restart// 5SOS

3

Alyssa

Honestly, I had no interest in drums.

Axel did.

He loved them and anyone who could play them because he couldn't himself.
And by doing this I felt close to him again. Just hearing the sound made me feel like he was right next to me again, both of us hiding under the cover to try and sleep. Or, I would be trying to sleep and he'd be watching drum covers on the phone one of our cousins let borrow for an hour or two each night.

I would do anything to hug him again. At the time I hated it, we were squished up, we couldn't really breathe under the covers but there was always some sort of party or smoking or something going on that we tried to drown out with a duvet. Axel was always my protector and he had not left my side until that day in hospital.

Turns out drumming was kinda hard, for me at least, so Ashton gave up after about an hour. He had a lot of cool records and decor around this small basement where he kept the drums, and it wasn't how I imagined a doctor to be. Never-mind a brain surgeon.

"Do you like this room? I'm pretty proud of it,"

"I love it, but my brother... he would just adore it,"

"You have a brother?"

"Yeah. Hes basically my twin, we are one day apart, half brother but he's just my brother,"

"Oh, I didn't know that,"

"Yeah, I haven't seen him in a while. He loves the drums,"

"You're welcome to come and sit with them anytime, if you touch them please be careful and preferably do it with me. This drumkit is like my baby,"

"I don't know if I can compare to that,"

"I should've worded that better, my bad,"

"It's okay, I was joking,"

"Ah. Do you know how to cook?"

"No... sorry,"

"Don't apologise! I'm just wondering if you wanna help me? You're more than welcome to go and have some time alone though,"

"I'll help,"

"Great! Is there any food you don't like?"

"I don't know. I don't think I ate much variety,"

"Well let's see what we have that you'll eat,"

We went back upstairs and into the kitchen, which was very tidy, and full of expensive utensils- I was gonna have to be extra careful not to break anything.

"Do you know how to cut an onion?"

"Um,"

"I'll show you, you can't really do it anyway,"

"Okay,"

"It's not too hard, I promise,"

"Sorry I don't know how to cook. My cousin did take good care of us, they did make sure we ate, they never had us cook. Well we weren't meant to be in the kitchen but... they were good,"

"You don't have to apologise, it's never too late to learn anything,"

"They were good people, to us,"

"I believe you,"

"Okay, good. My social worker said they weren't good people and I guess they did do something bad, but they weren't always bad to me. They gave us a roof over our house and food, and sometimes we got to use their phones, and they got us pens for school,"