then I promise you I’ll never bother you ever again! You don’t have to forgive me, just please let me explain myself,” he begged, his eyes close to watering.

“Um…”

Luckily, Alex was there to save the day. He came up and joined the conversation as if it was just a casual thing between friends, but he shot me a quick look to tell me he was helping me get out of this. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to talk to Ireland,” the guy, whose name I didn’t know, requested.

Alex pursed his lips, forming a straight line. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Look, I don’t know what she’s told you about what happened, but I can guarantee that there’s more to it. Just hear me out.”

“I don’t know who you are.” I tried to make clear to him, not knowing where he got my name from.

His eyes lingered on my body, immediately making me feel self-conscious. “Y-you still have the scar. I bet you even told them the story behind it, which I like to remind you, you never told me. God, I’m so stupid!”

I wrapped both my arms around my body and his gaze slowly went to my left hand instead. His face turned pale and he ran a hand over his face. “You even got married? Why did nobody tell me this?!”

“Um, ok, Ireland,” Alex put a hand on either of my shoulders and turned me towards my original destination, “why don’t you go join Rian and Zack and I’ll take care of this?”

I nodded and couldn’t get out of there quicker. Picking up my towel, I wrapped it around myself and sat down next to Zack, watching as Alex interacted with the guy. There was something wrong about this, but I didn’t know what. When Jack came back from the bathrooms, Alex called him over. As soon as Jack quickly glanced in my direction, I knew they were talking about me, and I didn’t like the eerie feeling building up in my stomach.

“I told you,” Zack nudged with a snort.

“No,” I whispered and looked at him with mortified eyes, “I think I’m supposed to know him.”