all mine | ft. michael clifford

thirty-two;

Dedicated to Evelyn; always see you in my notifications - you're wonderful.

"I can feel your breath, I can feel my death. I want to know you, I want to see, I want to say 'hello'."

***

The next two days passed by in a blank, grey blur. I'd called in to work and told them the truth: that someone close to me has passed away and I wasn't handling it very well. Though, that was an understatement. There was 'not handling it very well' and then 'complete wreck of a human being'; I was hands-down the latter. My parents had even dragged their busy asses over to my new place to 'see how I was doing'. They didn't even know who Ashton was and I didn't want to talk about him because I knew that as soon as his name left my mouth and hung in the air that I would lose it completely.

The fact that I would never in my life be able to see his lively smile and hear his cheerful voice again felt like needles sticking into every inch of my skin. The more I thought about him, the sicker I felt. Not to mention every time I thought of him, I thought of my other friends and that had my heart breaking all over again.

But they still hadn't reached out to me. I'd spoken to Luke on the phone twice; that time he'd called to give me the repulsive news and that night when he'd called again to see how I was. Luke was a better friend to me than I deserved and despite his overwhelming kindness, I still respected the fact that nobody else wanted to speak to me.

They were busy grieving and I was probably the lowest dot point on all of their lists of priorities. It just kind of hurt a little that I was left to deal with Ashton's death, process the feelings that I was experiencing, on my own without them. They had each other - and while their pain was probably a magnified version of my own, it still didn't make it any easier. I wanted to hear their voices. I wanted to ask them how they were doing. I wanted to tell them that I was sorry, for Ashton, for everything. I wanted to cry with them over his passing. I wanted to tell them that I missed them more than I'd ever missed anything in my life.

But if they hadn't forgiven me then there was nothing I could do aside from mope about my house trying not to think about Ashton, or any of them. The pain that surrounded the whole situation was palpable and the only thing that could take away any of that trauma was sleep.

And so I slept two days straight, waking only to shower and eat. There was no other way to stop thinking and my eyes were sore from crying so much.

It seemed like I hadn't stopped crying since I'd left LA. Since I'd left behind Michael. All of them.

"We're expecting cloud cover and showers throughout the whole day with a storm in the late afternoon," the forecaster was saying on the television in front of me. I was lounging across my brand new, uncomfortable leather sofa that my parents had bought me as one of their many home-warming presents. The shirt I was wearing was at least ten sizes too big and I was wearing pink boxer shorts that were stained by chocolate syrup about a year ago. I just didn't care.

My attention was on the screen.

Typical. Rain all day. Storm later tonight. Was this a joke?

My lips curved up into a smile at the sick irony.

Maybe the skies missed Ashton too.

"Thanks for that, Heather," another news anchor now said, her bright red lips filling my room. I almost rolled my eyes at her fake smile. It then dropped into a straight line as though she'd heard my thoughts. "Now on to some seriously heartbreaking news only just being released to the world today."

The male anchor's face appeared. "Yes, 5 Seconds of Summer fans all over the world have been informed this morning that the young, talented and loved drummer of the band, Ashton Irwin has-"