Bucket List | Jack Duff

f i v e

— ARIA —

Coming far from home for the goal seemed like a good idea - we wanted to get out the house for a while and to see parts of our world which we'd never seen before. It seemed like a really good idea at the time and we were really proud of ourselves for coming up with the idea. That was, until Brooklyn started complaining every five minutes that he needed a wee. Then, it didn't seem like such a good idea.

"I need a wee" Brooklyn muttered to Rye in the drivers seat, for the umpteenth time.

"Brooklyn please shut up, I'm asking nicely" Rye said, taking a hand off the wheel to wave his hand at Brook. "We've been in the car for an hour and all you've done is complain, let us get to a bloody services before you complain again"

"But I need the loo" he said again and I watched in the rear view mirror as Rye rolled his eyes. "And I wanna get out anyways, my legs have all cramped up in here"

I shook my head at him, as him and Rye began to have a slight debate in the front seat - I chuckled under my breath, lying my head back down on Jack's shoulder to the place is was previously. We were heading up to Scotland for the third goal on my list which happened to be one of the ones which made us all giggle.

[[ Take a roadtrip ]]

I promise, there was no pun intended within that goal.

We'd decided as a group that instead of just going up to Scotland for the day to complete the goal and then come straight back again,me would rent out a caravan in a holiday park somewhere and stay for the week. There were a few goals on the list which could be tended to while we were out there and it fit perfectly with our regime; you'd never believe it, but it was Brooklyn that thought of that one.

It was an exciting feeling to know we were visiting a city we didn't see very often. Sure, the lads saw Glasgow when they came on tour, but they never really went out of the Glasgow area and actually explored Scotland, and to me, it's strange to think there's a whole world out there with places, and people, and buildings that I've never seen or had the chance to interact with and just the thought of how big the world actually is and how much is just in one tiny place makes my whole head spin.

Jack grabbed my hand randomly and started rubbing small, affectionate circles across my palm. The car was once again silent, something it hadn't been since Brooklyn began to complain and I relaxed again; of course, it didn't last long as Brook had to ruin the moment and break the silence of the car once again.

"Rye, I really need to get out of the car, I'm not joking" Brooklyn whined, and he sounded remarkably like a young child who wasn't used to doing such lengths in a car.

"Oh, Brook man" Andy moaned from the front seat where he was sat beside Rye. "There's a services just five minutes away from this point, hold on and we'll stop so you can get out and do whatever, okay? Just hush for five minutes though"

That seemed to satisfy him as he shut up, sitting silently as he bounced his knee up and down in anticipation, waiting for the sign for the services to appear. When we arrived at the services, I don't think we'd ever seen Brooklyn get out of the car so fast in his life and it set us all off laughing as we followed him inside.

We all separated off once in there to do our separate stuff, and I went to the bathroom just to give myself a look over in the mirror once I was finished - something I commonly did nowadays without really noticing I was doing it. It made me notice things about myself which I would never notice if I wasn't looking; I was very thin and pale, the colour having been lost from my face slightly when I started my second round of chemo and I could just faintly see an operation scar lifting above my hoodie collar.