"Oh my gosh, he's right there," his face was beaming, "Xavier, come over, I wanna introduce you to someone!" I glanced at the guy Mike was pointing at, and I already don't like him. Why did he have to be here at the moment? How much longer do I have to play pretend for? There is only so much fake I can do in one day!
"Hey boo. This is Raven, my best friend since ninth grade. And Raven, this is Xavier," Mike looked uneasy, and I think it's because he is wishing on every star he has ever known, that I play nice. It's difficult, but I'll throw in that extra mile for Mike.
"Raven...? It's like...uh... what do you call those things, that uh... you know, flap wings, and.." he looks completely stoned, on some serious drugs. Good taste, Mike, it has definitely evolved.

"A bird. Yes."
      Ohhhhh yeah! Halleluiah, Praise the Lord! I see Grey coming towards our direction, with her two year boyfriend, James. If there is any couple that would last forever, it would be them. But of course, they're only amazing in their own weird way. "Hey Shrimp," James calls out with a smirk on his face. He loves teasing me for my lack of height. But I don't care, it doesn't phase me. I always tell them, 'I know I'm not short, everyone else is just abnormally tall.' "Hi Lobster," I crack myself up. We do our funny handshake that no one else has ever mastered. It's something we made up back when I was finally starting to accept that he will be a permanent part of Greys' life. Yes, we were actually best friends before he ever existed, and now, I cannot picture her being single. It was so hard for me to acknowledge the fact that I won't be number one anymore, but I had to let it go. I always do in the end anyway. "Lobster? Cute Raven, very cute," Grey says, smiling not with her lips, but with her face. She knows how to do that somehow, and everytime she does, I feel so giddy inside. I know I sound like a lesbian right about now, but I promise I'm not. We just have a really interesting friendship, that's all. It's kind of funny watching Grey around James. For someone who is completely cold and distant, is such a mush ball when it comes to James. It makes me sick sometimes. I mean, did you ever hear about keeping all that stuff exclusively between your partner? All right, fine, I'll admit it. In a sense, I love watching them completely alter their personalities for each other. It's as if their true self comes out, something they always hide amongst other people. It's as if they are one, and not two seperate beings. Wait, is this coming out from my head? If I could, I'd stab my brain right about now.
"Did you hear about our new English teacher?" Grey finally distangled herself from James, letting him talk to the guys while we slowly parted away. "Another one? I'm afriad Mr Fischer is eventually going to run out of people to ask for that position."
"Could be, but I heard that she's from Uptown. Rich. Spoiled. Ugh.. all these new teachers to adjust to constantly... it's starting to get just slightly annoying."
"I say we skip. I want to go see how my brother's doing, buy him some lunch. I need to talk to you anyway."
       There's no one in this world that knows me better than Grey, not even myself. Who in the world, besides her of course, with a functioning brain would have the patience to hear my rants and rambles about everything and nothing? She's calm and laid back, despite her tough looking appearance. I don't think she owns anything that looks even remotely alive. Everything she wears is either torn, faded, destroyed somehow, and dark. And despite that too, she is what I call Drop Dead Gorgeous. Slim, tall. And even though she's very pale, her skin is consummate. Not one pore or pimple would dare pop on her face. Her hair, just like her clothes, is very dark. She cut it recently to  right above her chin, just long enough to pull it behind her ears. And even though I'd never have the guts to cut my hair off like that, I still totally respect her risk taking nature. She is not scared of anyone or anything. Her almond shaped eyes are hazel, and hollow. Trying to depict her mood is quite impossible, even for James. She has these two scars on her face that complete her look, as if it was predestined to be that way. She never told me where those scars came from, except about the fact that she had them as a kid, but I never dared to ask her. If there's one thing she loves doing openly, it's story-telling. She has an incredible way of recapping what goes on in her life, you almost feel like there's not one person who wouldn't be able to relate. You can paint the pictures running in your head, as the words flow right out of her mouth, sentence by sentence. But it seems the more she tells them, the more mysterious she seems to be. Like the fact that I rarely ever come over her house, and when I do, no one is ever home. It always reeks from alcohol and ciggerates though, and again, I don't dare ask. We never stay there for too long anyway. 
"Why don't we pick up Ethan with Father's bike?" Gray asks as she picks a ciggerate from her pocket. "I don't think it's a great idea..  Don't wanna scare the kids away, ya know." Her fathers bike does not have one bare spot that isn't covered with skulls. They're plastered everywhere. It's also broken. Everytime she would turn on the engine, heavy metal music would start blaring, and there's no way to turn it off. Besides, I would never want Ethan to be around that thing, it's enough that he cries because of my parents quarreling. I wouldn't want him to cry from nightmares too.
"Yeah, whatever. Let's just walk then. We have plenty of time." She started telling me yet another story of just how perfect her and James are. It always makes me wonder if I'll ever find someone so perfect for me. But I already concluded before, I will never get married. Might as well become a doctor when I grow up and make my office my home. At least I'll be saving lives rather than creating yet another broken home. It would be a more meaningful life.
      When we finally got there, I noticed how everyone in the class were playing around, eating snacks, while Ethan sat quietly in the back corner, concentrating on what was going on outside the backyard of the school through the window. What's up with him lately? I was starting to wonder if five year old can really be diagnosed with depressed. I asked the teacher if he can be excused for a little, and when she nodded her head,  Ethan came running towards us, in almost a split of a second. "Wayven! Gway!" He gave us such a tight hug around our legs, it's as if he hasn't seen us in ages. "Where is Mike?" He says, while pouting his tiny lips. Ethan loves Mike. Mike has never failed to have Ethan rolling around laughing, or making him comfortable enough to speak about his day or the random picture books he read with Mike. What can I say, Mike is just made to be a pretend older brother. I love him for that too, because sometimes I feel the same way. Mike was always there for me when I had emotional breakdowns, joking his way through so that maybe I could smile for just one bit. We always had sleep overs, watching movies that Ethan would pick out, staying up late and talking about nothing important at all. He always helped me stop thinking too deeply into things. And I appreciated his simple nature. "Mike's in school right now, but you might see him later on," that is, if he's not too busy smooching that new punk boyfriend of his. I gave Ethan his lunch, gave him one last hug and kiss, and watched him walk away very slowly back to his seat. He seemed to have no interest on the food, and was lost into space again, looking out that same window