Jack stormed into the bus, making everybody in the bus jump. I was rushing behind him, trying to get him to calm down. After he found out I was getting a lot of hate, he went ballistic. Instead of blowing up in the cafe, he ran out. I had to dash behind him, before he would kill somebody. But I never managed to fully catch up with him. I had to stop so often to catch my breath, and I felt like my lungs were going to collapse. It burned so bad and I was just begging for Jack to stop. But he was too clouded with anger to hear me.

“Did you guys fucking know?” Jack shouted at the top of his lungs and pointed at his friends that were sitting in the front lounge.

“Dude, calm down,” Alex was the first one to speak up after everybody froze.

“I will not calm down! Not while this is going on!” Jack unlocked his phone and threw it at Alex.

I was trying my best to catch my breath, and was leaning around a counter to make sure I would fall over from oxygen deprivation, “Ja-ack, it’s fi-” nope, I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were trying their best, but my blood just couldn’t take it. I slowly slid down to the floor and shook my head, “I gotta sit down.”

Jack spun around to see me basically of the verge of passing out, “oh, shit! I’m screwing everything up!”

Zack rolled his eyes and came up to me, “arms up,” he helped me raise them and pushed me back against the counter more, “sit up straight, and breathe.”

Zack’s method helped me somehow get more air. It was like magic… well, not really. It obviously made sense, giving you lungs more space, but I didn’t care at the time. All I cared about was the fact that I wouldn’t faint or end up with a terrible headache. Once my sight cleared up, which I hadn’t realised was blotched with black dots, I looked around. Jack was crouched next to me, slightly freaking out, Zack was helping me breathe, Alex was reading things from Jack’s phone, and Rian was looking over his shoulder. Well this was pretty fucking awkward.

I glared at Jack, took one of my hands out of Zack’s grip, and punched his shoulder, “don’t make me fucking run like that! I can’t do that!”

“I know,” Jack looked disappointed in himself, “I just don’t like people talking shit about you.”

“Is your stamina really that bad?” Rian asked me after reading a comment.

Zack realised I was fine, and let my other hand go. I stood up, helping myself by pushing my weight up on the counter, “I wish I could use that as an excuse…”

“She is actually pretty athletic,” Jack brushed himself off, “so anybody saying she’s lazy or fat is completely fucking wrong.”

I rolled my eyes, “Jack, there’s a reason why I didn’t tell you about those comments. I really don’t give a fuck what they think about me. As long as I know the truth and you know the truth, I’ll be fine. They can make up stories about me, but I honestly don’t care. If they are trying to hurt me, it’s definitely not working.”

“When did these comments start?” Alex seemed to be taking this very seriously as well.

I shrugged and sat down on the couch as well, “as soon as Jack started taking pictures of me, I guess. But I think you can say it really started after Jack brought me out on stage and I freaked out and ran away.”

“That was completely my fault though!” Jack took his phone back from Alex, “why do they hate on you for it?”

“Because they don’t like me.”

“What’s there not to like about you?”

I gave him the most obvious answer, “I’m dating you.”

“Ahh, the classic ‘that girl’s dating my favourite band member, I hate her for it’ case,” Rian nodded, “yeah, some fangirls can’t seem to deal with that.”

“But they’re making up so much about you!” Jack really seemed upset, something I was hoping to avoid.

Once again, I shrugged, not really caring about what the fans said, “I think it’s pretty funny actually. Oh, wait, there’s this really good one,” I got out my own phone and looked for the tweets, “they went to my brother’s account and found photos of us together before I even met you, and now they’re accusing me of cheating. It actually made me laugh,” I handed my phone to Jack, who immediately read everything.

Jack breathed out heavily and scrolled further, “but what about the fact that they think you hit your head on purpose for attention? What about that? Not only does it make me annoyed, but it makes me upset too! They can’t say stuff like that without knowing what’s going on with you!”

“Well, would you rather tell them I could drop dead pretty soon?” I asked him before thinking. That was actually a bit harsh… “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

Jack gave me an unamused look. Just hours ago he was bawling his eyes out because of my condition, and here I was, rubbing it in his face, making it seem like it was no big deal. Of course it was a big fucking deal! Jack said he was messing everything up, but I was also doing my fair share of fucking our relationship up. I knew exactly how he felt, and I was only making things worse.

Before I could say anything else, Jack walked off the bus. Well I fucked that up big time… I wasn’t going to run after him, though. He needed some time alone to think; everybody needed some alone time sometimes. Following him would only make things worse. Sometimes you just knew rushing after someone wouldn’t work. He would blow up on me and it would only lead to us breaking up, something I knew we both didn’t want right now.

“Aren’t you going to go after him?” Rian pointed out.

I shook my head, “I should have told him earlier… I think it’s just too much right now. There’s a lot been going on that you guys don’t know about.”

“Does it have anything to do with that thing that happened yesterday with me?” Zack asked carefully, as if he were afraid to set me off as well.

“No, we resolved that,” I assured him, not wanting him to feel bad, “it lead to something else, though, but it doesn’t really matter.”

“Well, what’s up then?” Alex seemed worried about his best friend. His eyes suddenly went very wide, “you aren’t pregnant, are you?”

If I had had a drink in my mouth, I would have certainly spit it out, “no! Of course not! I hope... I do not want kids… ever.”

“Hate kids that much?” Alex chuckled, trying to lighten up the mood.

“No,” I contradicted, “I actually love them, but I don’t think I’ll be able to go through the whole process. I can babysit, and I know what to do when a toddler comes up to me saying she’s lost when I’m meeting Jack’s parents. But that’s about it. Plus, even though this just became a factor recently, I probably won’t be able to have kids anyway.”

“Why’s that?” Rian questioned, “if you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

“Because chemotherapy basically ruins everything,” I answered. I wasn’t going to delay telling them any longer. They would probably understand what Jack was feeling, and they’d know not to punch me as a joke. It would also be pretty useful if I ever had to go to the hospital again if you of them were around.

“Chemotherapy…?” Zack trailed off.

“Acute myeloid leukemia,” I stated before tonnes of questions would come my way, “I had it when I was six years old, it came back, but they only realised recently. Things have been going worse than expected. Let’s just say my comment about me dropping dead wasn’t such a good idea. That’s why Jack walked away. And, now, before you start, I don’t want you guys to say you’re sorry for me or feel sympathy; it’s just what it is and nothing can change it. ”

----

Jack only returned back in the evening, just before the show. I did not know where he had been the entire day, I just hoped he hadn’t done anything stupid. He had been gone for hours and hadn’t contacted anybody, but he seemed fine he was with us again. Sure, he wasn’t as happy anymore, but it wasn’t like he felt guilty for something he did… if you know what I mean. Ok, yes, I was afraid he might have cheated on me, but everything seemed fine. I wasn’t accusing him of anything without having any facts to support it. So far everything only pointed to him just needing time to think by himself.

The other guys did exactly what I asked for. They didn’t tell me they were sorry and wished for me to get well soon. But I still noticed that they were a lot more wary around me, like they were afraid to break me or something. It was exactly what I hoped to avoid, but what can you expect when you tell somebody something big like this. I was no longer just ‘Jack’s girlfriend’, but ‘Jack’s girlfriend that has leukemia’. Maybe I’d even be known as the dying girl later on… maybe I wouldn’t even be known as Jack’s girlfriend anymore.

Speaking of which, I stopped Jack to talk to him just before he went on stage, “Jack… if you want to break up with me, do it now. I don’t want to get you in the situation in which you will feel to bad to break up with me because I’m ill. So, just do it now.”

Jack gave me a disbelieving look and shook his head, “where’s this coming from?”

“I don’t know,” I ran my fingers through my hair, “it’s just- you deserve somebody better than me; somebody who doesn’t have to be in the hospital almost 24/7; somebody who’s able to get up on stage when you pull them on; somebody who doesn’t have to be careful with everything she does.”

“Is this because of everything the kids are saying,” he cupped my cheek, “because I will do something about it.”

“No,” I shook my head and leaned into his touch, “it’s because I feel like I’m going to be a burden.”

“You will never be a burden to me. I love you too much for that,” he inched closer until our lips finally touched. All our feelings poured out; anger, sadness, confusion, fear, agitation, but most of all, love.

Notes

So sorry for the long wait! School decided to get really busy since Monday, and I literally never had any time to write. But I'm back now! Plus, I've got two weeks of vacation now, I might be able to catch up on a lot of the writing I wanted to do this week (which was quite a lot).

So here's a pretty messy chapter. What do you guys think? Is it good enough, or is it a bit too all over the place?