Atom started going to the gym with Marie, and Atom started working with her mothers personal trainer Kaya. The scent of sage every time she walked through the door along while seeing the white painted brick walls and 3 thick pillars that stood centered in the room along with a green stripe that wrapped around the room separating the two colors on the wall and the dark colored floor was comforting to her.
Atom felt a sense of comfort and safety with Kaya. Like she finally found someone she could truly trust. They became closer and worked through a lot of personal stuff and Atom was also taught more self defense but still wasn't allowed to carry any weapons, at least none that could hurt anyone severely. Atom soon became more confident and happier and learned to ignore all the things that were stressing her out and things out of her control that were making her depressed... At least most of the time.
It was a long journey but after so long it finally worked and even if it was seen as selfish. Atom was better focusing on herself then what was bothering her and then making her upset. Even with the comments that she got she really didn't care cause she needed this, she knew she needed this.
She worked so hard for so long to make other people happy including the people that hated her, she knew she needed to just think of herself and her happiness even if she mostly just locked away her emotions.
Marie also felt more confident and was more pleased with her image. She developed... or maybe even evolved into a new person, someone strong, and independent, a new better version of herself. Along with these changes Marie and Atom both developed new mannerisms a lot similar to each other.
Some time after Kaya moved away because of her main job, Keith started dating a woman named Jennifer, they had gone to elementary and middle school together. They were actually each others childhood crushes. Jennifer had two kids named Emma and Braiden.
Atom was upset with Keith because he was dating Jennifer for about half a year before he proposed and Ace and Atom had only met her once and had never met her kids. The first time that Atom stayed with her dad after he moved in with Jennifer and her family. Atom and Braiden tried to kill each other. Atom held back but almost suffocated Braiden and he also held back but soon after almost hit her with a shovel multi-tool.
Jennifer and Keith were at the bar so it was just Atom and Jennifer's kids at the house and while the battle to the death happened Emma was upstairs listening to music drawing. About an hour of them fighting Atom and Braiden had come to an agreement not to kill each other and then Emma found out and then called Jennifer and Keith cause Braiden is a fucking little snitch who can't keep his mouth shut.
Braiden and Atom got in trouble but not a lot for it was the second time they had ever met and the adults had expected fighting for Braiden and Atom were the youngest. A few months later Jennifer and Keith got married. It was a small but cute wedding at the end of summer. They had it at a park with less than 20 people, made up of just close family and friends. Braiden and Atom still had a mutual dislike for each other but started to get along a bit better.
There were still flowers every where and an arch full of vines. Jennifer wore a gorgeous white dress that complemented her skin. Everyone's makeup was a very natural look and they all looked amazing. Emma wore a cute pink flower print dress and Atom wore one similar but green.
Luckily Atom looked good in any color even green. The boys all wore a black vest and black pants and black shoes, but all had different colored shirts and just to top it Keith just had to wear a fedora. They all went to a restaurant afterwards and talked as usual and had a pretty normal rest of the day.
Ella was in elementary school and Atom and Ace were thinking of returning to public school because she and Ace were still homeschooled. The thought was exciting and scary so her and Marie talked about it and made a decision. The next fall she walked into her new school with the confidence like she owned the place also with her resting bitch face hiding the fear and excitement behind her built up walls not wanting to show anything.
Atom was a little concerned of people discovering her age and judging her for it, but she pushed that aside and kept her head held high. Walking into the common area of her new school. The energy of hormonal teenagers was overwhelming. The smells of different colognes and perfumes filled the air there was almost anything to cherry to winter pine scents that filled the air.
Atom had a hard time making friends. Though she had grown a hatred for people, so it didn't bother her much. Almost nobody but the office ladys, Ace, and the principal knew she was 13 and already a sophomore in highschool. She realized that her age didn't really affect how she and everyone acted as long as they didn't know.
She was happier because she already looked a lot older than she was and she was aware of that fact. Atom was about 5 foot 3 inches already so she just kinda blended into the other highschoolers. A lot of people at her new school were short and looked young so she wasn't bothered or any longer worried.
She got headaches for the first couple weeks but that didn't bother her much because when she was younger she used to get migraines very often, what did bother her though was the annoying stupidity and lack of maturity in the students.
Ace didn't mind the new school. He had plans of joining the basketball team and already had friends his age in his freshman class and he was popular.
Everything seemed to be going perfect for him.... Until about halfway through his 5th day of school.
"Hey Jacob" Ace whispered to a friend. "What is it?" He responded quietly. "I forgot my knife in my pocket, what do I do?!". "I don't know?" Jacob said in a normal tone while still being quiet and pretty much ignored him.
Not long afterwords maybe a class period or two later he was called to the office with the police there. Ace got expelled and what was really upsetting to him was that it was a training knife nothing else and that he was actually happy. All because Jacob couldn't keep his mouth shut.
Atom found a group of friends that she became great friends with and they were all similar to Atom in different ways. Some of the boys were intimidated by Atom and felt insecure by her confidence mostly because of their toxic masculinity. Ironically it was the boys who played Football and sports that felt that way.
Atom would joke with her friends that the straight white male jocks were the ones who had the biggest problem with her in that school. The boys would make comments about her or say them to her walking by and she would usually ignore them.
But on occasion she would reply with a snarky comment that would leave them stunned while she just added more confidence into her walk with a smirk. She felt like she was on top of the world when she got to prove someone wrong or stunned them, she felt this amount of sass and confidence that made her feel unstoppable.
Atom was the favorite student in most of her classes and was close to her teachers except for a few. Atom and her math teacher were good friends, Atom was also her favorite student. She was a pretty good student and got amazing grades even if she almost never paid attention and would just doodle. She had trouble with one of her teachers. Which was her science teacher.
He was in his late twenties very nerdy and an insecure guy. He was most of the students' favorite teachers cause they felt they could just talk to him and cause he was a nice guy who had traveled the world so he had some cool stories. Atom on the other hand knew he wasn't fond of her and the feeling was mutual. She was very confident and wasn't afraid to speak her mind.... That had got her into detention a time or two.
After Marie went for a parent-teacher conference they all came to an understanding and started to get along a bit more... Now the students were another story, she felt miserable around the majority of the students. Most of them weren't very intelligent and they acted like children.
Atom had always been mature for her age and independent she was also very beautiful and had a good body. She was also pissed at the school rules and how they were prejudiced against females especially regarding the dress code.
The boys could wear shorts shorter than the girls or would have their pants sagging down their waist and nothing would be said or wear shorts over their jeans and the teachers would just say stuff along the lines of "Boys will be boys''.
So she made it her goal to do something different everyday that broke the dress code. One day two of the boys in her homeroom were talking/complaining about her outfit saying it was a problem and they wouldn't stop.
She was wearing a tanktop that had thick enough straps to be fine to wear without breaking dress code but there was a zipper in the middle to control how much or little cleavage she wanted to show. But at the moment it was perfectly fine.
At the moment and her shorts just above her fingertips which were kinda pushing it and they kept going on and on until her teacher finally made her go to the office.....she didn't have to change and came back not even five minutes later with a smug look on her face and she strutted back to her seat and she sat back down crossing her legs with a little hair flip. It was later discovered that the boys had a crush on her even if they didn't know or realize at the time but there was still no excuse for them to be rude and criticize her.
Atom wore tank tops with spaghetti straps or short shorts or some days oversized hoodie crop tops. One day she even wore a crushed red velvet crop top and black low rise jeans with a shiny leather jacket.
She didn't have anyone except a few shocked girls say anything until the principal said something to her at the end of the day when school was out and she was getting stuff from her locker to leave. But the thing that made her furious was the next day when she wore a black sleeveless shirt that was slightly open on the arms paired with some medium blue denim skinny jeans and her last hour teacher said that it was inappropriate and even when they had seen boys wear shirts with the exact same style and had worn this same outfit multiple times.
Atom tried to bring that up but her teacher and even calling out the principal's daughter wearing something worse but her teacher didn't care and even after Atom saying something about what she wore the day before her teacher just wouldn't listen.
Most of the students were shocked at her passive aggressive way to change the rules and Marie got a call about her clothes at least once a week if not more. Marie didn't care that she actually supported Atom in her decision for change and to call them out on something that wasn't right or fair. Atom was irritated that the principal's daughter Lexi could wear things that the other girls couldn't and Atom used that information to the full.
A lot of the girls supported her and actually started following her. Atom was smart and had a few people. She had taken pictures of other students wearing thing that clearly broke dress code and her and her friends took selfies as proof. Of course Atom always had an extra plan.
Atom discovered that the dress code mostly was affected by females body types and that made her very very mad. She got her small friend group of about Seven people all together and then some of the other kids she was aquatinced with to break the dress code, anywhere between crop tops to booty shorts she has a plan there were also the girls who did it occasionally too but they along like the rest of the students didn't know about it...
The thing that almost made Atom go over the edge was that only a couple girls got in trouble or talked to and the others ignored she was absolutely furious. But she chose to take the high road and her and some of her friends just kept doing it. Until after almost 6 months of Atom being at the school they started enforcing it with everyone including the boys.