Hospital Beds and Memories (All Time Low Fanfiction | Jack Barakat)

Wake Up

The churning and screaming consumed my ears. I was stuck in a large dark room with no walls, ceiling, or floor. Sometimes the images would change to random environments as voices tried to entire my mind. I had been in the wilderness, next to a river, in a hospital, at a school, or just simply at a home. People I knew and didn't know would show up in the blur I had created. This was my life now. Lost in a dark abyss.

I turned around and saw Jack standing in front of me. He was the only thing here. Nothing else appeared. It was just us in this large maze with no walls. His footsteps echoed as he walked up to me. My left hand felt warm as he suddenly stopped and stared right through me. I stared right back at him. There was something about him that felt so right, yet I still did not know what to do. It was quiet, no sound coming out of either of us. I wanted to talk to him, but my mouth wouldn't open, so I went to move, but that also didn't happen; I was stuck.

"Hey, Ireland," Jack smiled.

I tried talking back but I just couldn't. Nothing was working. I could only listen and try my best to pry open my mouth. But it felt like a weight was keeping everything stuck together, everything was glued shut.

"I need you to figure out how you feel about me before you wake up," Jack seemed so close yet so far away. I wanted nothing more to reach out and touch him.

"Can you do that for me?" He suddenly disappeared and I was left alone again.

The only thing I could do here was thinking, so why not think about Jack, if that's what he wanted. I could suddenly move again, I was only frozen when a person showed up, other wise I was fine. Something like this had only happened once before, only then I had been stuck for a year, now it had been for only a short amount of time, or what felt pretty short compared to last time.

I sat down indian style on the floor and propped up my head by resting my elbows on my knees. How did I feel about Jack? I had been avoiding the question for some time, or at least not been thinking about it properly. But there was literally nothing else to do here and it was time to face reality, even though this wasn't reality itself. I thought about all the moments I had with Jack. At first he really was just a friend, but there must have been a reason why I kissed him, right? Just before it happened I wanted nothing more than to have his lips on mine.

I had been getting even closer to Jack. We would literally lie on top of each other in bed and wake up on opposite sides of where we both started. I felt comfortable enough to do that. The first time I touched him I freaked out. But was it because we were now best friend close, or more than friends close? I just didn't know. It was all muddled up in my head. I didn't do relationships, but did I like Jack? All the questions swirled around and were written out in front of me in white letters. Nothing made sense anymore.

What if I thought about Jack being with other girls? I shrugged. Jack was just like that. Why would I judge him. If that's how he was I would let him. But when I thought about him being with Abagail I got a weird feeling. It wasn't right. She wasn't supposed to be there. They just couldn't, they didn't like each other like that. That was supposed to be me.

I stopped. Did I actually say that? Was that really how I felt? I imagined how things could be between Jack and me. We would be able to share more of those amazing kisses and we would be together, not just in the same room together but together together. A smile crept onto my lips. Maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe I actually liked Jack. And if Jack didn't feel the same way about me I would be able to deal with it. I wouldn't ruin our friendship because of something like that.