Athena

I think about what happened all those years ago and all that happened yesterday. Seeing my best friend and seeing someone who I use to love so much. It was overwhelming but I know I'm strong and shouldn't be acting this weak.

It's just all so sudden. My past just came near me all of a sudden when I felt like I was almost forgotten about it.

I open my eyes, now feeling the heavy arm that was around me. I look up at Ryder and admire his features. He had nice cheekbones, Long eyelashes, and beautiful olive skin. You couldn't see his dimples right now but the second he smiled they showed amazingly. In general, he had looks that could compete against Gods. 

"You like what you see?" Ryder mumbles in a tired low voice. His comment made me embarrassed that he was awake. "Y-your awake?" I question with blush over my cheeks as he opened his eyes. How embarrassing to be caught gawking the way I was, I could basically paint every single freckle on his face after staring for so long. 

"Off course I am. A stare from someone like you would wake anyone up" He smirks at me and I roll my eyes. "Shut up. I'm going to get into the shower" I say and go to get up but he pulls me down onto his chest. "Don't leave me." He says cutely. "But I need t-" I start but off course he interrupts "No. you don't" He puts his arms around me and we look in each other in the eyes.

"Ath-" Alex starts opening the door but stops as he sees the two of us. "What are you guys doing!?" He yells and slams the door shut. "Mum Athena and Ryder were giving each other googly eyes on top of each other!" He snitches making me rub the back of my head. "I guess that's my queue to leave" He smirks and gets up, grabbing Ares.

That baby was amazingly quiet last night. I think I'll buy him a new outfit for that. 

When he gets up and puts his hoodie on, walking downstairs so confidently in a house that isn't even his. I just decide to follow behind him. "Wait what about your shirt?" I ask him as we walk downstairs. "keep it." He smiles. I open the front door and he walks out, only going next door. I close the door and when I do Alex and my mum were there. "Did you use a condom?" My mum asks and I scoff. "No-" Just as I was about to continue my brother "You guys actually done it!?" He looks shocked and I laugh.

"As I was saying. No, because we didn't do it." I roll my eyes. "I asked him to stay since I was overwhelmed that day" I state and my mom nods for me to continue throwing an apple over my way. "Zane and Meteor are here," I say and both Alex and mom's eyes widen drastically.

"W-what why don't you invite them over?" She asks me. "I'll ask Zane about it but Meteor... He's probably busy with life now since he's not in high school anymore. Remember?" I said as an excuse. I needed to know if he was the Meteor I grew to love ages ago instead of the one that would attack me before he ever went round. In general, too.

"Oh yes off course. He must be quite busy. Well, we will just have to see."  She smiles at me.

I realise that I needed to get ready for school and quickly done so. I dressed for school in a grey north face hoodie as well as ripped jeans. I also put my hair into a messy bun and left the house.

Alex and I walked over to Cole's house. "You know Ryder stayed round" Alex said to Cole. I send him a glare. "He came home early this morning. He told us he was at yours but apart from that, we didn't get an explanation" Cole laughs. "Maybe Athena can explain can explain to you because he slept in bed with her" Alex yells and I kick his shin. "Shut up jerk".

"But now I can say I fucked your sister" Ryder smirks while leaning on the door frame as he always does. Cole laughs but Alex doesn't look too happy and neither did I. "You did not fuck me" I glare at Ryder and he just winks at me, "Oi, take it back and admit you're lying" I glare at him and he shakes his head and sighs. "Fine. I didn't actually fuck your sister" He grumbles lowly, making me laugh and nod in victory. 

I thank God once again for not making Ares wake up and screech last night. But as soon as I thought that I hear that familiar scream from behind him. I jinxed it and mentally face-palmed myself.

"You two go along. From now on me and Athena are taking my car to the school" He raises his eyebrows up and down at them two, suggesting something. The boys laugh but after Alex glares at him. He was still my brother after all.

"Come in. No ones home" He opens the door wider and I step in. We calm Ares down by fake feeding him milk and then get into the car. We quickly begin to drive, well HE begins to drive. 

"Like I said earlier. I'll take you to school from now on" He tells me and I nod. "Why not?"

We park and he picks up Ares and we walk side by side and yet again earn those stares as always. The two I heard were

"Don't you think they would make a cute couple"

"I thought they already was one"

I think for a second. Does it look like we are a thing to other people? I just shrugged it off not bothering to think for another second about what we look like to other people.

The many boring classes zoomed by and it was already lunch break. "Zane can we speak" Everyone slightly glances over. "Privately" I smile as I ask him and I nod. "Sure" He grins widely and we walk outside.

"I'm guessing it's about Meteor" he raises an eyebrow and I laugh "Off course, it is" I think of what to ask first since I hadn't really thought it through. "Is he..?" I begin to ask but I didn't know how to ask it.

"If you're asking is he still the Meteor we grew up with, honestly, I don't know. The two of us live together but he's always treated me the same. Even when he would act the way he did with you. I honestly sometimes regret not reporting it. But I just couldn't. You know more than I do how much of a hard time he was having. You felt it yourself" He admitted to me looking down.

"It sometimes felt like he didn't mean to hit me but the pain he was doing to me was really the pain he wanted to give himself." I share my thought.

"Maybe hurting you was what hurt him the most. He hurt himself more if he hurt you more than if he was just hurting himself" He looks at me but I just look up.

I thought about it and it felt weird how realistic his thought was. It really did feel like it if I imagined what happened those years ago. But I stopped because I felt some tears fill my eyes. I instantly let them dry making sure not to cry. But all of these thoughts, and Zane knew too, didn't excuse how he treated me, it didn't change anything. They were simply thoughts. 

"I want to see him. I want to speak to him. I want to know if he's ok. Maybe become friends with him" I suggest and a slight chuckle leaves Zane's mouth making me look at him.

"Your the only person I know who would try to make friends with someone who abused you for half a year" He shakes his head and I smile. "At least I'm trying. I want to just see. But I want to be alone with him" I say making his head turn to me in shock.

"No Athena I'm not letting that happen." He almost yells.

"Please Zane. Trust me." I say.

"I did that in the past and you know full well how that would always end." He was really serious and his eyebrows were furrowed. It really wasn't like him to be like this ever. Only ever when Meteor would hurt me would he not be grinning like a little puppy.

"Please Zane. Just for 15 minutes" I beg and he sighs. "I will think about it." He says. I felt bad for trying to make him let me be with the person who would hit me but I wanted to know. I really just wanted to see Meteor and talk to him. Even if it was only for a minute. In a way, I wanted closure. I wanted to know if time really did heal everything.

We walked back and on the way back we talked about Mason and Olivia. "Are they going out?" He asks.

"I want to know myself honestly. We need a girl talk that's far too long-awaited" I smile. "They fight like there's no tomorrow." He laughs and I laugh too. "Don't even get me started" I shake my head.

"When you and Ryder weren't here on Tuesday they were screaming at each other because Mason poked her a few times. Then they fought a few minutes later because Olivia accidentally spilt his drink on the floor which was almost empty anyway. Nothing came out because of the lack of liquid" We both laugh and sit back down next to each other with the others.

"They were giving each other looks of love after though" Zane whispers and I raise my eyebrows up and down. "What's so funny that made you two laugh so loud on the way here," Ryder asks while raising one of his eyebrows and we shrug but laughed.

Lunch came around later on and I knew I was going to talk to Olivia. She was talking to Mason and they were laughing. I felt bad for ruining the moment but I needed some of that tea. "Sorry, I'm going to take her for a moment" I grab Olivia's wrist and drag her. "Stop stealing people! It's a crime" Mason yells and Olivia and I laugh.

I take her over to a small garden that I spotted while talking to Zane during break.

"Wow, this place is really nice actually" I smile while looking around and she looks in awe too. "We should show this to the others" She smiles. We sit down on the bench that is surrounded by tall flowers and a fountain to the side.

"I figured we needed to gossip and now is the time." I smile and she grins "How I've been waiting for this moment. It's needed for me too. This lunch is for us girls" She winks and I laugh.

"Let's start then. I want to know what's up with you and Mason. And don't tell me that there's nothing when there clearly is" I smile and she smiles cutely.

"Well, it started on the day of the party. We stayed up talking for hours and I enjoyed his company and his humour. After that, we kept meeting up. We just didn't really want to say anything but I have been needing to for a while. You know if I don't share something like this to someone, a.ka only you because you're my best friend, then I'll burst.  " She laughs. "Off course" I laugh back.

"Don't even get me started" She giggles sweetly "Every time we met we would argue but even when we did it was never serious and pretty dumb. I find it fun because I'm with him."

"Aww" I grin widely.

"But we don't just argue every time we see each other. We can talk for hours and hours about nothing and everything. Even when we don't talk I feel like nothing else matters at that moment. We went round his house a couple of weeks ago and we kissed" She starts giggling and I fangirl.

"You know when we went park and he mentioned something about me being heavy and I said 'You didn't call me heavy when yo-'. Well what I was going to say was. 'You didn't find me heavy when you were carrying me into your bed as we kissed' But then we still didn't know if we should tell others about us" She looked down.

"Us? What even are you?" I tilt my head and she smiles more than she ever has before "Boyfriend and girlfriend..." We both begin giggling like little girls.

"Ahhhh! I'm so happy for you!! When and How?!" I ask excitedly.

"Well it was actually Tuesday when you and Ryder didn't come to school. We went out after I finished my sports and he picked me up from my house and took me to mini golf. I obviously won."

"DUH! and I bet he got frustrated about it too"I chuckle and she nods while laughing.

"Off course, he did it's Mason we are talking about. Carrying on, After having a great time I thought he was going to take me back to my house but then he put a blindfold over my eyes and guided me to the front of his house, without me knowing. We got inside and he took it off. When I opened my eyes I was so surprised to see that none of the main lights were on but there was a load of fairy lights spread around the room. It was truly beautiful Athena. I have never been so touched. I took a minute to even take in the room. I then turned around to hug him but when I did he had a necklace in his hand and he says. 'Will you date me and accept this necklace'" She pulls out the necklace from under her shirt. It had a small gold heart that had a small pink part in the middle. It was beautiful.

Yet again we both began to scream. "Ahh! You lucky girl!" I yell and she screeches louder than Ares. "I like him so much Omg. Sometimes I don't know what to do" She hits her head several times on the table making me a little scared, well not really.

"Your cute Olivia" I grinned and she looked at me embarrassed and smiled back and hugged me tight. "You're the best Athena"

"But now I need to ask you something. What's up with Ryder?" She questions as she winks at me making me let out a chuckle.

"To be honest, we are just friends at the moment" I sigh, not realising I had done it out loud.

"But do you want to stay friends?" She asks as she looks at me softly.

I think for a second before answering. "I don't know. Maybe? Yes? Probably? I don't know" I answer all confused with my thoughts.

"Athena. If you like the guy then just like him. Don't rush but don't go too slow because of unnecessary confusion." She speaks and I nod.

"You're right. I like Ryder. He's been there for me often. He's kind to me and when his skin touches mine I began to have a tingling feeling. I would be lying if I said that my relationship with Meteor didn't put me off relationships. No, even friendships for a while. But I don't want that to affect the fact that I like Ryder" I finally let out and when I looked at her she was just grinning.

But what I said next made her face instantly drop.

"I might meet Meteor alone and see whether he is ok or not. I feel like I need the closure, almost like a wound I thought was closed but has gotten a little loose again." I look down.

"Athena... I'm not sure that's safe for you. I care about you a lot and I don't want you to get hurt, again. Like you said he hurt you, what if he hurts you again?" She looked scared for me but I shook my head.

"Zane won't leave me there for too long. I told him only 15 minutes-" "And in those 15 you could get seriously hurt Athena" She almost raises her voice but luckily holds it. "but I agree that you probably need closure for such a thing that happened to you so I trust you, Athena. Please just don't get hurt"