Eternally Lost and Crazy

Chapter 1

   ~Jaz~

  Have you ever loved somebody enough to die? Ever love somebody enough you stop breathing? But, like, you don't need to. You don't need air, you have your partner. No? Yeah me neither. Love is  bit too complicated for me.

  "Watcha thinkin' 'bout?" a voice, that I probably hear too much, interrupts my thinking.

  "Your terrible grammar," I chuckle. 

  "I take AP English courses!" Sab pouts.

  "Awe, I hurt its feelings," I poke out my bottom lip in mock sympathy. 

  "Stop with the damn flirting. We have a project," Sid barks.

  That earns laughs from our entire group. Sid, Sab, me, Lucas, Lyall, and Mandy. Our gang. It used to be Sab, Luke, Lyall, and I, but I need my girls.

  Mandy is the boy crazed one. Sid, however, is the opposite. She likes girls. Lucas and Lyall are twins. Luke's into poetry and Lyall likes math or science or some shit. They both adore the stars. Sab is just a walking jock stereotype. Star quarterback, straightest of straights, and insanely cute. Not that I noticed. I'm the one that says stupid stuff to defend those idiots. They need it. They need me.

  "What's this project on?" Luke asks. 

  "This is the history project me and Mandy are working on," Sid huffs. Earlier today she made the mistake of inviting Mandy to her house. Now all six of us are in her basement.

  "Mandy and I," Sabby corrects, sticking his tongue out at me. 

  I roll my eyes. Lyall yawns and wraps his arm around my shoulders. I lean into the embrace and close my eyes. He and I are pretty close, just like the rest of the group. Lyall and Sabby are my favorites though.

  "Guys it's like, 9:20. Are you really tiered?" Mandy inquiries.

  "9:20! I'm still grounded! I have to be home in ten minutes!" I yelp. 

  "You promised me a ride home though babe," Sabby bats his eyelashes at me.

  "I'd shove your attitude right up your ass if it was tangible," I snap, grabbing my car keys and heading up the basement stairs. The twins hoot and holler behind me till I close the front door.

   In the car I go about fifteen over the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit. Whoops. My phone rings on the passenger seat and I put it on speaker.

  "You really were my ride home," Sabby laughs. No hello. Just jokes. He never takes anything seriously. 

   "Piss off. I have to be home within the next four minutes or I'm in deep shit. Ask Mandy," I grumble.

   "She's spending the night with Sid," Sabby argues.

"Look, I don't have time for this," my head falls back for a second before I remember that I'm driving.

   "Hey, we're good for lunch tomorrow right? Not Dairy Queen. You're lactose intolerant. How about Friendly's?" Sebastian says and I can see the smirk on his lips.

  "Yeah, sure, I don't really care. Talk tomorrow?" I ask, knowing he'll call me by the time the sun comes up in the morning.

   "Yep, sounds good Jaz -man," he chuckles as I pull into my garage.

   I hang up my phone without the pleasantries of  a goodbye and slam my car door. I made it with a minute to spare. I climb the steps to my kitchen door and bump it open with my hip. I walk into the living room to the hideous sight of my deadbeat twenty something brother. 

  "Damn, any later and mom would have had to kick your ass. Though you barely have one anyway," Adam hisses.

   "Why don't you go back to college? Oh, wait, you got suspended for an entire semester. Have fun graduating in your forties," I snap.

   I scamper up to my room and collapse on my bed. Thank God it's Friday. After checking my  e-mail and deleting all my school messages, I burry my face in my pillow and fall asleep to the sound of my brother clicking away at his laptop.