I skipped school the next day and the day after that. I only went to school that Monday. I've been crying so hard, I haven't eaten, I haven't slept, nothing. I've been so utterly depressed, my parents are worried. I'm worried. My brother is scared; my friends are too because I won't answer calls or texts. I wanted to be alone. So I was left alone, and I was able to think about my future. I was left to talk to my new therapist on the phone. I was able to prepare myself.

I did turn on my phone, and eventually, I went through the group chat first. I scrolled through, laughing at the little jokes they told me. I laughed at them making fun of each other. I call the group chat through Facetime. Soon enough everyone answers. I realized I needed them. We talked for 2 hours, I explained what happened at the appointment, and I sobbed a lot. They didnt judge me, they told me they loved me and will always be there for me.

"Do you want to meet at a park or something, so we can see each other?" Rain suggested. I can always count on xem.

"Yes," I say simply, then go downstairs. "I can't drive right now, not like this. I need help."

"I can get you, you're not far from me," Sarah.

"It's okay, I need to ask anyway," I say and continue towards my mom. She stops what she's doing and waits for me. "Can you drop me off at the park to see the gang?"

She grins, then hugs me and kisses my forehead. That's a yes. I smile.

"Get your shoes on, I'll see you at the door," she says heading upstairs.

—

"Jackass keeps texting me," I hand my phone to Tim, and the gang surrounds him looking at the text. "I don't know what to do."

My phone starts ringing.

"He must be worried. Do you know you have 40 missed calls from him? 60 texts too. Do you want us to answer?"

"Let it ring out. He's gonna know my phone is on now because it hasn't gone to the answering machine yet. Let him suffer. He doesn't give a shit anyway."

It stops ringing, I get a voicemail, and then it starts ringing again. I groan and grab my phone to hang up the call. It rings again, I hang up. We did this two more times, and then he finally stopped calling and started texting. I lay back, bathing in the sun. The group is reading over the text, laughing, and making fun of him. I keep grinning. He's suffering; good. Just like me. They stop laughing, and Tim looks mad.

I snatched the phone and read it. "Please answer me, or I'm going to come to your place and kidnap you so you'll talk to me."

Tim takes the phone back, copies the phone number, and puts it in his phone.

"Mac, he is trying to talk to you. Maybe it's time you do too?" Pat gives my hand a gentle squeeze.

"No one is talking to him," Tim says then starts texting on his phone, angrily.

"Bullshit," I snort, taking my phone back. "You are right now."

I tell them I'm calling him and to be quiet. Tim protests but Rain slaps xer hand over his mouth. I smile, waiting for Jack to answer from the other side.

"Mac, is that you?"

"What do you want?"

"Thank fuck, I'm so glad you are okay. Where are you? I need to see you."

"What do you need from me?" I ask and put the phone on speaker.

"You, I need you. I need to see you and see you are safe. I need to see that you are healthy. I need to see you in one piece. You've been gone forever and your friends are no help in telling me what the hell is going on. I just need to see you're okay, Mac."

"Are you with your friends? Is that why you're talking like this? Because you feel the need to keep fucking with me? No, you don't," I shake my head. I hold my emotions in place. "I'm alive, that's it. I'm alive, and you don't need me anymore. Just be happy with your new girlfriend, or even girlfriends, I don't care. Leave me alone Jackass. Games over."

I end the call, then I do something I didn't want to do. I blocked his number. They didnt know why I did it, I don't even know why I did it. It felt relieving, draining, and upsetting. Without knowing it, tears fall from my eyes.

"He is so much to deal with. I have so much to deal with and he stresses me out. He stresses me out because I fucking love him. He'll never understand what he does to my head, he'll never understand that he's a drug. He can never understand."

Tim's phone starts ringing, and over and over again he hangs up.

"What did you say to him?" I sigh and lay on the grass.

I take off my hat and feel the baldness on my head. The grass tickles.

"It doesn't matter," he powers off his phone. "Don't worry about him right now, there are better guys and girls and enbys out there that will treat you well."

"None of them are him. No one can put up the front he does. None of them pretend as he does, none of them are gentle-headed and dumb like he is. There's only one him, and there's only one person in my heart that can fill that spot of him. You only get your first love once, he is my first."

They don't push, they also try and get rid of the pitiful look on their face.

"Y'all, I'm fine. I'll fall out of it like always, so don't worry about it."

Tim lays next to me and nudges my shoulder with his. I look over at him, he's smiling.

"Everything can be fixed, and if it can't be fixed the problem can get resolved. Now, let's fucking paint," he finishes and sits up. He turns and stands over me, "Come on, get up."

I lift my hands but go limp, "impossible."

He grins, bends over, and grabs my waist; he pulls me to a sitting position. From there, he squats and is about to lift me. I laugh and slap his hands away. I stood and used him for support. Rain turns on the music and we grab our small canvases. We do this sometimes, the tiny paintings in parks. I love it, I can't live without this in my future.

First, we sketched out our paintings, and I started sketching a skull. 5 minutes into the sketching we move our canvases to the right. I get Tim's. He started by sketching out a face, the reference being a girl that looks like Sara with a mix of Pat. I try sketching out some background; some fancy flowers on the bottom, and fancy clouds on top. We switch canvases again. We do this until we get to the painting part. We get our original canvases back and start painting. Tim put flowers coming out of the eyes of my skull drawing, I'm assuming because he saw I added flowers to his. Rain put smoke pouring out of the cracks between the teeth and the empty cheeks. Pat put in a very detailed web behind the skull in the top left corner. Sara put in a Victorian table. Emilia put in a spider on the web dropping down, and a glass jar without a lid. When I get it back I finish up the jar lid, making the tip a diamond shape. I also put some gems and gold coins at the bottom of it.

And then we begin painting out canvases. We do as best as we can with what we are given. Tim finds it the easiest, next to Emilia. Both of them are very much into art. It was really nice, peaceful, and quiet. When we were done we ordered food and had it brought to the park, we ate and dicked around while our paintings dried.

I love these guys so much.