To The Moon and Back

𝟏𝟒 | 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫

P R O T O S T A R

A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud.

T O T H E
M O O N & B A C K

TODAY I MADE the executive—and borderline fucking genius—decision to flush my pills. Every single fucking one. The sedatives, the mood-balancers themselves. Every single one, down the drain. And yes, realistically and scientifically, I do need them to survive, but I've done it before and I'll fucking do it again.

Why? Because nothing can fucking hurt me. Only myself.

Now I can take drugs and drink as I please without having to worry about fucking myself up even more. Not that I care, but when reality hits—which is rare—I'd rather not hate myself anymore, existing already fucking kills.

Now I don't have to worry about taking those bloody pills every morning just so that I can function as a, quote on quote, normal human being, as my doctor had said to me when I was sixteen.

Now I can go through the day without feeling an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, spending every breathing moment fantasizing about going to sleep. No napping remember, Atlas. Otherwise, you won't sleep through the night properly, my mother would say. The pills make you tired, but your body will adjust with time.

Fuck the pills. And fuck my mother. You know what? Fuck everyone. Everyone can go fucking fuck themselves because the pills are gone and now, I can finally feel the slightest step closer to being someone that is normal. I just want to be normal.

I want to be normal how my parents are, living in a big white mansion in Fulham, or normal how Alula is with Solar. Just normal. I want to take drugs; borderline exist and be fucking normal. But so long as I have bipolar, I will never be normal.

Now that I didn't have to worry about taking my medication, I can worry about other things.

I closed up the mechanic two hours ago. Now, the four of us—that being myself, Alula, Rion, and Solar—were sitting upstairs on the couches which had lost most of their springs. My dealer stopped buy and I bought a few tabs of LSD, amongst several other things, and now they're all seeing sounds and hearing colours. I just smoked some pot. Nothing exciting.

In terms of drugs, I mostly do everything and have done everything. During secondary school, I didn't take any hardcore drugs, mostly just pills and shit, nothing too life-threatening, but when I started college, between going to parties and being in the city, I was introduced to more intense drugs. More addictive drugs.

My friends may be a group of deadbeats—excluding Solar who only does weed—but they stay away from the hard stuff, for the most part. It scares them. And honestly, it used to scare me too.

"Atlas!" Alula shouts, bringing me out of my thoughts and I snap my head toward where she sat, her head leaning on Solar's shoulder, whilst her leather jacket-clad arms wrapped around him. "Earth to Atlas? Are you deaf?"

I shake my head, furrowing my eyebrows as she pulls herself off the couch, straightening her jacket. "What?" I ask, irritated.

It was then that I noticed Rion was gone, leaving just the three of us.

"It's mum's birthday, remember? We're going over for dinner." fuck. "Solar's coming too. Dad just messaged me and said that he wants us there by six."

I wish that I could get out of having a stupid dinner with them, but I know I'll never fucking live it down if I back out. Besides, I've made my mother cry enough, I can suck it up for one fucking night and try to be nice to her.