Echoing J.A.C.I.E. (All Time Low Fanfiction | Jack Barakat)

Chapter 6

Despite the bombshell dropped on me, I must have dozed off, because suddenly a loud vibration from my phone on the nightstand snapped me back to reality. I reached for it blindly, squinting my eyes to see Jack's name on the screen.

"Jack," I murmured, my voice still heavy with sleep.

"Hey, Jace," Jack replied on the other end, his voice soft and warm. "Sorry for not answering earlier, we've been back and forth between acoustic sets all day."

I rolled onto my back and yawned. "I know."

"Shit, did I wake you up?"

"Well, it's three am, so yes."

"Fuck. Should I call you back later?"

"No," I shook my head even though he couldn't see it and sighed. "There's something we should talk about..."

"Sure, what's up?" he didn't even hesitate, not knowing what I was about to tell him.

I heard a yell from somebody else come from his side, laughter following quickly after. We seemed to be in such different worlds.

I didn't want to tell him the news surrounded by other people. "Do you have somewhere we can talk in private?"

"Umm, we're on the bus," he informed me as the men in the background seemed to get more rowdy, "but I can go to my bunk."

"That's fine."

Jack switched his tone, noticing the seriousness of the situation. "What's going on? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," I took a deep breath, the weight of the situation pressing down on me, "I think so."

"Jace..."

I waited until I could hear the background noise muffle, the sound of a curtain rattling shut signalling to me that he was alone. Saying it out loud was going to make it so official. I didn't know how Jack was going to react. We'd talked about kids, but always came to the conclusion that it would come later.

"Okay, so..." I hesitated for a moment, gathering my thoughts, and sat up. "Context first or just get it out there?"

"I don't know." The concern in his voice was evident. "I don't even know what's going on."

I decided to go for a middle ground. Beating around the bush wouldn't help. "Hazel and I took pregnancy tests. And mine... mine came back positive."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, and I could almost hear the gears turning in Jack's head as he processed the information. My heart raced as I waited for his response. I closed my eyes tightly, as if begging to wake up from some strange dream. But this was reality.

Finally, he spoke, his voice filled with a mixture of surprise and apprehensiveness. "Are you sure? Is it possible the test was wrong?"

"I took two tests, Jack. Both came back positive. I can take another right now if you don't believe me."

"No, I believe you. It's just– wow, this is... unexpected..."

I leaned backwards, resting my head against the headboard of my bed. "It's not exactly the best timing, is it?"

"The universe really isn't letting us draw up our own plan," he breathed out, but his voice was calm.

"No," I attempted a chuckle back, "but it's never been wrong so far."

"It hasn't," he agreed, a silence falling over us before he continued. "What do you want to do?"

What did I want? That was the hard part about this all. I recalled the moment after Jack and I had just gotten married in Vegas and I thought I was pregnant. Back then, I immediately knew that it was something I couldn't go through with. There was no question about it. This time, though, it was more confusing. My mindset had started to change.