Writer in the Dark - J. HALE

67 -ʟɪꜰᴛᴇᴅ ʙᴀn

ATHENA LAY on the sofa in her living room, pillow over her face as she distantly listened to the music playing from the record player in the corner. She wasn't quite sure why her mind had put her in such a foul mood but she was deep in one. Everything would just annoy her, the buzzing of her phone or a drip from the tap that hadn't been done up properly by someone at some point. She had no explanation as to why and felt it was odd that it had occurred after such a happy yesterday. Sure she sometimes had foul moods but it was never enough to render her mind unusable, to the point where music became one of the only things that didn't annoy her.

The funk lasted four days.

Four days of laying on the sofa without much other than her life's sacrifices and sufferings on her mind. She figured out why it had happened when she looked at the calendar and realised what the day it had all started on was. The anniversary of the day that she had gotten taken in by the Volturi. It was as if her body knew what was going on before she did and set the funk without even realising it had. She thought about every second in the Volturi and found something gnawing uncontrollably at her stomach, It wouldn't go away, no matter how hard she tried to stop it to distract herself. It got to the point where the gnawing that slipped her stomach made her scream out in frustration. It made it so she couldn't sleep and fix her problems like she usually did and she couldn't bear the thought of leaving the house to throw rocks in catharsis.

Somehow, and she had no idea how it happened, she seemed to snap back into her body as she was slipping into a warm bubble bath. It soothed something in her mind, not completely of course, but something slowly drifted into the bubbles and she let herself slip into her sleep link state with a lot less thought than it usually needed. She believed that her body yearned for the meditative state, to reset itself and go on living.

When she got out of the bath, some of the cloudiness and constant anger that had once filled her head began to dissipate as she changed into new clothes, not the loungewear she hadn't changed for the entire time on the sofa. She placed the red jasper necklace back around her neck, feeling somewhat comforted by the stone, and walked out of the house with her head held halfway high.

She walked through the forest, stopping when she saw a particularly vibrant flower or a tree that to her looked different to all the other ones surrounding it. Something about the forest had always healed something within her, she didn't know what it was but she had always felt drawn to it. Like gravity almost, something to hold her to her existence and it was always there when she needed it to be. She had a direction in mind and slowly made her way over there, taking different paths and lopping detours if she felt like it or stumbled upon something greater.

Eventually, after about three and a half hours, she made it to the Cullen house but frowned as she found it empty - apart from Jacob, Rosalie and Renesmee. So she took her half-charged phone from her pocket

DARLING :)
hi
where are you?

JAZZ <3
Glad you're feeling better darlin
we're in the woods
Bella's about to go against Emmett in an arm wrestle

DARLING :)
Oooo
Wait for me
please

JAZZ <3
:)
Seen!

She picked up into a run, following a slight scent the entire way. She did not stop as she ran past a deer, wanting to watch it in its natural habitat for a while or when she saw a nest of birds that looked ever so adorable. She continued running as fast as her legs would take her, reaching where everyone else was before the song she had been listening to reached the end chorus.

She, after waving back to Luna, slid (literally since her feet lost their grip due to the inappropriate shoes she had chosen to wear) in next to Jasper. He wrapped an arm around her waist, jokingly stabilising her before he planted a kiss full of laughter onto her cheek. "You doing okay?" he asked softly, concern pouring from his eyes as he gazed into hers.