Hospital Beds and Memories

New Year’s eve. Fireworks. Parties. Late nights. Great time to get drunk with friends. Prepare for the hangover the next day. Well, not for me. I was already throwing up without any of that. It was December 31st and we were supposed to go over the Alex’s and Lisa’s place for their New Year’s party. However, I had been throwing up since Christmas (the day after Alex and Lisa had celebrated it with us). The problem was that I had no idea where it was coming from. I just got very nauseous occasionally, especially in the morning, and I’d feel better after throwing up. There was no fever along with it and I had no other symptoms that could suggest that is was a stomach bug or food poisoning.

Jack was comfortingly rubbing my back at six in the morning after I had rushed out of bed again. He didn’t have to, but every time he was around when I started throwing up, he’d come in to comfort me, which was basically all the time. I didn’t know what was going on with me, and of course I felt some fear. Something serious could be going on, like my Leukemia could have come back or something worse. But then again, it could also just have been that my stomach was upset for some random reason.

“Are you sure you still want to go to Alex’s and Lisa’s?” Jack asked as he flushed the toilet for me while simultaneously helping me back up on my feet.

I nodded and went over to the sink to rinse out my mouth. “Yeah, I feel fine otherwise. Plus, it’s New Year's eve, we can’t exactly not show up.”

“I’m sure they’d understand,” he told me as he stood behind me. I was quickly rinsing my mouth with water and mouthwash so the disgusting sour taste would get out of my mouth.

I shrugged and walked back into our bedroom. I hadn’t exactly planned on waking up this early, so I had no trouble with climbing back into bed and catching a couple more hours of sleep. “I feel fine now, so it’s all good.”

Jack climbed back in on his side and draped one arm over my waist when we were both underneath the covers. “You’ve been saying that for six, no seven, days now. I don’t know why, but I don’t exactly believe you.”

“There still a possibility that this was the last time.” I pointed out and turned around so that we were facing each other before shuffling closer to him. I pushed him over a little so that he was on his back and I could snuggle against him, hiding my face in his neck.

“Somehow, if you had a fever, I wouldn’t be so concerned.”

“It will probably be over in no time.” I shushed him and tried falling back asleep.

Unfortunately, I had been incorrect. It happened again some time in the afternoon. Actually, it was right after Jack suggested we get ready and checked again if I really was up for going to the party. Of course I was just in the middle of telling him all was good when I had to flee to the bathroom again. But I still insisted on showing up. It wasn’t like celebrating New Year's on the couch in our pajamas was going to do me any better. I felt completely fine other than the occasional nausea that just randomly popped up.

So, ignoring Jack’s constant questioning about my well-being, I got changed into the outfit I had planned. It wasn’t exactly something I’d wear normally, but I knew Lisa would appreciate it. She'd absolutely love seeing me wearing a rose-gold sparkly mini skirt along with a white flowy tank top that was tucked inside, plus the black pumps I thought were way too high and a fedora hat. I actually did like the fedora, but all of the other things were probably just going to be a one-time thing, except for the shoes which I’d probably wear to a couple more formal events. Further, I decided to do minimal makeup, which consisted of just eyeliner and mascara. I only went full out on one aspect, not two.

We were stood in front of the house I’d never been to before, but the mailbox had a name tag saying ‘GASKARTH’ on it. Normally, the fact that there were many cars would have let me know that we were at the right place, but that was kind of difficult to do with so many New Year’s parties going on. A name tag, though, was enough confirmation for me.

As soon as the door opened, Lisa greeted us and pulled me along with her. I didn’t even get to see where Jack was going to go or even walk in with him. Great. Now I was going to have to search for him all over and the only people I knew where Alex, Lisa, and a couple of crew members that were scattered around the place -- the majority, however, were complete strangers.

Lisa continued to drag me along until we were in the kitchen. There were a couple of other girls, all of them people I didn’t know, around the counter talking while holding beverages in their hands. They all smiled when they saw me and Lisa, but I had no idea what to do. I could deal with meeting one or two people, but this was a whole group. It was like I completely froze up and lost my ability to speak English.

Luckily, Lisa introduced me before I could even think of having to do it. “Guys, this is Ireland, Jack’s girlfriend. Ireland, these are my friends.” She proceeded to tell me all their names, and while I could remember some, others went right past me straight away. The one that stuck the most was ‘Jenna’ since she was the one that talked to me the most throughout the course of the night.

“Hi.” I waved back and was happy that my outfit wasn’t too over done. Some of the girls were wearing flashy dresses while others were wearing more casual stuff. I considered myself right in the middle.

“I really like your hair.” Jenna told me as I went to stand at the counter as well.

I wasn’t sure to act, not knowing whether she was actually being serious, just saying something to try to be nice, or if it was a sarcastic remark. I didn’t know what these girls were like, and so far my experience with making new friends hadn’t gone so well, except for Lisa and Tay. But I still mumbled out a ‘thank you’ before realizing acting so shy wasn’t going to get me anywhere. “I’m actually planning on growing it out. Probably not as long as it was before, because that would take seven years, but back to shoulder length would be nice.”

“I’m pretty sure any hairstyle would suit you.” She complimented me further. Something inside me told me that these girls knew about my who battle with cancer, or they probably wouldn’t have been making such nice comments about my hair without knowing what I looked like with long hair. Jenna didn’t even have to ask what my hair looked like before, so something seemed a little fishy.

Lisa came up to me with a tall glass and a bottle of champagne. “Do you want some? It’s actually for later, but I convinced Alex to let me open two bottles early on.”

“I’m fine,” I shook my head, knowing that alcohol wasn’t a good idea. “I’m not planning on drinking tonight. The last time I got drunk, things didn't exactly turn out all too good”

“Awe, come on! One drink shouldn’t do any harm!” The girls encouraged.

But I refused again. “I promised Jack I would drive us home.”

“You can always take an Uber.” Lisa tried to convince me while filling up the glass. “I’ll even pay for it since I’m the one who got you to drink.”

“No, I really shouldn’t,” I told them again, pushing away the glass Lisa was trying to force into my hand, “the past week, I’ve been feeling very nauseous, so I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

The mood of the entire group changed when I said that. They no longer forced me and acted like they completely understood. However, I felt like that if it had been anybody else here, they would have still tried to get them to drink at least one drink because ‘it wouldn’t do any harm’. I just didn’t want to make this whole thing worse.

“I mean, I’m probably fine, but I don’t want to risk feeling even more nauseous.” I told them honestly while Lisa put away the full glass on the counter with the drinks and filled a plastic cup with soda instead.

“Why would you come here if you feel sick?” Jenna asked me, sounded just as concerned as Jack had done back home.

“Because I felt like coming. I’ve practically missed most of the year already. Plus, it’s not like I would have felt any different if I were at home right now. I only get occasional spells of nausea, which -- this might sound a bit disgusting -- leave after I throw up.” I explained, hoping I hadn’t crossed any lines with my words. However they all just nodding in understanding. None of them needed a clarification as to why I missed most of the year, only confirming my suspicions about them knowing about the Leukemia I had. It wasn’t something all too surprising, Jack had put it up on social media, so anybody who wanted to know could know.

Lisa handed me the drink, which I took from her this time. She told me it was just some Coke and that she hadn’t added anything to it just to tell me that she really wasn’t trying to get me to drink anything alcoholic without me wanting to. I thanked her as they kept asking me questions.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” One of them asked me. It was weird that they were getting so personal already, but I guessed it was better than me being an outsider the entire time.

“No,” I sighed and took a sip of my drink, “I don’t have any other symptoms. Like, I don’t really have any stomach pains other than the nausea, I don’t have a fever, I don’t have any other symptoms associated with a stomach bug or anything.”

Lisa then hit me with something I never thought I’d hear. “Are you pregnant?”

I choked on my drink as the words left her mouth. “No! I never even thought of that being a possibility!”

“Well, good that I suggested it then,” Lisa said matter-of-factly, “it’s a possibility unless you aren’t having sex. You and Jack do have sex, right?”

I just stared at her with an unamused look. It wasn’t just because she was suggesting something completely absurd, but also because that had to be the most stupid question she could have ever asked. She was the only one who knew Jack had taken my virginity, and she helped me be prepared for my second time. And, let’s be honest here, being in a long-term relationship with Jack most likely meant there was enough sex to keep him happy. Sure, he might have said he didn’t care too much before we did anything, but he wouldn’t have been able to keep it up for so long.

“Ok, right,” Lisa nodded, thinking about the exact same thing I was, “well, I’m not going wholeheartedly believe your ‘no’ until you’ve taken a pregnancy test.”

“I’m not pregnant.” I groaned and resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her. She didn’t deserve that, she was just trying to help me out.

“Normally morning sickness starts around week six…” One of Lisa’s friends, who happened to be a nurse, stated. “Anything specific happen six or so weeks ago?”

“I can’t even think that far back,” I laughed, shaking my head. They were all taking this too seriously.

“It’s when the guys were in LA,” Lisa thought out loud shaking her head a little, “so that wouldn’t be likely-- Wait. You visited them. Did anything happen then?”

And that’s when my heart started beating fast. It couldn’t be true, right? They were just trying to scare me, I took that morning after pill, the chance of it not working was so small. It was practically impossible. But that small part of doubt didn’t go away. “Remember that I said last time I got drunk things didn’t end too well?”

“Oh my god,” Lisa gasped and grabbed my hands to force me to follow her.

I quickly managed to put my drink down before I spilled it all over myself. Barely being able to keep up with Lisa, she dragged me throughout the living room, where most people were, and up the stairs. Jenna decided to follow us, but the others decided to stay downstairs, which I was pretty thankful for. I looked around and saw Alex looking at us with a questioning look. I mouthed ‘help me’ at him, hoping he’d come to the rescue, but all he did was shrug and mouth ‘sorry’ back.

Lisa brought me all the way to their ensuite bathroom and pulled out two pregnancy tests from the back of a drawer underneath the sink. She forced them into my hands and smiled. I squinted my eyes at her and looked back at the two boxes. “Why do you have two pregnancy tests?”

“Just in case,” she shrugged and her body language did make it seem like that was the truth, so I wasn’t going to question any further. “But this isn’t about me, it’s about you!”

“Making me take these is just a waste of pregnancy tests,” I sighed and held them out for her to take back, but she shook her head and was ready to protest. I wasn’t going to let her, though, I had another point to make. “By the way, I’ve had my period since the whole LA thing, so the chance is even lower. I would have gotten pregnant sometime this week, and that does not seem really realistic.”

“Some women start having morning sickness as soon as the fertilized egg has implanted. Plus, it’s possible what you thought was your period was actually spotting.” She argued as if she knew for sure that there had to be a baby growing in me.

“I’m not taking them.” I refused and put the tests on the bathroom countertop. Everybody around me was going insane.

“Look, we both understand that it’s pretty scary to take these. But I promise that we will be able to make Jack come around if you are pregnant.” Jenna put an encouraging hand on my shoulder.

I snorted, “Jack will be the easy one, he’ll accept it no time. It’s me who you’ll have to spend more time convincing.”

“What, really?”

“Ok, yes, I know, everybody keeps judging me for it. I just don’t want to have kids anytime soon, if ever.”

“No,” Jenna shook her head, “that’s not what I meant. I meant Jack being ok with it. I still remember him as the guy in highschool who took me to prom in a white suit and the guy telling dick jokes 24/7.”

That was when I suddenly realised this wasn’t just a friend of Lisa’s, but also one of Jack’s ex-girlfriends. I didn’t feel any different towards her, but she probably knew more about being with Jack than I had thought.

I decided to ignore my new discovery and tried reassuring her. “He still does that. When he’s out on tour he tries to send me a dick joke each day, which is some weird promise he made me when we just started dating…”

“You know, I actually thought Jack was going to propose when we were celebrating Christmas together,” Lisa added as she gave me the pregnancy tests back, “he was awkward the day before when it popped up and then he suddenly had ‘one more gift’ and it happened to be in a small box. But it didn’t happen.”

“Oh, god, no, Jack wouldn’t do that.” I gave them a disgusted look while I decided by myself that I was going to take the pregnancy test, but more to calm their nerves and gossip than the little bit of doubt I had.

“You guys keep giving me mini heart attacks here.” Jenna clutched her heart and took a deep breath. “You surprise me by saying Jack has changed a lot, but then you tell me that he’s still the same as before”

“No, Jack wants to get married,” I started confusing her again, “I don’t, though.”

“Ok, how the hell has he changed to quickly over a small period of time?” Jenna ran a hand through her hair. It wasn’t because she still had any remote feelings for him, but because she didn’t understand what was going on in one of her friends’ life.

“He just found the one.” Lisa smirked and wiggled her eyebrows at me. I shook my head at her, but couldn’t help but smile. “But why don’t you want to marry him! You guys are so cute together!”

“Just because I don’t want to get married, doesn’t mean I won’t spend the rest of my life with him. It’s a personal preference. I don’t mind couples that are married at all, I just don’t see myself as one. As long as we still love each other, everything’s all good.” I explained. It wasn’t like I was planning on breaking up with Jack just because I didn’t want to marry. I just didn’t see the need to.

“Even more proof of them being too cute for words,” Lisa gushed as if we were teenagers and talking about our first crushes while imagining our lives together.

“Just let me take these tests and let’s see how cute it all is after that.”

I proceeded to push them out of the bathroom so I could do it without anybody pressuring me and looking over my shoulder constantly. After taking the two sticks out of their respective boxes and reading the instructions, I lifted the toilet lid and peed on both. It was the most awkward and uncomfortable thing ever. I had to hold my hand at a weird angle and prayed not to get any on my fingers while also keeping my skirt out of the way. Somehow, I managed to do it and put both of them down on one of the cardboard boxes, not wanting to just lie them on the counter. I washed my hands and walked out of the bathroom.

“And, and?!” Lisa jumped up from the bed as soon as she saw me emerging.

“I don’t know, we have to wait two minutes.” I breathed out, the nerves just starting to settle in.

“I’m going to stare at them until I see something happening!” She rushed past me and into the room I just came out of.

----

When we finally all came downstairs again, it was already two minutes until midnight. Alex and Lisa found each other quickly, however I couldn’t see Jack anywhere. You’d expect that he’d stick out easily with his height and streak of red hair, but he didn’t. Eventually, with just one minute to go, I stood up on a chair and found him somewhere in the middle of the crowd. I jumped back down and rushed and pushed between people just to get to the group he was standing in.

“Thank god, I found you!” I gasped and grabbed onto his hand.

He turned and looked at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just--”

Before I could finish my sentence, everybody around us started chanting the countdown. Jack’s eyes flashed with recognition and he wrapped his arm around my waist. “Good you found me, I didn’t even realize.”

Just a second later, when everybody was screaming ‘Happy New Year’, our lips were planted against each other. I wrapped my arms around his neck to let me get used to my gained height because of my heels. I didn’t have to look up those couple of inches, making it much easier on me to show him how much I loved him, especially with the news I was going to give him. I wasn’t sure how he was going to react, but I hoped I was making the right decision by telling him. Who was I kidding, of course it was the right decision, he had the right to know this type of stuff.

“How drunk are you right now?” I whispered as we broke apart and rested our foreheads against each other instead.

“I had a couple of drinks, but they haven’t hit me yet. I’ll probably be in a horrible state in ten or fifteen minutes.” He replied in a similar hushed tone and moved forward to shortly kiss me again.

I turned our embrace into a hug as I nuzzled my face into his neck. “Ok, then I need to tell you something…” I took a deep breath and hoped I was being quiet enough. “I just took a pregnancy test.”

“Oh…” I could feel him nod as he placed one palm flat on the small of my back. “What did it say?”

“Well, it was negative, but I felt like I had to tell you. I don’t just want to do stuff like that behind your back.”

“Thanks for telling me.” He gently kissed the top of my head and rubbed my back a little.

“Happy New Year, Jack.” I pulled away a little and looked at him, putting my hands on his neck and stroking his cheeks with my thumbs.

“Happy New Year.” He closed the space between us again and I made sure to keep it PG and short and sweet.

“Hopefully this year will be a much better one.” He sighed when I dropped my arms back to my side and he slowly peeled his hands off my body.

“I can already tell it will be.” I grinned widely.