The Tales Of Crowboy The Incredible: Of Ink and Power

Chapter Five

Sometimes it feels like I have no in between. Like, you know how you have a safe space that you can go to? A place you go when you can't function. It's kinda split half and half for most people. Like, half of the people have school as their safe place. Some people have home. It's not like that for me though. School is an escape from home. Home is an escape from school. I don't have a safe person, not anymore. I don't have a person who I can call crying at 2 am. But you know, that's just the way of the world. Some people are delt really really bad hands.

I was sitting in Latin class, tapping my pen obsessivly, you know, like I do, when all of a sudden there's a huge beep. Like, not a fire alarm beep, but a big beep. It only lasted about two seconds, but it still freaked the shit out of me. There was still around 20 or so minutes left in class, so....... that was strange. Plus we had already had a fire drill last week, and like I said before, that wasn't the fire alarm sound. No one else seemed phased. Just straightened their backs got up and stood against the wall. I tried to follow in quick pursuit.

"What we doing now?" I whispered to Madeline.

"Just making sure that all the kids are here." She paused, and then looked at me. "You and your friends really messed things up around school, you know." Ah yes. Madeline. Didn't waste words on little bullshit excuses. It's what I loved about her.

"Fun." I shot back. The teacher did roll call, and a few children suck a look at me for a second. I was the reason this was happening. Me and......him. The lesson continued like nothing else happened. But inside of my head, things stilled stirred on. Soon enough, class was let out, and I rushed outside to find my friends.

A few words about my friends: We all have issues. We all have secrets and trauma and lies we have hidden in the back of our closets that we don't let anyone else see. Things like who we love more than others. Who we would choose if two of the other friends were on the verge of death. But we all love eachother. An unspoken rule is that we stay tight and keep our lips tighter. Even the one's I don't really know love me and I love them and would keep their secrets to no end. It's the way of our worlds. And now, an introduction of some of my favorite god damn people in the entire fucking world.

Taylor: 200/10, amazing human being. She was my school mom. Beautiful, wonderful and so strong. I love her. She protects me and I protect her. She is the most incredible persn in the entire world and nothing will ever change that. Ever. I don't wanna say a lot about physical description yet, cause that's just not my vibe. But I'll give you a little bit more description if everyone else later.

Owen: 7/10. He's....difficult. He was one of those people that I strive to be. One of those people that when he looked at you it felt like a spotlight was shined upon you and all of the stars were surrounding you and dancing just for you. And then he would leave you and ignore you and it would leave you wondering why you put up with all the pain he put upon you anyway. Months ago, he found me in a dirty bathroom. From that point on, he was my guardian. My wing Yoda. And yeah. That's been so much fun.

Alex: 9/10. SO! FUCKING! AWESOME! HE IS SO COOL! Alex is incredible. I loved him. I didn't know them for that long, true, but still. They were so amazing. But then....sometimes they would get sad. And retreat to a sad place in his mind. Because he lost him. Because of what I did.

John: 8/10. The brunt of all the jokes. He's currently a lesbian, a sex master, a red head, and so many other things. But he was cool. I appreciated him. We tolerate eachother. Plus, he's overall a great guy. He goes along with all of my jokes like the axcolatol stuff with a laugh and total seriousness.

Gabriel: 6/10. 7th grade year oh my Gods he was so amazing. 8th grade year we started to drift apart. And then all of a sudden, 9th grade year, shit hit the fucking fan. In a friendship way. Not a drama way. Now we don't talk to eachother. Which makes me really sad. But, you know, that's okay. The world is sad.

Elijah: 7/10. JAHJAH! Elijahs cool. He may look and be tough on the outside, but on the inside he's a little sweetie pie. But he does really care. Most of the times he tattles on me to Owen, because he's a little shit head. And then at times....there were times like this.

"Hey sleepy." Elijah once said, as I walked over to him and put my head on his shoulder. For once, he didn't push me off. It was around the second time I had been stoned out of my mind, and I didn't want to talk to Owen because I was mad at Owen and I didn't want to face Taylor and Alex and him. When he was still alive. But yeah. This was probably a month after I came back to school for real. And what did I do? Ditch Dr. Salliman and go do kart because I'm a dumbass and make horrible decisions.

"Hello. I'm high." I replied, my voice slightly muffeled from my inability to talk complete sentences and the fabric I was leaning into.

"I know, dumb-dumb." He said, and then grabbed some food. There might have been more conversation, but there is no fucking way I remember that. "I can give you some popcorn if you want."

"I can't eat that. It hurts." I groaned.

"Haha." He said, but still held the little container out. I took it and started to carefully eat it.

"Thank you." I mumbeled. And that was why Elijah was so incredible. He did end up telling Owen, and Owen got angry at me. So yeah. Story end.

And yeah. Those are my friends. I hope that gives you insight to the friend group as I push through the huge double doors of the library and see Taylor and Alex sitting in the usual chairs, reading their books and scrolling on their phones. Both of they're legs barely touched the ground.

"eHello mortals. How is your day going?" I asked. Alex looked up from their phone and nodded at me. They had dyed his hair green and black. Good. They were still doing that. His blue eyes faded into his pale skin nicely, and they smelled of smoke.

"Feeeeelix." Alex said. "Hiiiii!" I moved to go and hug them. I wanted to check in on Alex. To see how he was doing. But Alex didn't really do that. So.....yeah.

"AlexXxx! HELLO!" I responded, and then plopped down into my chair. "Mother. How are you doing?" Taylor had brown shoulder length curly hair, which was currently up in a pony tail. She had grey eyes, and smelled of chocolate. A comfort smell.

"Good." That and a head nod was all I was working off of. I tried to control my mind not to jump to conclusions. Taylor was probably just tired. Yeah. She handed me a Juicebox, and I sipped it quietly. There was nothing to talk about now. Because he died.

He was Hudson. Hudson was one of my best friends. He was tall and funny and kind and he listened so well. He was overall amazing. And four months ago, I decided to run away and ran away to the wrong person. And when they had to go find me because I fucked up, and Hudson died. I thought he was downstairs but he was actually upstaires and then he got shot in the lungs. So yeah. Fuck all that shit.

"Where's Owen?" I asked. I tried to downplay the excitement in my voice. But both Taylor, Alex, and Elijah picked up on it.

"Haha, you loveeeee Owen." Alex said. I gave him the finger. They all knew I had liked Owen for five months now.

"Shut up. I just need to talk to him about stuff." I shot back. And yeah, I did need to talk to him about stuff. That stuff was if he wanted some food. Because I'm a little simp. But all of that bullshit was okay.

"He's in the hall with the other 10th graders." Taylor said. I got up and started to make my way out there. "You better not be giving him candy."

"I would never ever dream of doing that ever." I smiled back. But there wasn't any response back from Taylor. She was just.....sad now. Upset. But Taylor didn't talk about her feelings a lot. Which scared me a little bit. She used to talk a lot. But now she's just quiet. It's scary.

Shaking those thoughts away, I started to walk toward Owen. He had peanut butter-looking hair, and he was tall and muscular. He wore contacts, and was almost always on his phone. Which he was right now. Sometimes when I got to anxious with him, I would just walk up to him and ask if he wanted candy. It would work. He would talk to me and I felt happy I could talk to him. It was great.

Only, this time, Owen wasn't alone. He was with my greatest enemy of the entire universe. My ex named Lex.