This Ones Different

*Alex POV*

Oh my God… Did Jack seriously just ask me who I am?

“You… You don’t remember me?” I spoke in barely more than a whisper, looking at Jack with burrowed eyebrows.

He returned the uncertain frown, pulling his eyebrows together as if he was thinking hard about something. Then he slowly shook his head, causing my fragile heart to sink dramatically. I could feel myself being taken over by the familiar feeling of emptiness returning inside of me.

“Oh,” I made a smallchokedsound.
Well, I didn’t see that coming…

I averted my eyes to the floor to hide the tears filling in them from Jack. After all, I was practically a stranger to him now that he had lost his memory, so he wouldn’t understand my tears or truly care about my feelings…

“I’m sorry… Uh…ShouldI remember you?” He asked warily in barely more than a whisper.
Theoretically, yes, he should definitely remember me, considering everything that we’ve been through together...

“I’m Alex…” I told him sadly, avoiding his question and his curious gaze expertly. “…Your best friend.”
Or I was… I don’t know what I am to him now. Everything is wrong and will never be the same, that’s for sure…

“Oh…” Jack responded after a small delay.

I snuck a glance in his direction in time to see his eyes darting back and forth as if he was searching the thin air for a memory of me. But after a moment’s silence, he finally sighed, sounding frustrated with himself.

“I don’t remember you.”

Hearing his words and seeing him staring at me with a horribly blank look on his face made a little piece of me die inside. The fact alone that he had forgotten me cut like a knife, but the twisted reality that we were now practically strangers plunged the knife deeper into my heart.

How can he not remember me after everything that’s happened? I was under the impression that he would never forget me… He wouldn’t ever forget me…

“Maybe your memory is just a littlehazybecause you’ve only just woken up… It might just be a temporary thing,” I spoke numbly, trying to be optimistic for the sake of my sanity.

The idea that he’s just forgotten me completely…forever…is too much for me to deal with right now. I need to focus on the fact that nothing is certain and only time will tell whether Jack’s memory of me has been erased completely…

Jack shrugged slightly and ran his fingers through his messy hair.
I just stood by his bed, staring at the floor, because I was completely at a loss for words due to the sudden shock of the situation. The room was silent, except for the steady beeping sound of hisheart monitor, which I foundmyself becoming increasingly absorbed in.

Part of me was still in denial that everything that had happened in the past 3 minutes was real. I still felt convinced that I was dreaming, even though the aching sensation in my heart was very much real. It just seemed too surreal that Jack had actually come around from hiscomaat all because it was something I had been dreaming about every time I had fallen asleep for the last 32 days.

So, when I woke up to find Jack’s eyes locked with mine through the darkness it was one of the happiest moments of my life, But in only a matter of seconds I was overcome once again by a sense of loneliness and rejection when he asked me who I was.

I never even thought for one second that he could lose his memory as a side-effect of the accident. Maybe I should have prepared myself for it, considering he did suffer quite a severe brain injury…

“What happened to me?” Jack suddenly asked cluelessly, breaking me out of my consuming thoughts of emptiness.

I didn’t intend on giving him the full, detailed account of what happened on the fateful night of the jump. Quite frankly, I considered it a blessing that he couldn’t remember that particular evening; I wanted it to stay forgotten, in his head at least.

I could never escape from myself or the haunting memories, but Jack was free from the pain now without access to the memory, and I wouldn’t ever want to revive that memory and hurt him again…

“You jumped off a bridge,” I informed him gravely, finishing the sentence in my head“trying to leave me.”

It was harder to ignore the guilt and shame I felt in that second that it has ever been, because I was looking into Jack’s innocent eyes as I told him only part of the truth… He didn’t know that I was responsible for his accident and I didn’t even have the fucking guts to tell him.

All of a sudden, Jack’s whole body jerked vigorously in his bed, making me recoil slightly in surprise from the rash movement. My eyes widened in fear as I looked into his eyes and saw a flash of panic in them.

“Oh my God… Jack, are you okay?” I asked anxiously, rushing forward and putting my hand on his arm affectionately.

He didn’t seem to hear me or feel the contact, because he did not respond; he was staring past me at nothing, looking as if he had completely zoned out.

I stood rooted to the spot helplessly. I didn’t know what to do and the panic was rising rapidly inside of me.

What the hell is going on?

But then, suddenly, Jack shook his head slightly, seeming to snap himself out of his trance. Then, he turned his attention back to me, staring up at me standing over him, and I could see in his eyes that part of his innocence had been lost…
I realized that he had just remembered something.

“Do you remember…?” I questioned nervously when he continued to stare at me making no attempt to say anything.

I held my breath in anticipation and took a step away from him as I waited for his answer, praying he hadn’t remembered the awful days when we were fighting…

“I just had a vision of water beneath my feet,” he replied slowly, shuddering at the memory.
He painted the image in my mind, making me shiver too.

“Do you… remember anything else that happened that night?” I enquired hesitantly.
Like the fact that you were running away from me when you fell…

Jack’s eyes suddenly fell closed, breaking the intense eye contact we held and making me anxious. I hated seeing him with his eyes closed because it was the only thing I’d seen for the last month, and when he closed them, I feared he might never open them again.

I watched him lift his hand to his head and start massaging his temple with two fingers, as if he was a psychic trying to predict the future, not a man trying to simply remember his past. But it didn’t seem to be working…

He shook his head frustrated and I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted was for Jack to remember the terrible events of that evening… In a perfect world, he would remember me, but forget completely about that night. But if there’s one thing this life has taught me, it is that this world is not perfect… And I know it’s inevitable that Jack will either remember both me and the terrible things I put him through, or nothing about me at all.

“How long ago did it happen?” Jack asked, blinking his eyes open much to my relief.

But then he turned to me and stared curiously into my secretive eyes and I almost wished he would close his eyes again, or at least look away. The analyzing look in his eye that made me nervous.

I knew he was talking about the accident, trying to gain a greater understanding of it, but the extreme guilt and shame I was feeling was making it hard for me to speak about.

“Just over a month ago,” I answered with a sigh.But it feels like a life time…“You’ve been in a coma ever since.”
And every day of my life has been a challenge ever since...

“Oh… Whoa,” Jack responded in awe, wearing a concentrated expression on his face. He was silent for a moment, seemingly thinking deeply about this new information.
I guess it must be pretty weird to wake up one day and find out you’ve missed over a month of your life… It’s too surreal for my brain to even comprehend.

“So what’s been going on with All Time Low in that time? Has someone replaced me?” Jack eventually spoke again curiously, sounding interested.

How could we replace Jack? It would be way too hard to play without him, because every time I would look to my right and see some other person standing in his usual place on the left side of Zacks basement, it would feel wrong…

“No, we haven’t replaced-“I stopped talking abruptly once I realized what I was saying.Did I hear that right…?

It took me a while to realize that what Jack had just asked me was strange; they seemed like perfectly ordinary questions... But they weren’t in the current circumstances.

“Wait, what? You remember All Time Low? The stupid band we have to pass the time?” I demanded, burrowing my eyebrows at Jack in confusion.
Just when I was beginning to accept that he had tragically lost his memory, he goes and says that!
What the fuck?

He returned the frown, looking slightly taken aback by my shocked outburst.
“Uh… Yeah,” he nodded cautiously, throwing my heart out of sync once more.
Wow. He remembers a lot of stuff for someone who has lost their memory…

“How can you remember our joke of a band, but not the people in it?” I questioned suspiciously, perplexed by the revelation that Jack clearly still had part of his memory remaining.
“I do remember the people in it…” He replied slowly, looking at me like I was insane.
…Am I insane? Because I feel like I am. I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on here!

“You do?” I gasped in disbelief.
He continued looking at me with a confused expression as he nodded slowly.

“The band mates are Zack, Rian, and Me. Our favorite fan is Cas” he spoke confidently.
…Can’t he see he’s forgetting someone? What about me?!
“And?” I pressed urgently, needing to hear him say my name… To feel included… To be remembered.

But Jack remained oblivious to the answer that was staring him right in the face… He looked completely lost.
“That’s it…” He muttered in a much less confident voice.
No, it’s not!

I stared at Jack with a half-open mouth and a permanent frown on my face in complete shock, wondering how he could remember ATL and all the guys but me.

It’s as if his mind is a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing and in the wrong places… But he can’t solve the puzzle and I can’t figure out how everything has fallen out of place… I seem to have just fallen out of his memory…

He hasn’t lost his memory at all... He’s just lost me…

“What about me?” I asked, sounding desperate and whiny.
Jack just looked at me with that same blank expression that crushed my hopes and dreams the first time.

“Uh… What’s your name again?” He asked in a small voice, narrowing his eyes at me.
Judging from the sharp pains in my chest, my frail heart had well and truly shattered into a million pieces at these words.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing… It was unbelievable to hear my best friend and the love of my life ask what my fucking name was.

“Alex!” I answered, becoming increasingly desperate to see that knowing look in Jack’s eyes and the familiar twinkle he always used to have when he looked at me… But there just seemed to be a permanent lost look in them now.

“Come on, Jacky … It’s me!Lex…” I cried frantically, my voice suddenly starting to crack.
I'm your Lexy bear!

Jack looked slightly alarmed again by sense of urgency and obvious despair.
“I’m sorry…” He responded half-heartedly, shaking his head again and making my lungs constrict.

His apology wasn’t genuine, because he didn’t even know what he was apologizing for… It’s not exactly his fault he doesn’t remember me.

Unless… What if he’s just pretending not to know me, because he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore? What if this is his way of saying “I don’t want you in my life”?

“I- I don’t get it!” I choked, trying to fight the tears that were burning my eyes again. “How can you not remember me?”

This isn’t right! We have the most history together… How can I just disappear from his memory? It’s not possible! He must be faking it… He has got to know who I am…

“I don’t know…”Jack gave a small shrug, chewing his bottom lip worriedly.
Liar!
“I don’t believe you!” I spluttered, backing away from him, towards the door. “You’re lying to me!”

Jack raised his eyebrows at me and looked at me like I was an escaped mental patient, which was exactly what I felt like. My sanity was rapidly being drained from me. I was desperate to hear the truth… To hear Jack confess that he’s lying to me…

“Why would I lie to you?” Jack asked tentatively, looking genuinely confused.
Because every one always lies to me!

I was convinced he was trying to take me for a fool… And I wasn’t about to be fooled by his act of innocence.

“Because I broke your heart and now you hate me!” I cried frenetically, still backing away as the tears streaming down my face and I completely fell apart on the inside.

Jack pinched his eyebrows together into a deep frown and suddenly averted his eyes to the floor, away from the piercing contact they held with mine. He couldn’t even seem to look me in the eye anymore… But I could barely see him anymore through my blurred vision.

“I’m sorry! I never meant to hurt you like that…” I apologized in devastation, pausing in my backwards tracks towards the door. “I understand that you don’t want to know me now and I don’t blame you… You don’t have to forgive me. You can tell me you hate me… But I just want you to know that I’m so fucking sorry!” I poured my broken heart out to Jack in an urgent tone of voice, still desperate to hear him admit that he does remember me; he justwantsto forget me.The truth hurts, but I’d rather hear that, instead of lies…

As I waited for Jack to respond, I took a few deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to compose myself, even though I was too far gone and the tears seemed never-ending.

My eyes remained fixated on his face and I watched his eyes darting back and forth shiftily for a moment, before they finally locked with mine once again. I identified a small flash of panic in his eyes and I realized he looked slightly scared of me.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he told me flatly, staring at me with the same expression of confusion and worry.

He was adamant he didn’t know me and I was adamant that it was impossible that he would just forget me and nothing else… But his rejection was crystal clear through the lies and I decided to accept it.

I give up.

It was painful to do so, but I turned my back on Jack and practically ran towards the door. He didn’t try to stop me or call after me and I hardly expected him to… He had made his feelings for me perfectly clear.In his world, I no longer exist… I mean nothing to him.

As soon as I escaped Jack’s hospital room, I found myself standing in the dark, deserted corridors alone and I started to freak out in my irrational state of mind.

What am I going to do now? It’s all over…

I desperately needed someone to talk to… To reassure me that everything was going be alright…

Acting impulsively, I starting running to the pay phone at the other end of the corridor, causing the sound of my heavy feet to echo down the isolated hall and bounce off the walls. I had to use the pay phone because I didn’t own a cell phone. (I broke it over a month ago by throwing it at the wall and never got around to replacing it.)

When I reached the pay phone I put my money in, dialed a familiar number I knew off by heart and lifted the receiver to my ear.

As the dial tone startedringing inmy ear it suddenly hit me that I was ringing someone who hated me and I started to feel anxious, but then I realized that nothing could be worse than being forgotten… Or lied to. And I couldn’t hang up because desperate times call for desperate measures…

After at least a minute I got used to listening to the same repetitive ringing sound, but then it was interrupted very suddenly, catching me off-guard as the person finally answered.

“Hello?” Rian croaked, sounding half-asleep.
I had forgotten it was the early hours of the morning…Presumably I had just woken him up.

Oh well, this is important…

“Rian, it’s me,” I greeted him impatiently, wanting to launch into a full-blown account of what had just happened between me and Jack.

“Alex?” Rian realized, sounding confused. But his confusion rapidly turned to annoyance… “It’s 2 in the fucking morning… Why are you ringing me?”
“Jack’s awake,” I revealed bluntly, not in the mood to delay answers or speak in riddles.
“W-what?” Rian stammered in disbelief. “Oh my God… He woke up?”
“Yeah, but-”
“That’s great news!” Rian interrupted excitedly and I could practically picture him springing out of bed, suddenly wide awake.
“Yeah it is,” I agreed in an unconvincing tone of voice.

I tried to sound enthusiastic because I honestly was so happy Jack was awake... But my heart was too battered and bruised to beat properly and the devastation I felt about his apparent lack of memory of me was overpowering my happiness.

“So… Why do you sound like you’re crying?” Rian asked uncertainly.
Can he hear the tears rolling down my face or something…?
“It’s just… He- He says he doesn’t know who the fuck I am, Rian!” I revealed in a sad, uneven voice.

Rian seemed stunned into silence for a moment, before he finally managed to form a response.

“Are you serious? He’s lost his memory?”
“Yes, I’m serious, but no he hasn’t lost his memory...” I sighed vaguely, probably confusing the shit out of Rian. Well, at least we’re on the same wavelength now…“He remembers you, Zack, Cas … And probably every fucker he has met once in his life… It’s just me he can’t seem to remember!”
It makes no sense! I can’t get my head around it… I just can’t accept that he doesn’t remember me...

“What the fuck? Oh man, that’s weird…” Rian replied slowly, sounding as if he was searching for an explanation.
…Is there even any explanation for this?

“Part of me thinks he’s just pretending not to know me because that’s how he feels now… He just doesn’t want to know me anymore…” I mumbled dejectedly.
I wish I could get away from myself, just like jackk can get away from me... I wish I could just forget everything.

“That’s what I was thinking… But lying to you doesn’t sound like something Jack would do,” Rian replied thoughtfully.
He’s right… It doesn’t sound like Jack…

So, either Jack’s not the honest guy I always thought he was.
Or he used to be that guy but the accident has changed him...Orhe is telling the truth and he really doesn’t remember me…

I don’t even know which option I would prefer it to be…

“But how can he just forget me and no one else? Out of everyone I should be the one he remembers the most!” I insisted strongly.
I’m not trying to be selfish… I’m just being realistic. Jack has been through a lot more with me than he has with Rian, Zack or Cassadee…

“I don’t know… But there must be a reason. I’ll talk to him to find out if he’s telling the truth,” Rian told me gravely. “But if he has really forgotten you then he’s hardly going to know the reason why… I’m sure he’s just as confused as you are.”

I considered for a second that Jack was telling the truth and he seriously didn’t know me at all and I realized that he must be really fucking confused right now, after listening to me apologizing profoundly and pouring my heart out to him. It’s hard to even imagine how weird it would be if some random person I’d never seen before in my life came up to me and started crying and begging for my forgiveness…

Am I really that random stranger now in Jack’s life? Did I just make a second first impression on him that made myself seem like a total nutcase? Please tell me I didn’t…

“You need to talk to someone who knows about this kind of thing… You need to tell them everything that’s happened with you and Jack…” Rian added suddenly, interrupting the panicking voices in my head.
“You mean… like a therapist?” I murmured, remembering the last argument me and Rian had where he told me I needed to get my shit together and get professional help.
“Yeah... They’ll have some answers… And let’s face it, you need help, Alex,” Rian retorted bluntly, but I sensed the worry in his voice.
I know I need help. I’ve needed help for a long time now… I’m just reluctant to find it because I feel like I’m already too far past the point of being able to get my life back on track...

“Yes I do,” I admitted, even though I was ashamed of the truth. I felt like a failure for not being able to help myself.
“Everything is going to be okay, bro,” Rian finally told me what I longed to hear him say from the start. “I’m going to come to the hospital now, okay? We’ll tell the others Jack’s awake in the morning…”

“Okay. Rian,” I spoke in a small voice, despite knowing that he hated me. I just wanted things to be the same between us. We used to the closest brothers ever… And without him now I am incomplete.

“I’ve seen a side of you lately that I really hate,” he replied with a sigh.

I felt comforted that he didn’t hate me completely and our bond was still in tact even after he had seen the absolute worst side of me.

“I hate it too… But I swear I’m going to change,” I promised boldly.

“Good,” Rian responded shortly. “Well, I’m on my way now.”

Notes

Guys go check out my new story Truth Between The Lies!! Please? SORRY ABOUT JACK I DID RESEARCH AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN A COMA AND BRAIN LOSS! SO HE FORGOT ALEX!!