Eyes Open ✰ Jalex

1 // You're All I Have

Hello! This story is named after Snow Patrol's best album, Eyes Open. It will have 15 chapters, one named after every track on the album in order. I will attempt to update regularly enough. When I say regularly, I mean at least probably maybe every week or two weeks or something like that. I have no idea. Try to enjoy, I suppose.

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// give me a chance to hold on

// just give me something to hold on to

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Loneliness was something that Jack Barakat hadn't felt for a while. He was sitting on his bed. He still had bedhead and was half dressed, wearing the old, faded Switchfoot shirt that he slept in, and his favorite skinny jeans that were too tight to wear for more than 8 hours at a time. He had put on his jeans but given up with the rest of his "getting dressed" routine because he couldn't feel bothered to do anything else except for feel sorry for himself. The tears that were welling up in his eyes had begun to streak down his face, just adding to his pathetic picture. There was so much that he had to do, so much that he had to get rid of. The pictures stuck in the corner of his mirror, the stuff that he had left behind, all the random things he had left all over Jack's house. He had never expected any of the things scattered around his house would be part of the reason he was sitting on his bed crying and feeling like an idiot. The smell of him still lingered on the shirt he had borrowed from Jack, the shirt that Jack was too lazy to wash. He was everywhere, a ghost haunting Jack's heart and taunting him with the little things that didn't matter two months ago, but meant everything now.

He wouldn't leave.

Jack knew he probably wouldn't see Zack Merrick ever again. It always had to work that way, that you became best friends with someone and then either you or they had to move, and then you were all alone with the feeling that your heart had been carelessly buried six feet under a pile of empty memories.

Zack had moved to Hawaii, completely across the country and then some. Out in the middle of the ocean, on a desolate island that wasn't quite so desolate. A perfect remedy on how to forget your best friend. Jack's parents were okay with Zack, but Zack's parents hated Jack. Jack was loud, rowdy, and ultimately rude in their humble opinions. They would never let their treasured son fly back to Baltimore to visit his best friend. If Jack was even his best friend anymore. Jack wondered why he was treasuring their friendship so much. Not all of it had been good, of course, they had had their fights and bad times, but it seemed like all Jack was reminiscing on were the good times, and not the times where Zack had made Jack feel like shit. It hadn't happened too often, but it had happened enough for a few days of them ignoring each other to ensue.

"Jack, what are you doing? You've got school!" Jack's older sister, May, flung open the door, not expecting to see her brother still half in his pajamas, looking like he was about to, or even starting to, break down.

"Jack? What's wrong?" Jack shrugged, knowing that he would probably start crying even more if he spoke. It hurt to be sitting there, to swallow down the excessive amount of tears built up in his throat. He had never felt the need for anything like this before, all he needed was Zack to be there. He would go to school and Zack wouldn't be there, the locker on his right would be empty. No more conversations, nothing else except for golden memories turned stale.

"Hey, okay, I don't know what's wrong- but it's Friday! Right? You can just sit in your room and cry all weekend if that would make anything better! Just for today, you've gotta get up and get dressed and get your ass to school and make it through the day, alright?" Jack nodded, and May reminded him that he had ten minutes to get ready so she could drive them to school, before glancing at herself in Jack's mirror like the vain little creature she was, shutting the door softly behind her. Jack pulled himself off of his bed, continuing with his morning routine of stumbling around his room.