J.A.C.I.E.'s World (All Time Low Fanfiction | Jack Barakat)

Chapter 9

Going out with Hazel and Sarah for just one night turned into partying multiple nights a week. My nights started melting into days as my days became shorter and shorter. Each evening seemed to be another one to celebrate. They were fleeting moments of highs, always graciously returning their thanks with a horrible morning.

I woke up one morning due to my phone ringing loudly. My head throbbed with a relentless ache, a steady rhythm of increasing regret. The room was spinning, my limbs cramped, and I could feel the makeup smeared across my face. I couldn't help but wonder what had transpired the night before. But I most definitely wasn't in my bed at my apartment.

Despite the sudden nausea making itself known, I reached out for the phone and picked it up.

"Jacie, where the fuck are you?!" Hazel immediately sounded through the phone, her voice a mixture of relief and frustration.

I groaned, an anxious feeling gnawing inside me, aggravating my already upset stomach. My eyes darted around the room. It was dark, but the curtains hadn't been fully closed. I could see the black bedframe and the mirror I so desperately didn't want to look at.

"At Jack's," I answered, closing my eyes tightly now that I knew my surroundings.

The concern in her words was palpable. "You disappeared last night and we couldn't find you."

"I'm sorry." I rubbed my forehead. "I can't even remember last night."

There were only short blurred moments I could remember. I had had multiple drinks at Sarah's place. The walk around downtown LA was a big blur. Entering the club had been exhilarating and Nash bought the four of us shots. And then? I remembered pulling Hazel with me to the bathroom at some point. Later, I fell onto the floor when going down low. And somebody was smoking a cigarette somewhere?

"I'm just glad you're safe," Hazel's voice calmed down. "We were worried the worst had happened."

"Next time don't let me drink this much," I mumbled.

"I'll try."

"What happened last night?"

"So much, but I've got a lab right now. We'll talk later, alright? I just needed to know you were alive."

"Okay... I'll come home after the studio."

"Bye."

I sighed when the phone call ended before I could even say bye back. Yet again, I had pushed back too many drinks and was now paying the consequences. I must have mixed all my alcohol again, because this hangover was brutal. Maybe I was even still a little tipsy. I couldn't tell.

But now that I was awake, I couldn't go back to sleep.

I knew for a fact that this night must have been documented. If I was with a big group of friends, then there was always somebody with their phone out snapping pictures or taking a video. So, I tapped on the Instagram icon, one eye still closed and the other struggling to deal with the light from my phone's screen.

The first image I saw was a group picture somebody had posted. It was taken before the night had descended into chaos. We were smiling, a row of us leaning down at the front while the others stood behind. There were drinks in our hands, the neon lights turning our skin slightly pink.

I found a post on my own account of Sarah and I holding onto each other tightly as I planted a kiss on her cheek. My left arm was gripping across her body and onto her shoulder as we obviously struggled to keep upright. The caption read 'The love of my life'. I couldn't remember posting it.

I accidentally opened the comments since my hands were shaking. The first comment I spotted asked me if Jack and I had broken up. I frowned, wondering where this thought came from. There were a few more scattered throughout, mixed in with the normal comments. Before I let it get to me, I quit the comments and returned to the photo.

That's when I spotted that the hand you could see in the photo was my left hand. And it didn't have its ring on it. It wasn't what could have caused the comments because people didn't know, but it shook me awake. I sat up as fast as I could, my heart racing. My gaze immediately fell on my left ring finger. There was no ring there either.

Panic bubbled up my throat. I hadn't taken it off before the night out, not this time.

I scrambled out of bed and quickly rushed over to the clothes I had discarded. It was a hopeful thought that it would be somewhere amongst them, but where else was I supposed to look? It could have been in countless places all around LA. This was the only one I had direct access to.

Once I felt a hard circular object in my jean's pocket, my heart nearly jumped out of its chest. It couldn't be. But it was. I was overwhelmed when I saw the gold band with a small diamond come out of the pocket and into my hand. Thank fuck.

As I put it back in its rightful place, I finally understood why it hadn't been there anymore. I knocked into my left pinkie finger, making a pain shoot up my arm. Now I looked at it again, it did look a little swollen. At least drunk Jacie knew the ring could have cut off the blood supply if the swelling had moved further down my hand.

At least that hadn't been a huge fuck up.

Trying to piece together more of the story, I went to the instagram stories on my home page. It was a chaos of different videos and pictures. They all started with the usual selfies and group pictures, but then came the drunkenly singing along to songs and weird antics. At some point I even had a microphone in my hands while standing on a table.

As I was tapping on them quickly to get through them all without cringing too hard, I landed on a story I didn't expect. It was Jack's. All it was was a simple selfie of his head on a pillow. The text on top of it said 'come fill my empty bed'. Shit.

This obviously didn't look good. At least it explained the comments on my Instagram post. It was posted before I had even had too much to drink, but it certainly looked like something had happened between Jack and I.

I quickly went to the phone app to call Jack, just to see that we already had had a ten minute call at 4 a.m. I could not recall that phone call at all. All I could do was wish I hadn't done anything stupid as I rang him again. My nerves picked up when the dial tones kept playing. What if I had done something stupid and he didn't want to talk to me again?

Eventually, I heard a click on the other side of the line.

"Heyo!" He greeted cheerfully.

I sighed in relief. That didn't sound like a man that had been hurt just hours earlier.

"What's up?" He asked me immediately after.

"Just wanted to hear your voice..." I replied. "Apparently I already called you last night?"

"Yep. It woke me up."

"I'm sorry..." I sat back down on the bed. "I didn't say anything stupid, did I?"

"You just told me you were staying at our apartment, asking for permission to do so, and then kept going on about how much you love me."

"Oh..." another stroke of luck for me, "well, it technically is still your apartment."

"I beg to disagree," he countered like he always did. "I'm just glad you're home safe."

"Things tend to get a bit wild on Nash's birthday, but I'm good."

"Just..." there was a short silence and his voice went quieter, "take care of yourself, Jacie..."

"Of course. You know I do."

He just hummed in response, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with me.

"Anyway," I ran my hand through my hair, getting my fingers tangled in the knots. "I should get ready to go to the studio. Talk to you again this evening?"

He confirmed, "definitely. See you then. I love you."

"Love you." I smiled as we ended the short call, praying that this headache would disappear before I had to listen to electric guitars.