After telling Jack every single detail like I had promised, he made dinner for us to make up for all the shitty occurrences that had taken place the past couple of weeks. It wasn’t like he had suddenly decided to make some culinary masterpiece. He didn’t exactly have the skills nor ingredients to do that. However, he was still happy to cook some pasta and mix a jar of tomato sauce into it. To make it even more romantic, we decided to eat it in front of the TV with some red wine in two plastic cups. At least I got to drink some alcohol before I had to fend away from it due to my medication. So, basically a win-win situation.

When we had both finished our food and placed the empty bowls on the coffee table (neither of us felt like getting up and putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher), Taco decided to join us. Rather than sitting where there was still a lot of space, she pushed herself into the small space that was left between me and Jack. Sure, there was enough space for her to sit because, although we were sitting close, we weren’t sitting as close as we used to. This was more like beginning of a relationship close. I just hoped we would go back to normal or anything remotely similar soon.

“Taco,” I laughed and made a little more space for her so she wouldn’t have to lie half on the couch and half on me, but she only came closer to me, “I’m not going to leave again. I told you I’d come back for you!”

“Come back for her?” Jack asked and started petting the cat, making it get more comfortable and start purring.

I nodded and scratched Taco underneath her chin at the same time. “Did you really think I would have left Taco here with you? As soon as I would have gotten my own place, I would have taken her with me.”

“No,” he gasped dramatically and eyed me as if I was planning on committing a crime, “I would not have let you do that!”

“She’s my cat. Cam got her for me the first time you messed up, no way would I leave her the second time.”

“Fair point, but you can’t just do something like that!”

“Seems like you love Taco more than me,” I joked, looking down at the kitty I had actually missed quite a lot. She might have reminded me a lot of Jack, but I would never abandon her.

“No,” Jack repeated, but this time as a whine.

I wasn’t sure if he realized I was joking, but he still wanted to prove that he still loved me despite all the things that had been said and done. He leaned over and kissed my cheek before slowly going over to my lips. The force he used was quite dominating, pushing up against me and not allowing me any choice but to kiss him back. Not like I wanted to do anything else… I happily pulled his body closer so the awkward space of two feet was gone between us, driving Taco off the couch with an annoyed meow. However, I took no notice of her and focused more of the feeling of Jack’s lips against mine, his stubble lightly grazing my face, the smell of detergent still on his shirt mixed with his scent filling my nose. I had really missed this. Moments like this would never have been better with anybody else, and I didn’t even want to think about me ever doing it with anybody other than him.

I still didn’t know where he was going with this, though, while he pushed me further back until my back hit the couch. As he was laying in between my legs, our kiss not interrupted yet, I knew exactly what would have usually happened, but I wasn’t so sure of it this time. Not because I didn’t think Jack wouldn’t make the advances, but because I wasn’t ready yet. It was going to take a while before I got to that stage again. I really did enjoy this kissing, but there wasn’t any further feeling arising in me. I probably couldn’t even do it if I wanted to.

Luckily, Jack broke us apart before I even had to think of my next action. He smiled down at me and tried to seductively whisper, “I have to pee.”

“Then go do that, you idiot,” I chuckled and pushed him up as I sat up myself. Before he could stand up, I brought him closer one more time to give him one last peck. Maybe he also felt a similar way. We didn’t have to go that far this fast.

As he ran up the stairs to go to our bathroom there instead of the one downstairs for some reason, I took the time to clean up our used bowls and plastic cups. Even though I didn’t feel like doing it before, I didn’t have much better to do otherwise. I was only watching TV to be around Jack, not because I was actually paying attention to what was on. However, somehow the job strangely took less time to complete than for Jack to return. So, I resumed my position on the couch and took out my phone to scroll through social media as I passed the time. There wasn’t much on Twitter since the only people I followed were my band members, Colton, and now also Jack again. It was the same for Instagram, however I could easily spend hours looking at the discover page. Before doing that, though, I decided to check Snapchat and saw that Jack had updated his story. Wondering what the hell he could have put up on it, I decided to take a look and see if he had maybe put up pictures of me without my permission. But I was lucky, there was only a picture of Taco from before he came to pick me up, and then him writing comments about being lost when making the pasta. Nothing to be worried about.

“Hey, Ireland?” Jack called out from the top of the stairs. “Do you want to come upstairs and watch a movie in our pajamas?”

“Is this you trying to get out of doing the dishes?” I asked and bit my lip to try and keep my snicker in.

“No, of course not, I’ll go do that now while he put on your pajamas!” He defended and I heard him coming down the steps already.

“I already did it 'cause your lazy ass was taking ages!” I shouted back to stop him so he didn’t have to unnecessarily walk more. Plus, it was fun to tease him.

“Excuse me, I was changing the sheets so you wouldn’t be disgusted,” he argued and came down the stairs despite me saying he didn’t need to anymore. “And I still need to give Taco food and lock up here so we don’t have to come back downstairs later. So, go upstairs and get ready.”

Not much later, I was wearing one of Jack’s shirts and turned on the TV to see the menu screen of Wall-E already playing. Of course, that bastard would choose to watch this. It was the first movie we ever watched together! I was even in the exact same spot as I was standing then, wearing a very similar shirt. It was way too coincidental.

This time, however, rather than sitting on opposite sides of the bed with pizza boxes around us, I was sitting in between Jack’s stretched out bare legs and was leaning against his chest. He had his arms loosely wrapped around my waist and his hands in my lap. Pressing play on the movie, he lightly kissed my neck and briefly picked up his phone. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he opened Snapchat and pointed the front camera at us.

I shook my head before he could take the picture, putting my hand in front of the camera. “Don’t do that.”

“What, why? I want to show everybody that I have you again.” He pouted, craning his neck to look at me.

“Because many of your fans have been realizing that something was off and started giving me shit about it. There are so many rumors all over the place right now. I don’t want to make it seem like we’re trying to prove that they’re all wrong. I’m not that petty.”

Jack groaned, resting his forehead against my shoulder. “I swear to god, as much as I love them, those fans are going to be the death of me one day. I won’t take the picture, but I will take another one.”

After hesitantly picking his head up, he switched to the back camera and pointed it at our legs, the movie in the background. I got where he was coming from. It was a way more subtle way of showing we were still together, but also not throwing it in everybody’s faces. Of course, the possibility of rumors would increase, but it was better than people believing I forced Jack to take a happy picture with me.

I giggled and tried stopping him from taking the photo again. “No, I haven’t shaved my legs!”

“So, what?” Jack snorted and took the picture anyway, but when I raised my eyebrows at him, he sighed. “You can’t even see it! Especially next to my hairy-ass legs.”

“Fine,” I huffed, but didn’t complain as he posted it meaning it was going to be on the internet forever.

A little further into the movie, I was the one to break our silence and concentration again. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying the movie and got distracted, because it honestly was one of my favorite movies and I really enjoyed it. The fact that Jack actually thought about it made it even better. Something just happened to pop up in my mind.

“You’ve got the Super Bowl coming up in two days. The place tickets are for the fourth and back on the sixth,” I reminded him, my eyes still glued to the screen.

“I don’t think we should go,” he hummed in response. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gift, because I absolutely love it, but I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Going into large crowds without your medication having stabilized wouldn’t be a great idea.”

“I won’t be coming with you,” I shook my head, my brain more focused on our conversation but my eyes still following the plot, “I realized that going wouldn’t do me good. But I thought you could still go and take Alex with you.”

“Well, then I’m certainly not going! I can’t leave you alone here, you heard what the psychiatrist had to say!”

“I know, that’s why I was thinking of asking Tay if she wanted to come over and then I could ask Lisa to join as well. Plus, I feel like I owe it to Alex; I feel like I got in between your friendship.”

“That’s not true,” he stated, his arms tensing up a little.

“So you haven’t been more annoyed at him lately and you haven’t been getting mad at him?” I finally stopped watching the movie and turned as far as I could to see him a little better.

“No… but only because he was so mean to you and so mean about the whole situation!”

“Just go with him, Jack,” I sighed and sat back in my original position. “He’s only going to be more ‘mean’ about the situation when he finds out that we got back together. Let me at least show him that I’m not the girl he thinks I am right now. I don’t need to prove anything to him, but I don’t want to be the reason why he will start resenting you as well.”

“Ok, fine, but if neither Tay nor Lisa can come over, I will stay here.” He compromised.

----

This time, I didn’t fall asleep during the movie and didn’t freak out when I found out I was sleeping on top of Jack. We had finished watching the entire movie and turned off the TV without either of us having to wake up or get up. All Jack still did was take off the shirt he was wearing before we both cuddled underneath the covers. It seemed like everything was going to be perfect again. But a mental disorder didn’t just go away like that.

I woke up in near tears again, my breathing very uneven, and my heart beating rapidly. Once again, I had to face my brother’s lifeless body being dragged away. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. It was starting to drive me insane. I wasn’t getting enough sleep and all I wanted was just one good night of sleep.

Seeing Jack hugging his pillow beside me while sleeping deeply, I clutched my head as I was sat up. I knew that I was supposed to wake him up and tell him about my problem, but I just didn’t have it in my heart to disrupt his peaceful slumber. So, I did the one thing I was told not to do under any circumstances and got out of bed. Rather than sneakily leave the room, I went straight to the bathroom.

The light nearly blinded me, only making my anxiety worse, but I still wouldn’t turn around. Instead, I quickly went to the toilet and washed my hands to hope doing something normal would make it all better. But as I got a glance of my reflection in the mirror, tears were still streaming down from my red eyes down my puffy face. My hands were shaking quite badly and I still wasn’t breathing properly.

I contemplated staying in the bathroom until I passed out. However, I fully realized that that was the wrong thing to do. If I wanted to get past it and expect a recovery, I needed to get Jack involved as much as I hated burdening him with it. Slowly, I opened the door and turned off the light before carefully stepping back into the bedroom. My eyes flickered between Jack’s peaceful and calm body now sprawled out on the bed on his back, and the door to the hallway. A larger part of me screamed to go away and fall asleep on the couch again, but I decided to listen to the smaller voice.

“Jack,” I whimpered and rushed over to the bed before climbing in.

He didn’t respond, his deep breathing telling me he was still sleeping soundly. It was my second chance to still escape, but I didn’t take it.

A painful sob wracked from my chest and I curled up beside his body, the sound echoing throughout the room. But still not loud enough for Jack to wake up. I continued to wail as I needed more contact, hugging closer to his chest so I was nearly lying on top of him and my face in his shoulder on the opposite side of where I was lying.

“Huh, what’s going on?” Jack finally woke up, his voice thick with sleep as he looked around his surroundings to check for any potential danger. When he felt my shaking body on top of his, he seemed to realize what had woken him up.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around me to hold me tightly before his head fell back onto the pillow and his eyes fluttered shut.

I clutched onto him, trying to control my breathing as the crying was only making it harder and harder to do so. I didn’t want to let him go, afraid I’d lose it even more than I already had.

“Do you want me to tell you about it?” Jack mumbled next, still half asleep but trying his best to stay awake for me. He was tired enough to make a mistake in his speech, but not far gone enough for him not to realize it a heartbeat later. “Wait… do you want to tell me about it?”

I shook my head. Usually, I would have giggled at his mess up, but it was pretty difficult to do in the state I was in. At least he understood my answer and started trailing shapes on my back with one of his hands.

“I’ll stay awake until you fall asleep again, I won’t let anything happen to you,” he yawned next, his voice still very distant.

I honestly didn’t believe his promise, betting that he was going to fall asleep in no time. But that bastard actually managed to do it.

Notes

A sad yet (hopefully) cutesy filler chapter. I've already started thinking about the sequel to this xD. I've always had a plan for it, but it's all unfolding in my mind right now. I just want to get to it already!