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

Chapter 1

My name's Jacie. That's Jacie with a c-i-e, not a s-e-y. It's also not Casey. Just Jacie. Actually, that's a lie, it's Jennifer Anna Clara Isabell Evans, but I go by Jacie. It's more like an acronym, really. None of my actual names ever sat right with me. When I was five years old, I was writing out my initials under a drawing and declared that I wanted to be called Jacie from there on out. Somehow both my parents entertained the idea and it stuck since.

They never agreed on anything. My parents, that is. Never. How they ever got married was beyond me. They couldn't even agree on a name for me. My dad wanted to name me Jennifer Anna, and my mom wanted to name me Clara Isabell. There was not a single compromise that either of them could make. The only reason Jennifer Anna came first was because my dad was the one who got to write my names down for the birth certificate. It was only a good thing, otherwise I would have never found J.A.C.I.E. I honestly still do not know how they managed to stay together long enough to have my little brother, Benjamin Tobias Evans.

Ben was the light of my life. He was fourteen years younger than I was, making him six. The only reason why he had two names and not four like me was because I named him. Yet again, our parents couldn't come to an agreement, so they gave me the honour. Not the greatest choice. I was thirteen when I made that decision and thought it sounded like a cool name from a young adult book. But, hey, at least he wasn't named Jennifer Anna Clara Isabell Evans. Ben, or Benny as I sometimes liked calling him, was a very acceptable name.

He never got to know what life was like with two parents. My mom had left by the time he was one, they divorced soon after, and then my dad got full custody and my mom only had visitation rights. I was glad the court favoured my dad even though he also came with his downsides. Anything was better than the constant need for disagreement, though. Something in me knew it wasn't even about differing opinions, it was about always wanting to be opposing the other's view.

Luckily Ben never had to witness any of that. I spent many days in my life wondering why they wouldn't get a divorce. It was the best for everybody even though it was so confusing. Anything was better than the screaming and unbearable bickering.

My little brother was the only reason I was where I was in life. I wanted to set a good example for him, that anything was possible as long as you put your mind to it. He didn't exactly have a good role model in my mom, who was always more suited for the single life than the family life. Although he was only six, I wanted to show him that there was a way to have everything. I had a social life, good grades, and managed to work my ass off as well. It was possible. Hard, but possible.

I was in my last year of my college degree. I studied the very broad subject of music. My college did offer specialist courses, but when I began, I had no idea where I wanted to take it. Now, a few months over two years later, I knew it a lot better. Although I enjoyed performing, I liked the songwriting process just a little more. Better to say, I loved songwriting and producing. I also realised that this wasn't a field I could just hop in and hope to get a good job in. I needed to do more to stand out.

That's where internships came in. I knew I needed to get myself some work experience before I was thrown out into the real world. Nowadays there was no way to get a job anywhere unless you had five years experience in some software that had only been available for a year. I was sure to get ahead of that. I signed up for every internship that was even remotely relevant. It was the only way, especially with how competitive it all was in L.A.

And that's how I ended up at the Fueled by Ramen L.A. offices. It was one competitive place. Rather than just coming in for one single interview. They had us come in in groups. It reminded me a lot of college orientation. We were shown around, trying to convince us to work there. But really, there was a large group of people and only two of us were going to be picked. Pretty torturous if you asked me; showing us how great it would be while not giving us the job. It was what it was.