“Hey, Alex and Lisa are here,” Jack told me a little while after the doorbell had originally gone.

“Cool,” I replied, all my attention on the laptop in front of me. Once again, I was busy working by sending emails back and forth constantly. I had so much to organize and plan and only such little time. In less than a month, everything had to be ready.

“Don’t you want to take a break and come downstairs to say hi?”

“I’m fine.” I brushed him off, still not looking in his direction and opening yet another email that needed to be replied to. This was a lot more difficult than I had expected, without much to build on I didn’t exactly have the best cases to explain in my emails.

“Well, ok, then.” He rolled his eyes and walked out of the room, closing the door in an aggressive, but not loud way. He probably wanted to show he wasn’t happy with my behavior, but without scaring the guest we apparently had over.

In case you were wondering, I still slept in the guest room and things between Jack and I hadn’t gotten better, let alone the situation between me and Alex. Something in me told me that the only reason Alex and Lisa were here was because Jack told them about our fighting and Alex was here just to make a point, to tell us that he had been right all along. Maybe Jack believed me when I first came home after disappearing, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he now fully agreed with Alex.

It had been a week or so since I had been ‘diagnosed with depression’ and given the medication that was supposed to ‘help’ me. Well, I still full heartedly believed that I was not depressed. I didn’t feel like it, nor did have any of the symptoms that the internet told me about. Yes, I had occasional difficulties concentrating, but not when I was working; yes, I was lacking energy and was fatigued, but that was because of my nightmares; yes, I was no irritable, but everybody is when nobody believes them; oh, and my favorite one was no interest in sex, but why would I be interested in doing something so intimate with somebody I didn’t even have a connection with anymore? My sex-drive went down along with the way Jack and I had been acting towards each other, and nothing was going to change that. I had many of the symptoms of depression, but all of them had a reason behind it other than a mental health issue.

So, I refused to take my medication. Of course, Jack wouldn’t have any of it and forced me to take the required dosage every day. I just found ways around it. He watched me carefully every time I had to take it and made sure that I actually swallowed it. I just managed to sneakily hide it somewhere and not have to take it, only to throw it out in another way.

After reading another rejection in an email, I sighed and rested my head on the desk, my arms acting as a pillow. I was only trying to do the right thing, but nobody was reciprocating it. All I was getting was requests for more details and something they could actually base a good response on, but I didn’t have what they wanted.

I’ll let you in on what I was trying to do. First of all, I did a lot of thinking about it, and it wasn’t something I did on impulse like the tattoos, so don’t think this was some stupid idea of mine. I wanted to do something with the shitty songs I had written at the boathouse, if not for me but for Cam. It was the reason why I had also sent a group text to Carter, Charlie, and John. Things adding up yet? It seemed like the perfect thing to do: to continue working on achieving my brother’s dream. The only problem was that their label dropped them after the accident and so they no longer had a manager either. So, I was trying to figure out something for that. Although everybody like the songs Cam had written and produced, they had no idea what I was going to be like except for the duet I had done with them before. We didn’t have the money to go out and produce the songs on a quality level ourselves, or else we wouldn’t have been having this problem. I also needed to figure out what was going to happen with all the planned tours that year. It was a complete mess.

I closed my eyes for a little while too long, causing me to slowly start falling asleep. If only I could close my eyes for a little while and catch up on the sleep I was missing… I would feel so much better. But of course, that wasn’t how things were going to work. As soon as I started to doze off properly, I was met with a close-up slow-motion of Cam’s dismantled and bruised body. His eyes were lifeless while his skin started turning a pale waxy white. The contrast of the skin and the deep red blood from the cuts forced shivers down my spine.

I shot upright, gasping for air, my heart still beating rapidly. Looking to my right, I saw that Lisa had entered the room and had gotten a fright from my fright. Guilt spread across her face while I practically clutched my heart.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she apologized and seemed cautious to step closer, but still did so.

I shook my head and stuttered, “i--it’s fine.”

I didn’t want to tell her that she had nothing to do with it and that it was from the vision I had, that way I didn’t have somebody else thinking I was crazy. All I really was focused on was trying to get my heart to slow down, which it had not done at all yet. Instead, it actually felt like it had gone faster and my breathing was becoming shallower by the second.

“What are you working on?” She asked as she tried to take a look at my laptop screen, which was still on.

I slammed it shut before she could read anything, not because nobody could know, but because I really didn’t feel like answering questions when everything was already going wrong. Trying to act calm in the state I was, was not a good idea. I could barely speak.

“I-- I need to go to the bathroom,” I stammered and rushed past her.

Automatically, I ran into the ensuite bathroom of what used to be attached to mine and Jack’s bedroom, and locked the door behind me. I had been using the guest bathroom for days now, but all the stuff I had left in here was still in its original place. Not realizing that I had walked into the ‘wrong’ room, I walked up to the sink and splashed cold water on my face, hoping it would help a little. In the end, I decided to sit on the floor with my back against the cupboards, trying to concentrate on getting my breathing back to normal.

There was a knock on the door not much later… or what felt not much later to me. Honestly, it only felt like max five minutes to me, but what Jack said contradicted that. “Hey, Ireland, Lisa says that you’ve been in there for half an hour, are you ok?”

Instead of giving a verbal answer, I got up from the floor, swallowing once more, and opened the door. Rather than looking worried like he usually did, Jack actually looked quite annoyed. Well, that clearly showed how much he cared about me. Just over a month ago he would have been on the other side, ready to knock the door down if it had to come to it, but now he just looked like he considered this an obligation he had because Lisa told him about it.

“What were you doing in there?” He asked in a monotone voice as he looked at me leaving the bathroom.

“What do you think I was doing in there?” I challenged with a sneer as I walked past him and into the hallway.

He huffed with a shrug, showing just how uninterested he actually was before still following me out. The only reason for him to do that, though, was probably because he coincidentally had to go in the same direction.

“You need to take your medication again.” He pointed out as I was just about to go back into the study.

Letting out a small groan, I went downstairs with him. Alex and Lisa were sitting on the couch, Alex staring at his phone while refusing to notice my presence, and Lisa looking happy because she believed things had to be better if Jack and I were coming downstairs together. She couldn’t be more wrong.

We both trudged into the kitchen; Jack leaned against the counter as he waited for me to get it over with. He made sure to watch my every move even though I hadn’t even opened the bottle containing the pills.

“Look, I even grabbed the plastic cup!” I sarcastically cheered and waved it in front of his face.

As I turned around to fill it with water, I got a quick glance of Lisa's face. All the happy features had turned down into a frown, now having seen how Jack and I actually interacted. Usually, this could have been taken as a joke, but it was quite obvious it wasn’t this time. She was practically the only one here who still cared about how this relationship was going.

I proceeded to take one single pill out of the clear orange bottle and acted like I was taking it, gulping down some water to chase it. Just like all the other times, however, I managed to somehow hide it in my hand without Jack noticing, and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie. After Jack gave me the nod of approval, I threw the cup that still contained some water into the sink (which was the exact reason why he had made me use a plastic cup instead of a glass one).

As soon as I was done there, I went to go upstairs again, but I noticed Alex eyeing me suspiciously. He glared at me and squinted his eyes as his gaze flickered between my face and my pocket. Of course he was the one to figure out what I had been doing. Just before he opened his mouth to tell on me, I stopped him.

“Oh, right, I forgot,” I laughed in a light manner as I put my hand back in my pocket. Right after, I took it out again and showed him the middle finger before disappearing up the stairs.

I knew that he was going to tell Jack, so the first time I did when I was in the second floor hallway was to run to the guest bathroom and flush the pill down the toilet. There was no evidence of me not having taken it that way… unless Jack caught me in the bathroom. So, I quickly sneaked back into the study and got back behind my laptop while acting to work.

Just as I had expected, Jack came stomping up the stairs just seconds later. This time, he didn’t bother to be remotely polite about anything. He slammed the door open fully and gave me a hard look; lips pursed and eyes drilling holes into me.

“What?” I asked as if I had no idea what he was doing here, but still did it in a bitchy tone.

“Oh, you know exactly what,” he growled, not taking his eyes off me. It was like he was expecting me to break just because of his menacing glare. Well, let me tell you, it didn’t scare me at all, it did nothing to me.

“Do you think I’d be here asking you if I did?”

“Alex said you didn’t take your medication. He said that you acted like you did, but just tried to trick me.”

“Alex says a lot of things, Jack.” I rolled my eyes and went back to check the new emails I had gotten since I last checked.

He came up to me and pushed down the lid of my laptop swiftly, barely leaving me enough time to move my fingers before they were trapped underneath and maybe even broke. “You are not going to ignore me again, ok?”

“So you believe Alex over me?” I raised an eyebrow while rolling up my charger since I wasn’t using it anymore and needed to do something to control my inner rage.

“Actually, yes, yes I do. I mean, do I trust the guy I’ve been best friends with for fifteen years or do I trust the girl I’ve not even been dating for a year?”

“Ok, seems logical. Nice to know our whole relationship was based on a lie. I really appreciate you telling me that before I waste any more of my time on you.”

“You know what?” He barked, getting even closer and looking down at me as if to show he had the upper hand here. “I don’t have to put up with your shit. The only reason I still am is because I hoped you would get better. But it turns out you can’t even be bothered to do that! You are not the one wasting time on me. I am the one wasting time on you.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Really? Is that all you’ve got?”

“You say you don’t want to put up with me anymore, so let’s make that wish come true.” I stood up, put my laptop under one arm and took hold of the charger with the other. Before walking out of the room, I tapped Jack on the cheek twice. “Now you’ve got a crazy-ex story to tell the next girl.”

When I entered the living room to leave the house, Alex immediately had to make a comment. “Look, she’s running away again. Let’s see if she actually returns this time! Wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t.”

“I was actually thinking of coming back later when you were gone, but your plan actually sounds so much better. Thanks for the idea, Alex. I give you full credits for that one.” I told him full heartedly, telling him the actual truth, while putting on my shoes and jacket.

Soon after I grabbed the keys to, what I now considered, my car and drove off without saying another goodbye. I didn’t have a destination but knew I had to go somewhere for the night. At first, I planned to go to the hill I had gone to after my first real fight with Jack and my brother and mom bugging me about it, but it was already way too dark to hang out there. I didn’t want to go to my parents, because they’d tell me to make up with Jack and I didn’t want to bother them while they weren’t doing all too good already. And then there weren’t many places to go to anymore except one.

When I pulled up on the driveway where I hoped I would at least get to spend the night, I thought back to Abagail. She technically had been right. Maybe Jack hadn’t broken up with me as soon as I was in remission, but he did break up with me after all that serious stuff was done. It did make me feel a lot like the petty case she was trying to set me up as. I wouldn’t surprise me if she decided to swoop in and take my place. Jack probably wouldn’t mind a bit.

I rang the doorbell, my laptop under my arm again, and waited for somebody to answer. It took a while, but I knew somebody had to be home because both cars were outside and the lights were on. If they wouldn’t let me in, I was going to have to camp out in my car and I wasn’t exactly sure how safe it was to sleep out in the open with a fancy sports car.

“Ireland? What are you doing here?” The person who opened let me in and lead me to the dining room where two other people were sitting. “We were just eating dinner.”

I looked at the small family of three and felt guilt rush throughout my body. Here I was, interrupting a perfect family moment. First of all, it was rude of me to show up at this time. Second of all, my drama was not going to fit in here at all.

“Ireland!” Emily squealed as she jumped off her chair and ran towards me, hugging my legs.

“No, no, go back,” I gave her a guiding push back towards her chair and shook my head while I started retreating back to the front door, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you guys were having dinner right now. I’ll just come back later… maybe… Now’s probably not the time. You guys just forget I was here. It doesn’t really matter that much. I’ll figure out somewhere else to go… I don’t have anywhere else to go… Maybe I can go to a--”

“Ireland, are you ok? You look distressed,” Trisha wondered, not getting mad at me for showing up or at her husband for letting me in.

I stopped rambling and stared at her before my eyes started traveling to the other members of the family. Here I was, confronted with the perfect little family that my now-band-member, John, had, while I had just ruined anything I had remotely close to it.

What the hell had I done?

“I-- I think Jack and I just broke up…” I whispered with a shaky voice while tears started running down my cheeks, the flow getting faster and heavier with every word.

The two adults looked at me, both shock written across their faces, and it seemed like they already knew exactly what to do, as if they had a script for it. Trisha ushered Emily away with the promise of getting to watch some TV and getting ice cream later, while John stayed with me and hugged me tightly, acting the same exact way Cam would have done.

Notes

And it's happened... Now you might understand why this story has been making me sad whenever I write for it... Usually, I resolve things in a chapter or two, but how long will this last?

Do you guys think this is an actual break up or just a misunderstanding?

On a happier note: four more days until I see All Time Low! Also, I just had my first two driving lessons yesterday and today. How the hell do they expect you to get your driver's license so early in the US? Here you can only start lessons at sixteen and a half and I know I would not have been ready a year or so ago. At least I haven't died yet... Let's hope it stays that way next lesson due to it being on the same day as the concert...