Unbroken | Ashton Irwin's Little Sister (COMPLETED)

Chapter 1

Cause nothing's as it seems,
spinning out of control.

***

| Bailey |

Laying awake and listening to your mother cry in her room isn't the ideal way to wake up. I try to push the nervousness to the back of my mind and go back to sleep, but to no avail. Now that I'm awake, my brain is as well. My brain is infamously known for overthinking just about everything, which gets quite annoying.

By eight o'clock in the morning, I give up on sleeping and go downstairs to see mom sniffling while making pancakes. I sigh and turn on my heel to go back upstairs and get dressed. I'm just not in the mood to see her stare at me with big teary eyes this morning.

I take a deep breath and run my hands through my hair, examining myself in the full length mirror hanging on the back of my door before grabbing a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. I grab a hoodie and shrug it on and go back downstairs where mom and Arden are sitting at the table.

"How're you holding up?" Arden asks, sending me a sympathetic smile. I shrug, trying to avoid mom's glum stare.

"Do you want me to come? It is your first chemo appointment, after all," Arden offers. I glance and mom and nod. I'm going to need a semi-positive person there with me. Don't get me wrong, I love mom and I appreciate how much she cares, but no matter how hard she tries to be supporting she just ends up in a puddle of tears. I guess that's understandable considering her daughter could quite possibly be dying of an incurable disease.

I pick at my pancake, earning a scold from mom, "Bailey, you have to eat before you go to the hospital. It isn't healthy to get chemo on an empty stomach." I sigh and lean my head on one of my hands before mom scalds again, "Elbows off the table and sit up straight." I roll my eyes and do as I'm told, trying to work up an appetite and eat the rest of my breakfast.

"Mom, take it easy on her," Arden whispers, even though I can still hear her. Mom nods, the sad cancer eyes returning. I purse my lips and finish my breakfast, my heart starting to thump in my chest. I have no idea what to expect when I go to the hospital. Of course the doctor explained everything and set us up with a therapist to help "cope" with the situation, but I tuned most of it out. I just hate how depressing everything has become since I was diagnosed. Mom cries seemingly nonstop and Arden comes by as often as possible to make sure I'm okay and to help out since mom's been a bit dysfunctional lately. She's also always staring at me with those big sad eyes. I'm sure Arden would be too, if mom weren't as emotionally unstable as she is.

My thoughts are interrupted when my phone starts ringing, signaling Ashton is face timing me. Mom looks from the phone up to me with pleading eyes.

"You should tell him, Bailey. It's your first day of chemo today. He deserves to know." I take a deep breath and run my hand through my hair. Of course he deserves to know. He's my big brother, he's been nothing but supportive and loving towards me. Well, since he graduated and suddenly decided to be mature. There's a rather large age difference between Ashton and I and me being the baby of the family, I was always excluded from whatever he and his "band" was doing. He and Arden also thoroughly enjoyed teasing and taunting me. But he still has the right to know, nonetheless. I just can't bring myself to tell him.

"I will, just not today," I mumble. Before mom can protest, I answer my phone call and go up to my room. Mom and Arden agreed not to tell anyone about my diagnosis without my consent, since I'm a private person. They were not happy when I refused to tell Ashton upon first learning of the situation. I just can't do it. He's having the time of his life touring and he worries enough about us as it is. He's constantly beating himself up when there's a fun actual issue or some type of emergency since he grew up being Arden and I's father figure. He took the role when our dad walked out on us, and he's always going on about how much he misses us even though he's having the time of his life touring the world. I flop down on the bed and answer the phone. Ashton's cheeky grinning face appears a moment later, his contagious smile making me giggle.

"How's my favorite sister?" He asks eagerly. I roll my eyes and scoff, "Please, we all know Arden's your favorite," I tease back. Ashton gasps and his hand flies to his heart, feigning hurt, "How could you say such a thing? I'll always have a special place in my heart for my littlest baby sister." I shake my head and laugh. I can always count on Ashton to put a smile on my face.

"So, how's life?" He questions. His attention shifts for a moment as he gazed past his phone and shakes his head in amusement at something, probably the boys being boys.

I hesitate for a split second, contemplating whether I should tell Ashton where I'm going today.

"Is that Bailey?" Calum calls eagerly. I take in how happy they all are, and decide to wait. I know it's probably not right, and I'm sure Ashton will tell me he would have wanted to know as soon as I found out once I do tell him, but I don't want to ruin his time on tour. I also won't be able to stand another person staring at me with those big, sad, cancer eyes. He would worry himself sick, and I don't want him to have put his life on hold for me. So, I put a smile on my face.

"Life's great." Lie.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm having the time of my life down under." Lie. "I'm going out with mom and Arden, so I'll have to go soon." That isn't a total lie. We are going out, just not somewhere fun.

Ashton fakes a pout, "Aw, well tell them I say hi. Have fun sis." I won't.

All the other boys shout incoherent things at the phone as Ashton tries to hang up, but all their voices just jumble together to form inaudible strings of sentences. I shake my head in amusement.

"Okay. Love you Ash."

"Love you too."

A/N - Hey! I've been working on this story for a while now and since I'm almost done with it, I decided to publish it! I'm going try to update everyday as long as my exams don't interfere and I'm really excited for it, so I hope you guys enjoy! Xoxo - Em:)