Waking up. Breakfast. Work. Lunch. More work. Home. Out for a beer (which sometimes comes with a chick, but not necessarily). Back home. Sleep. Until I wake up on the next morning and the same thing happens all over again… Well, except that usually the chick is different, but yeah, you get the idea.

Can’t say that my life is much interesting. Can’t say it isn’t. It’s just a normal life, you know. Not that I deserve better, I don’t. Because I’m an asshole. And yup, I even admit it. Does this make me less of an asshole? I doubt it.

But I won’t start my story with my boring life… though I already kinda did, didn’t I? Interesting stories need an interesting beginning. So I’m going to start my story with a crash.

BAM!

…No, not yet. Um. Okay. Let’s rewind a bit.

I walked out of the supermarket, holding two half-empty bags with products and… stuff. See, shopping isn’t really my thing, especially shopping for food. It’s much easier to order some pizza, besides, since I work at an ice cream shop, I get a discount. That’s what I do, I pretty much live on pizza and ice cream, and honestly, that’s the best diet ever.

Now what? I wasn’t feeling like going home. But, hey, I had to leave my stuff there, right? Then I could go out and call… what was her name again? Lisa? I don’t know. Maybe I’ve written it down somewhere. Whatever. Lost in thought, I must’ve slowed down, because suddenly some guy bumped into me, causing me to drop my bags.

“What the fuck, man?!”, I exclaimed, managing to keep myself on my feet. “Watch your feet, look what you’ve done now!” I motioned at all the things I had bought, which were now scattered all over the sidewalk.

“I’m sorry!”, the man apologized, frowning slightly. “Let me help you…”

“No, just… Just get out of my way. Now. Go.”, I shook head, annoyed. “I’m already having a shitty day anyway.”

“I said I’m sorry! Jesus.”, the man sighed with irritation.

I ignored him and started picking my things up and putting them back in my bags. Seriously. Some people had a hell of an attitude. Without even looking back to see if the guy had left or not, I continued my way with a sigh. I felt the need to get home sooner, away from all these idiots that seemed to walk around this neighborhood lately.

Suddenly I felt a buzz in my back pocket and after a few seconds my phone started ringing. Well, fuck it, my hands were full, I couldn’t pick up. Whoever was calling was damn stubborn, though, they didn’t give up that easily, and I figured I’d have to answer if I wanted to get rid of them, so I took one of the bags in my teeth, pulled my phone out of my pocket and put it to my ear.

“H’llo?”, I mumbled.

“Jack. We need to talk.”

“Ah!” I managed to move the second bag to my other hand, so my mouth would be free and I could talk properly. “Hey, Rachel.”

“Hannah.”, the girl corrected me dryly.

“Right.”, I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “I knew that.”

Deep sigh. Why was she sighing? I mean, okay, I forgot her name, it’s not a big deal.

“Look,” I started, “I’m out right now, and it’s not the best moment to talk on the phone. Would you mind if I call you when I get h-”

“Jack, you’re seeing someone else.”

Woah, didn’t see that coming. Not that I had actually told her that I didn’t see someone else. I mean, it’s not my problem that she had thought she’s the only one for me, and that she has a special place in my heart, shit like that.

“I don’t understand. Is that a problem?”, I asked dumbly.

“Of course it’s a problem! I thought… I thought…”

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, hearing that she had started crying. Shit. I hated when they cry. It made me feel completely useless.

“Hey, hey, Sarah, calm down…”

“It’s Hannah!”, she almost screamed.

“That’s what I meant, now just calm down, Jesus fuck!”, I exclaimed loudly, getting a few disapproving looks from the people around me.

All I got in reply was a muffled sob. I let out a deep sigh and looked around, feeling tempted to come over to her place and play the concerned boyfriend, who’s terribly sorry. But no. I wasn’t in the mood. After another moment of hesitation, I started crossing the street, heading to my home.

“Listen… Hannah.”, I silently congratulated myself for getting the name right this time. “I wish I could say I love you, but I honestly don’t. I wish I could say that I’m not seeing anyone else and that you’re wrong, but I can’t. I thought you knew that our relationship isn’t serious.”

“But I thought it’s something more than… than what it seems it is.”, she sniffed.

A car flew past me, almost hitting me, but I managed to jump aside on time. What an idiot, this wasn’t F1, goddammit! He could kill someone. Jesus fucking Christ.

“You’re not even listening to me!”, the girl on the phone cried.

“Yeah, because some dumbfuck almost killed me with his fucking car.”, I said as calmly as I could. This woman had started to annoy me. What else did she want? I answered her question, now she could leave me alone. “Anyway, that’s it. I’m sorry, Hannah.”

“So… it’s over?”

“I guess so. Yeah, it’s over.”, I agreed, and then repeated: “I’m sorry.”

“Jack…”

But her words faded into a sound of a motor horn, and when I looked up, I saw another crazy bastard, this time behind the wheel of a truck, drive straight towards me. Distracted by the conversation, I hadn’t noticed that I had slowed down and almost stopped in the middle of the street, forgetting that it’s far not the best place to do that.

“Shit!”, I gasped and dropped my phone, my panic pushing me to move away quickly, but I couldn’t get my feet to work on time. It was too late.

I think now is the right time to go back to the crash I mentioned earlier.

BAM!

Everything turned black, and the last thing I knew was pain, horrible pain which seemed to suffocate me, to crush my chest as if I had been ran over by an elephant.

Ouch.

***

My memories about what happened later are a total blur. I remember someone shouting, and some people tossing me around, I remember more pain and then… suddenly everything somehow… stopped. As if the whole world disappeared, and there was nothing. I don’t think I can even describe it, because I can’t compare it to anything, you know? If you haven’t gone through it, you wouldn’t understand. It was like you suddenly cease to exist and become a part of the endless nothing that surrounds you. It was weird, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

After what seemed like forever, or maybe just a few seconds, all of a sudden all sounds and lights returned to my silent world of darkness, hitting me like a tidal wave and overwhelming me, causing me to open my eyes widely. Bright white light blinded me for a moment and I squeezed them back shut, hoping the darkness would return, but it didn’t; the light kept stubbornly shining in my face. So maybe I had to live with it.

Okay… Time to open my eyes again and find out where I am. I looked around. It seemed I was lying in a bed in a lonely empty room. Some idiot had decided that painting the walls in a happy shade of yellow would make the place look cozy and welcoming, but it just made it look more depressing than it already was. I looked down at myself to find out that I was covered in bandages, my right hand connected to a complicated system of screens and other… stuff, showing that my heart is beating normally, shit like that. I knew what this place was. I was in a hospital room.

Oh, great.

I tried to call out, hoping a doctor would hear me and come to get me out of here, but only a weak, quiet moan escaped my chest. It seemed I didn’t need to do anything else, though, because the door at the opposite end of the room opened and a chubby short woman in a nurse uniform came in.

“Ah, you’re awake.”, she announced, as if I hadn’t noticed already. “How are you feeling?”

Shitty, I wanted to say. Very, very shitty. But hey, this woman had done nothing wrong to deserve my bitching, so I tried to smile. “Um… Okay, I guess… A bit numb…” God, how weird my voice sounded, really low and raspy, almost a whisper. “What…” I coughed. “…What happened?”

“You got hit by a truck.”, the nurse explained, checking the screens and fixing the sheet that covered me.

“Oh.”, that was the only thing I could think of. Everything about this accident seemed somehow unreal. “Um…” I looked down at my bandaged arms and body. “Is it bad…?”, I asked, referring to the injuries.

“You’ve got four broken ribs. Your left leg and arm are broken on a several places too, and you have a minor skill fracture. It would take you a few months to get better, but you’ll recover completely.”, she smiled reassuringly. “…The truck driver is okay, in case you’re wondering.”

Honestly, I hadn’t thought about the truck driver until then, and I felt slightly guilty for being so selfish. I knew that the crash was my fault, and now I felt bad for not asking if anyone else got hurt.

“I… I’m glad he’s fine.”, I smiled weakly.

The nurse only smiled back a bit and headed out, maybe to call my doctor, but something was still bothering me.

“Hey…”, I started, making her stop at the door.

“Yes, dear?”, she smiled at me.

“I… erm… I’m not sure how to… I don’t know, I’m not sure how to describe this, but…”, I hesitated. “…Did anything… unusual happen after the accident? Did something go wrong during the operations and all?”

The woman seemed kind of uneasy as I mentioned this. “Why did you think that?”, she asked unsurely.

“I just… heh…”, I laughed nervously, which caused my chest to hurt like hell. “I just felt something strange. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the brain concussion and stuff… I’m sorry for asking.”

She gave me a curious look, now interested.

“Actually, something unusual did happen, yeah.”, she admitted.

“It did? What was it?”, I tried to sit up, but I ended up just lifting myself a bit. The short nurse sighed, as if she didn’t want to tell me some really worrying news.

“Mr. Barakat, you had lost a lot of blood. While they were driving you here, your heart stopped for three minutes.”, then she added a bit too cheerfully: “But there’s nothing to worry about, everything is okay now, your system is functioning normally.”

“Wait… So… You mean I died?”, I raised eyebrows.

“I guess you could say so. Technically. Yes. Thankfully, the ambulance arrived on time.”

I bit my lower lip and rested my head on the pillow. So that was it. I died. Only for three minutes, yeah, but I died. Was that a warning? A sign that if I don’t change, I might die again, for real? I wasn’t sure what I believed in, but that was more than weird, and the sudden realization scared me.

The nurse waited for me to reply for a few minutes, and since I didn’t, she spoke up again: “I’ll go get Dr. Clark. You better get some rest now, okay?”

I nodded. She gave me another minute to say something and then left the room.

I closed my eyes, trying to clear my head and think. All the drugs they had given me to get rid of the pain were now blurring my mind and making me feel sleepy. No, no, no, I didn’t want to sleep… Shit… I held back a yawn.

…But I was already asleep when the doctor came, so I didn’t get any more details. Well. The details could wait.

***

After a few painful, long months I was allowed to continue living my normal life. I healed surprisingly quickly, even though at first the doctors were afraid that I might never be able to use my left arm again.

No one came to visit me in the hospital. Who would, anyway? I wasn’t exactly nice to people, I had only a few friends. The only person, who seemed to really care about what had happened to me was my mom, but she pretty much thought I’m just a good kid, who somehow happened to be twenty-one years old. She had no idea who I was for real.

It took me awhile to mentally recover from hearing the news that I had passed away for a few minutes, but once I did, I made a very important decision. I had to change. I had to become a better person, because I could see now that being the asshole I was would be the death of me. I wanted to do something to help other people… What this thing could be, I had no idea. Just something, anything.

For starters, I could find a better job…

…But nope. This discount I got was too good to simply waste it. As I said, pizza and ice cream is the best diet ever, duh. A stupid car crash wouldn’t change that.

Though it did change many more things than I first thought. From then on my life took a turn and went on in a totally different direction, and I was yet to find that out.

END OF CHAPTER 1.

Notes

Jack's POV. :3

That's my first All Time Low fanfiction, guys, so I'm sorry if it sucks ^^;