Prologue
Where do I even begin in trying to describe my friends? How does one even pick a single point that might possibly give you even the smallest idea of what these bitches are really like? Don't get me wrong, I adore them all, each and every one of them, they just drive me crazy sometimes. I've known a couple of them for most of my life, the rest kind of filtered in over the years in one way or another and just hung around, got attached to the group and never left. We're a weird mix and always end up with some very strange looks whenever we're out together, simply because we don't look like we should all be friends. I guess maybe the best way to go about this is just mostly chronological, so we'll start with my best friend, the girl that's been by my side my entire life.
Angel and I have been best friends since birth, well okay, maybe that's a little bit of a stretch, but her family moved into the house next door to mine when we were four. It was an older neighborhood then, mostly elderly retired couples so we were the only kids in the neighborhood regularly. This meant that we were friends by default fairly instantly but it actually worked out and we clicked and became inseparable by the time school started. When all the other kids in our kindergarten class were being weird and trying to make friends, we had each other and it was great. My dad used to say that we were connected at the hip, I guess in a way we still are, even though a lot has changed in the years we've been friends. I'll get into all that later because it's a long, detailed and slightly sordid story that needs more time than I'm willing to put in right this second.
Angel was always that cute kid, you know the one, all the parents loved her, all the boys pulled her pigtails because they had crushes on her and all the girls wished they could be her. This became worse when we hit seventh grade and puberty hit because it hit Angel full on and damn did it do a good job. She was always the tallest in the group even before she hit her current five foot eleven inches and that height gives her legs most girls would die for. Even at one hundred and sixty-five pounds, not that she would ever admit that she was such a weight, her height means that she carries it perfectly and I will personally give two hundred dollars to anyone who can find extra fat anywhere on that girls body. If nothing else, looking for it would be a hell of a lot of fun, but we've all looked, believe me, it's not there.
To top all that off, you have perfect skin with the perfect tan, perfect waistline, perfect teeth, silky blond hair almost to her waist and stunning blue eyes. Okay, okay, maybe I'm a little partial, she is my best friend after all but it doesn't make those things any less true, or less appealing. Unfortunately for all the guys out there who are constantly staring at her, she and I both came out of the closet at twelve years old. That's a whole different story though, and I'll make sure I get into it later on at some point or another, hopefully, maybe, it's possible. Anyway, that's Angel in a nutshell physically, as for her style, well, imagine your typical popular girl, fitted jeans, adorable tops and expensive shoes and you've got Angel. Sometimes I just look at her and ask if she's sure she's gay, just to be certain, she always just laughs and says she is and to stop being an ass.
Next on the list is Jamie, James we all call her and she joined our little posse when it was just Angel and I back in around the fourth grade. She was a riot even then with her goofball ways and unending antics, a class-clown if there ever was one and always able to make everyone laugh. She's a little spacey sometimes, more ADHD than anything else but it make hanging out with her hilarious since she's never on one subject for more than a few minutes. She's the shortest member of the group at only five foot two inches but she has a personality big enough for us all. With a joke for almost everything and a one line zinger where she lacks jokes, the group really wouldn't be the same without her. She also happens to be loyal to a fault and one of the best friends a girl could ask for, always around to pick you up and make you smile when the world knocks you down.
She's the dude of the group and don't even give me that look, she's the first to admit it and she damn well likes it that way. Dark brown hair always in a faux-hawk and forever perfectly styled, typically with a bleach blond streak in the front, just to the left side. That streak and a single piercing in her left eyebrow are her form of rebellion, that and perpetually dressing like a high school boy. Baggy jeans and either a polo or jersey are her uniform of choice, typically finished off with boots of some kind. Her deep brown eyes always seem to twinkle with a hint of mischief that the rest of us can't seem to keep up with. She's damn cute and she knows it, uses it to her advantage and is almost as bad as I am, almost, but not quite. Occasionally she'll settle down into something like a relationship, but those are rare and typically don't last long, a few weeks, sometimes four or five months.
The next to join our little group, which really isn't very little anymore but it's small enough for us, was Rascal, no, that isn't her real name but she's the youngest of the group, a year younger than the rest of us. Not to mention the fact that she's forever in some kind of trouble and can't seem to stay the hell out of it to save her life. Her name is actually Rebecca and she joined the group when we were in sixth grade, she was the little geek that skipped a grade and ended up in middle school with the rest of us. She's fairly average at five foot five inches with shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes but she's a riot with her pain-in-the-ass ways. Forever in and out of juvie in our early years, the only thing that allowed Rascal to even graduate with the rest of us was the fact that she was damn smart and was always able to test circles around the rest of us.
Damn genius IQ of hers, let me tell you, it's all at once sexy as hell and irritating as all fuck but, we deal with it since she was willing to help us with homework when we needed it. She's a bit of a tomboy, not nearly as bad as James of course, but rarely seen in anything other than jeans and a tank top. If it's cold she'll add on a hoodie of some kind, but that's about as far as it goes and she always finishes the look off with a pair of skater shoes. She's best known for her escapades in shoplifting and minor assault, though she stopped getting into as many fights once she hit eighteen and it became a serious offense. The rest of us have always just sort of rolled with it since she's never turned those fists of fury on us, so we just tended to sit back and watch the show she put on.
Next on the list in the fun parade is Zara who is like a group all her own within our larger group of friends and doesn't she just know it. She joined the group in seventh grade and even then she was absolutely stunning, Jamaican on her fathers' side and Vietnamese on her mothers, perfect complexion that we all hate her for, except Angel, who has skin just as nice, both of them without even trying, the bitches. Her skin is the color of a smooth caramel mocha and her eyes are so dark they're almost as black as her hair, which, by the way, is perfect too. Yeah, I know, want to slap her already don't you? It's okay, so do we but we refrain because even though she's gorgeous at five foot seven and a size five, she's the sweetest person you'll ever meet. She's our good egg, the one that's never been in trouble and always tries to see the good in everyone, even when the rest of us swear there's no good to be had.
She's the only one of us that's been in any kind of decent steady relationship over the past few years and while we give her a hard time about it, we love them both and would feel like something was missing if they ever broke up. She's our fashionista and will eagerly tell the majority of us what; exactly we are doing wrong in our wardrobes, myself, Rascal and James more than the others. She's also our conscious, our sounding board and will always tell us when we're being ridiculous or talk us down from whatever craziness we're thinking about getting into. She spends a lot of time telling us to calm down and see things from each other's perspective and has actually managed to diffuse quite a few spats within the group that, without her, would have been total blowouts and probably ended friendships.
