"People in the world like to take big leaps to achieve; others like to take baby steps."
Athena never thought she'd find refuge in the arms of a boy who takes care of her and her son as if they were family. But in all the hardships they faced, the...
The steady beating of a child's heart was felt with the mother's small dainty hands. A young mother of eighteen was watching her son's chest rise and fall as she rubbed his stomach gently in a way to soothe the baby. Athena had given birth to a baby boy six months ago and he was everything to her.
In their run-down apartment, they kept warm with piles of blankets and a heater which was only left on for an hour as the bills were too high to pay. In this apartment, two people lived in one room, a joint kitchen and living room as well as a bathroom which occasionally reeked of baby poop and powder. In their small living space, Athena managed to make their home welcoming with pictures of her deceased family parents and selfies with friends and her baby boy, Andrew.
After a few mere minutes of staring at her bundle of joy, she had gotten up to make her dinner which would end up being yesterday's leftovers with a mug of coffee to keep her awake at night to finish off her projects for the university she studied at. She rubbed her tired eyes lightly as she placed the leftovers on a plate and into the microwave which she pressed the buttons for the timer to set. With a bag of coffee beans in her hands, she poured a decent amount into her coffee machine and pressed multiple buttons to make it work.
Sighing to herself the microwave beeped and the coffee maker made a buzzing noise, she grabbed her food out of the square box and her cutlery to eat. She ate in silence. The leftover pizza and bread made a stale taste erupt in her mouth as she chewed quietly and drank her coffee whilst listening to the sounds of the busy street below. Athena murmured to herself about the things she had to do for tomorrow, her paper was due as well as work which started at five pm and ended around ten, she had to remind herself to bring Andrew to her friends place as well as buy her some food to feed herself as she tended to forget.
She glanced at the clock and got up with her clean plate, walked to the kitchen and placed her empty dishes in the sink. She decided to herself that she'd clean the place in the morning. Yawning unattractively, she went over to her tiny living room space which consisted of a couch which was starting to break, a coffee table which her friend donated to her as it had a big blue stain on it and a small TV that you would see in the 1990's type of shows.
On the couch laid her laptop, which cost her an arm and a leg, two extra shifts per week and the small donation her distant relative gave her for child support. It was a cheap laptop and Athena treated it like her second child all the time. She opened and logged into her laptop, admiring the photo of her baby boy and her as her home screen before going onto Word to finish of her paper. She was to write about how Shakespeare had a major influence on literature in over nine thousand words, unluckily she was given this task two days ago and she only started yesterday and was up to six thousand.
Athena made a horse-like sound with her lips and started to type on her laptop frantically, checking her notes page occasionally for help as she had no wifi in her apartment. With her body and mind awake from the coffee, she spent the next four hours into the night typing on her laptop before she dozed off into a deep slumber her couch.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
