[PAUSED] How long is forever? - A Juke AU

Chapter 5 - "N- no. I've not been crying. I'm perfectly fine Luke."

A/N hey loves, sorry for not posting in a while, there will be multiple updates today, I don't own the song(s) in this chapter the owner(s) is/are Calum Scott and Beyoncé.

Reggie's POV

As soon as Luke dropped me off, telling me to get Julie to call him, I rush inside asking mom where Julie was and if she is ok.

When she says that she's sleeping in her room and is ok, I run up to her room and silently open the door.

Before you say I'm a creep for watching her whilst she's sleeping I'm not. I was just checking in on her, and it's a good thing I did too! She was having more nightmares again, so I run over to her bed and wake her up.

She wakes up just as the screaming starts. Mom ran into the room because I called out Julie's name right before I woke her up.

Both mom and I realise that something bad must have happened to flare her nightmares up again.

Julie starts to cry and I put her head into my chest, rocking her, and I brake. She used to be so strong that she would never cry no matter what, she'd never cry, now anything to do with the crash makes her crack.

Mom sits down on the other side of Julie and hugs both of us rocking us both. Then I start crying, this would probably still be us except Julie would be crying over boys and we'd be comforting her, not crying over our dead family and friends. As I keep imagining this alternate reality Julie starts calming down and eventually asks me why I'm crying.

"Why are you crying R- Reg?"

"Because we wouldn't be in this situation if that guy hadn't been drunk. It could be so different." I respond. "Pearl and Scar were just teenagers. They had such a long time ahead of them. And Aunt Lissa she had two other kids and a husband," Mom got up and left after giving Julie a quick kiss. "Of whom one had just gotten engaged. In an alternate reality you could have been crying over a boy now, not the deaths of three amazing people who deserved so much more then what they got."

"Reg," she adds with her voice cracking slightly. "Reggie I- I think-" She's cut off from my phone ringing. "Take it. I'm not going anywhere."

So I go outside, answer the facetime after closing the door so I don't disturb her.

*On call*

Reg - underlined, Luke italics, Alex bold

What do you guys want! I literally just calmed her down, and now she's probably crying again! Thanks a lot guys!!

Sorry man. How's she holding up? Should we still come over for dinner?

What about if we still come over, I can text Carrie and Flynn and we can have a giant sleepover with movies and popcorn?! Julie loves that sort of stuff.

True. Ok fine come over. Alex your job is to make her laugh. Luke, DON'T MAKE HER CRY! Okay? And see if you can get her to talk.

Um... sure. What's that sound?

I gotta go. If I'm correct I'll text you what it is.

*Off call*

I say my goodbyes and leave because think I know what the sound was. I put my ear up to Julie's door and I can hear a piano playing. "I knew it!" I whisper to myself.

Not even 30 seconds later she's singing too. Wow. This is awesome, she's singing for the first time in a whole year.

It was Julie. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜