What Doesn't Break You (Ashton Irwin Fanfic)

Chapter 2

A.J.'s POV:

I wake up to the obnoxious sound of my alarm clock screeching at me at 2:00 a.m. I’ve been up this early before, but only because I couldn’t go to sleep in the first place the night before. I’ve never had to actually set an alarm for this early and get up and actually be expected to function this early in the morning. I’m not a morning person. Like at all. I slowly turn over and groan as I forced myself to get out of bed and shuffle over to my dresser to shut the stupid alarm off.

I’m not one of those people who use their phone as an alarm and set it close to my bed. For one, if I use a song off my phone as my alarm, then I will start to despise that song every time I heard it. I like my music too much to risk ruining a favorite song by appointing it as the signal that I have to scrape myself out of bed in the mornings. Second of all, if I don’t have to physically get up to shut my alarm off, then I will never get up. I will literally just roll over and go back to sleep.

This morning was not a morning I could afford to oversleep and be late either. My Aunt and Uncle would flip shit on me if I didn’t get up in time this morning. Urg. Its moving day, I thought.

“A.J.?” I heard my Aunt calling from outside my bedroom door. “Are you up?”

“Yes” I answer in my rather unattractive and scratchy morning voice.

She slowly pushes my door open and peeks in at me as I rub my eyes sitting on the edge of my bed. She was still in her night clothes, but I could tell she has been up for a little while. Probably having some coffee before we had to leave. Honestly I bet she never really went to sleep last night. She worries like that.

“Are you getting ready?” she asked looking at me with concern. I hate it when she does that. You would think after over a year she would stop worrying over me, but nope. Any time anything remotely unsettling happens she gives me this calculating look, like she’s trying to read my face and communicate that she knows what I’m feeling at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate her concern and I know she cares, but I wish she would stop with the hovering. I’m fine.

“Yes. I’m getting there. I just need to change and brush my teeth and stuff.” I gave her a half smile and got up to go into my tiny bathroom. That’s one thing I like about my room here. I had my own bathroom. I hope I didn’t have to share one in the new house. I wonder what the bathrooms will look like in Australia? I cringed to myself. God, I’m so nervous.

My Aunt was still standing in my doorway looking at me. She seemed to since my nerves and walked over and started gently rubbing my upper back and pushed the side of my hair away from my face and behind my ear. “I know this is really nerve racking. But it’s going to be fine.” She gave me the same half smile I gave her.

I sighed and gave her a hug. “I know. I’m just tired of so much change. It’s so far…”

She chuckled a little at my comment and stepped back to look at me. “Yes its far, but distance won’t be a bad thing. You can have a real fresh start over there, you know?”

Fresh start. Pft, yeah right. As long as no one ever learns about my past, and most importantly how it came about, then yeah I might have a shot at a “fresh start.” I sighed again and nodded my head. “I know” I said.