OCEAN VILLAGE

4. the a team🌺

—Athena—
-the worst things in life come free to us-
-ed sheeran-

TW// ABUSE

"What are you doing?" Rhea stares at me, a disgusted and unimpressed look on her face.

I look down to my cake i'm making, it's my birthday and nobody got me a cake so i'm making it myself. "Baking."

"Why?" She sticks her finger in the batter, looking horribly at the texture of it.

I don't want to believe deep down that she's forgot my birthday, but it wouldn't surprise me if she had. "No reason." I keep whisking the batter, "Can you not touch it please."

"It's going to taste like shit if you make it that way." She mutters before walking away. I ignore her, washing the dirty dishes.

I finally put the cake into the oven, turning the heat on the right dial. School was shit, Jadyn and Theo both forgot my birthday, i'm not like them though, they like parading their birthdays a couple of days before so people remember, I don't do that. Probably my fault they forgot.

I change into a different outfit while I wait for the cake to bake. I change from a skirt into some jeans and a cropped top that I got last year for my birthday. Jadyn remembered last year.

I walk back downstairs after i'm done changing, it was starting to smell good and that excited me.

"Have you seen Polka?" I ask Atlas as he walks past me, phone pressed to his ear, he shakes his head no.

I wait on the breakfast bar for the bake to cake, when the timer goes off, mom walks in from work and i take the cake out of the oven.

"What's that smell?" She sniffs the air.

"Athena is baking cakes." Rhea raises her eyebrows, a sassy tone to her. God she gets on my nerves some times. Just one day, it's my eighteenth birthday, one day is all I need to be free from their bullshit.

Mom looks to me, doesn't say a word and quickly walks up the stairs. I let the cake cool on the counter while I start making the icing.

Ten minutes later and I got impatient so decided to ice it. I start with a layer of buttercream, thin one, I never really enjoyed icing so much but Atlas loves it.

It melted just a little bit but I covered it with the green icing I made. My favorite colour, I make little swirls and stars over the cake, it looked like a child made it but it was still cute to me.

Atlas jogs down the stairs, "Is that cake?" He side eyes me.

Even he's forgot my birthday.

"Want a slice?" I offer, knowing he won't decline.

He violently nods his head and puts his shoes on while I cut him a slice of the cake, "I'm going out, call me if you go out please." He kisses my head and then runs off.

Eighteen is supposed to be a special day and yet, it feels like just any other day.

Mom walks down the stairs after I finish adding slices of cake into two tubs, i'll remind Jadyn and Theo that it's my birthday.

She walks over to where i'm standing in the kitchen and picks up the knife, then just starts cutting down the cake, not nicely, she was destroying it, she was purposely destroying my cake.

"Mom!" I felt like crying.

She knocks the plate off the side, "Don't use my shit to make you're things-"

"I bought all of the ingredients myself." I raise my voice a little, really biting back my tears this time, I just want to be happy.

"Shut up, Athena." I really want to know where her hatred for me stemmed from.

"You ruined my cake!" I guess I don't do myself any favors by arguing back, but dad would kill me if he found out I didn't stick up for myself, even to mom.

"It's a cake, grow up." She bends down, picking up a brush, "Clean it."

"You made the mess." I look to my crumbled cake on the ground.

"And i'm telling you to clean it. So fucking listen to me, i'm your mother." She pushes it into my chest.

"Act like it then." I throw it to the ground, letting it land on top of my cake.

She didn't like that and her hand strikes over my face, Rhea sits back and watches. "I didn't birth you and bring you up all these years for you to say that. If you want to go be a stuck up little bitch, go find your father and live with him. I don't want you here any longer." She grabs the side of my head, letting her hand slap across my face again.

I wish Atlas was here.

I wish dad was here.

I wish anyone was here.

I feel tears drip down my face and knew I lost it then. She grabs my hair again, laughing in my face at the tears, "Fucking pathetic."

I let her yell abuse at me. Pathetic. Worthless. Just like my father. A piece of shit. A mistake. I'm used to it. I'm used to all of it.

Does it make it any easier to listen to whenever she says it? No.

I let her slap me one more time, as soon as she done and lets me go, I grab the boxes of the cake I made for my friends and run out of the house.

She shouts but I couldn't hear her as I run down the street, I only start walking whenever i'm on the main road.

I was crying, people could see that, but no one approached. I got the weird looks off old people and the kids pointing to their moms saying that girls crying.

I walk to the play park, a couple of kids slid down the slide and a couple of kids were in the hut beside the slide.

I go in anyways, sitting in my usual corner and staring down to the cake. I cry harder when I see it. I knew they wouldn't remember, I don't even know why i'm so upset about it.

I rest my head against the broken and damp wood, a little girl runs over, her head braided and a beautiful smile on her face. "Are you okay?" She asks, her eyes full of sympathy already.

"I'm okay." I say to her and end up breaking down crying instead.

God that's horrible, I just traumatised a little girl.

I feel her hand on my leg, "It will be okay." She looks at me. I look back at her and think how she reminded me of myself.

I used to think everything would be okay.

"Did your boyfriend break up with you?" She taps my knee.

I laugh through my tears, "No."

"Then why do you cry?" She pouts a little.

I rub my lips together, "Adult life is hard."

She opens her arms for a hug and I hug her, crying into the arms of a fucking child.

I am pathetic.

"My big brother says everything will work out." She rubs my back, "For you too. It will all work out."

"Hopefully." I pull away from her, tears still rolling down my face.

"I have to go." She looks to her friends running off behind her, her eyes drop down to the cake in my hands, "Happy Birthday." she says, before running after her friends.

As soon as she's gone, I break down crying again. I wish dad was still here. That's all, dad wouldn't treat me as if I were nothing.

I rest my head back against the wood, closing my eyes. Was my headache from crying, the lack of food i've ate, or stress? Probably all three.

Slowly but surely, I feel myself drifting off.

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i'm here if anyone wants to talk about anything <3 DM's are opened

word count: 1334