Heart Strings | ✓

FIVE

"The person you have called is unavailable right now,"

That's the fifth call he missed today. Not to count the other last missed calls from the past few days.

Why hasn't he been answering my calls? I haven't heard from him for so long now. Even though I have been so busy with college and adjusting with it, I always make some time during the day to either call him or text him.

But his replies were either too short or he never replied at all. And for our calls, that would be nonexistent.

I get it that he's really busy with his music, but I miss him. Our once long distance relationship has been even longer ever since I started attending college.

Jack would spend a good amount of time in Los Angeles and would come home after. But after our high school graduation, he decided to fully move there and settle. Most of his family is still living in our town, but they do spend half of their time in Los Angeles with Jack.

I threw myself on the bed out of frustration instead of preparing for my next class. I opened Instagram and scrolled through people's posts and watched their stories. My eyebrows furrowed when I stumbled upon Jack's story posted one minute ago. It was a cover shoot for a magazine. I moved on to the next story and it was a link to an article from an interview he did for the company.

I clicked on the article and there was a small smile forming on my lips as I read it. He always somehow managed to insert a few jokes here and there in every single interview he has. It's just the little things he does.

Coming to an end on reading the article, there was another article down below.

Are the rumors true about Jackson Cohen and Marianne Zane having a collaboration and possibly dating?

Dating? This article is not real at all.

He's dating me, not publicly, but I'm dating him. For years now. We just decided that it's better to keep out of the spotlight.

Obviously I have read so many different tabloids about his potential relationships and whatnot. I would laugh it off and make jokes about it.

But something about this one article title made me feel uneasy, almost an eerie feeling settling into me.

I was about to click on and read it, but my alarm had set off signaling that I had to go to my classes. Leaving my phone laying on my bed, I quickly stood up and grabbed my things and dashed out the door not knowing that right there was the beginning of the ending.

~~~

Jackson and I started dating around sophomore year and it just escalated from there. Confessing our feelings for each other wasn't really something mind boggling. It was just something that came out of the blue and that's that.

We had a good run.

We were something great.

But we weren't meant to be.

"Yes, Di, I'm fine." Jack said. "I'm not going to kill myself while I'm out here, okay?"

Diane is his second oldest sister. She was basically the reason behind everything and how Jack started his career to what it is now. She was the one who thought of posting one of his covers on YouTube and he blew up with success little by little. She worked alongside him from clothes fitting to helping him write his songs. After she graduated from college, she was immediately taken as Jack's manager.

I wonder how she's doing now? I wonder how his whole family are? I haven't heard from them in years. I miss Lav. It was wrong of me to cut her off for no reason after I broke up with Jack. She didn't do anything wrong. I did a lot of impulsive things during that time that I deeply regret.

"The rain is pouring really hard right now. I don't think it will be safe for you to drive and pick me up. Once the rain slows down you can pick me up. Yes, I have my location turned on. Okay, bye. I love you, too." He said in an exasperated tone before eventually dropping the call.

I looked over a little to his direction to check on him. "Everything alright?" I asked awkwardly, avoiding his eyes.

He nodded, putting his phone inside his pockets. "It's just Diane."

My lips formed into an inward smile. "How is she? And your family, too."

"Di has been keeping me on my toes." He chuckled, moving on his seat to properly face me. "On some days, I do regret having her as my manager, but then again she's the reason for everything that I have now. And for my family, they're still the same. Nothing much has really changed over the years. Although Morgan is engaged and seven months pregnant."

"What?!" I exclaimed, my arms flying out in the air.

Morgan is the eldest out of the four Cohen siblings. Growing up, she was like a big sister to me. Always giving out advice during the awkward years of adolescence and would be down for a girl talk anytime.

"Yeah, I'm going to be an uncle. Can you believe it?" His eyes were sparkling with excitement and happiness.

"Oh my gosh, congrats! Is it a girl or a boy?"

"A girl. I knew firsthand because I skipped a recording session just so I could go with Morgan to her appointment."

"I can already feel that she will be spoiled rotten by you."

"What can I say? I am her best and only uncle. Spencer, her fiance, only has a younger sister. So there's no competition for me."

I laughed. "Have they thought of a name for her?"

"I wanted to name her after me. You know to name her Jacqueline, but my pregnant sister threw her flip flop at me and said that she didn't like that name."

"So no Jacqueline?" I chuckled.

He shook his head. "Afraid not. There's always next time."

After that, we fell into silence. No one was talking. Not even a squeak. It was so silent that the only thing you can hear is our breathing and the rain outside.

I looked at anything that wasn't him.

While he was not looking at anything but me.

I shifted in my sit under his heating gaze. We stayed like that for a few minutes before he cleared his throat and began asking a question that hit home.

"How's your mom?" He asked in a cheery voice pretending like he doesn't know about mom's condition.

He obviously knew that mom had cancer. He was the person I cried to when I first found out about it. But he never knew that she...died a few years ago. We were long done by the time mom passed away.

I was contemplating whether to tell him or not. Jack and my mom had a really close bond before. When I told her about our break up, she was saddened by the news and she was there for me.

Even though Jack and I aren't on the best of terms and we just met each other after so many years, he deserves to know about mom.

"Jack," I begin, gingerly placing my hand over his, trying not to cry. "Mom's gone."

I looked at him, his face had gone completely pale white like a ghost. I suddenly panicked. Is he okay?

"W-what?" He choked out, his eyes were turning red and watered. "Y-you're k-kidding. r-right? R-right, Callie?"

I bit my lower lip, shaking my head sideways. My eyes were stinging from wanting to cry. "I'm not joking, Jack. Right...r-right after I graduated college-" I couldn't finish my sentence because I couldn't control my sobs anymore.

Seeing my vulnerable state, Jack immediately pulled me in a tight hug and I buried my face onto his chest and sobbed.

He caressed my hair and whispered nothing but comforting words to me.

And at that moment, I felt like I wasn't alone anymore.

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A/N: Hello, people! I'm so sorry for this very,very late update. There's just a lot of things going on with my life and school and I have been very busy. But since I have a week off school, here I am. I'll try to write another chapter by the end of the week. Or not. Also I advice to reread Chapter 1 because I made a few changes to the story.