𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 - 𝙟. 𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙚

𝘰𝘯𝘦: 𝘪'𝘮 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦

[ act one, chapter one: i'm fine ]

⏳⭐️🪐

LIFE IS full of so many complications, you can try and follow a path - a path that is to be believed as the "right one" or the one of least resistance. But the truth is that there is no right path. There's your path. Whatever you decide to do with your life, whatever path you decide to go down - that's the right one.

Athena thinks that that's why she loves space so much, because there's no complications. Everything up there is pure. It's all in shades of black and white. Down on earth, there's an enormous grey area.

She's always been abnormal to say the least. At school, everyone disregards her - simply because she always seemed to be focused on things other than school. She would doodle Saturn in her notebook during English, because she really didn't care about English. She would hum to herself quietly while walking down the hallways to her next class. She would sit outside during lunch, no matter the weather, always alone. Athena was never really there. There was one place, however, that could hold Athena's attention.

Physics was one of those elective classes that no one took unless they were really interested in it. And Athena adored everything about physics, she loved anything that involved math or science. It was her safe space, her escape from everything that goes on in her life.

"If you have it, what will you do?"

Athena snapped out of her own thoughts, and looked down to the seat next to her. Her little sister, Zoë was peering up at her, her soft doe eyes filled with pain. She knew that this had to be hard for her, to have to lose your mother to an incurable illness and then only years later have your sister checked for the same thing. But she couldn't really find it within herself to find the empathy.

They were looking for something called Frontotemporal Dementia. It's one of the only types of dementia that can affect teens. It's sort of an umbrella term for multiple forms of rare brain disorders. The areas that are typically affected are the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain. Those areas being associated with behavior, language, and personality. It would make sense, if she had it.

For the past year or so it had been getting worse. Sometimes she would forget the steps to getting dressed. Was it shoes first or pants, she couldn't really remember. Athena would wake up in the middle of the night and feel the need to unpack all of the things in her room and put it away, and do it again, and again. Until eventually she would pass out from exhaustion. Her father would always find her in a pile of clothes the next morning.

Realizing that she still hadn't answered her sister's question she spoke, "I don't know."

That was the truth, Athena didn't know what she would do if they saw diseased parts of her brain on that MRI. Maybe she'd go to the beach? Maybe drop out of school? No - she wouldn't drop out of school. If she really did have it, then that would be the one place where she wouldn't be coddled. No one would know, she decided then. It's not like there was anyone to tell, anyway. She only had her father and sister.