Always Crew - Tijan Page 0,1

doing, totally fine, all good, all set, all smiles (said with a straight face) and yeah, totally lying through my gritted teeth.

I wasn’t fine.

I was so far from fine, but I didn’t know what to do about anything right now.

This was foreign territory for me.

I used to think I’d never leave Roussou. It’s where I grew up. I laughed, loved, cried, bled, suffered, and persevered through so much there. A future outside of Roussou was not something in my wheelhouse of possibilities, but then everything shifted, and somehow here I was. I was living in a house with Cross, Zellman, and Jordan. All of them were attending Cain University and seemingly loving it.

Which I hated. Don’t call me bitter. Just call me the friend that feared was getting left behind. It was a lonely club, a table of one.

But it was what it was.

Zellman was the one who took to college like a fish in water. I think that surprised everyone because Zellman was never known as the academic one, but he loved classes. He loved the parties. He loved the football games. He really loved the college girls since he was officially not dating anyone. Now, don’t ask me how he was doing in those classes because I had a feeling that was a whole different story.

Jordan and Cross seemed fine, but there were other issues going on with both of them. The most dramatic was Jordan’s breakup with Tabatha.

She’d come to Cain for him. He ended things a week after classes started and the shit hath hitteth the faneth.

Tab went back to Bitch Tab and that meant she became friends real quick with a sorority at Cain U, and guess whom they all hated? My crew. Our house. Jordan was banned from attending any sorority and fraternity party on campus. At first, she tried to ban all of us, and I have to include Cross and myself because we went to a few parties, but they weren’t really our thing, but it was really only Zellman who had an issue with her ban.

We had a sit-down with Tab, reminded her of our crew roots.

She then amended her ban to exclude only Jordan, which I didn’t think Jordan cared about. Lately he’d been making friends with other girls, the non-sorority type. That was the best way to explain them because they didn’t really look different than the sorority girls, or act differently, but they were just not in sororities.

But again, Zellman was a lover of all parties and any parties.

It still seemed weird when he’d go to a party without any of us, but I was guessing it was growing pains? We were in a new place, a new school (or they were), and a new stage in our lives. We were growing, but to me that just meant we were all going our own ways, which sucked. Majorly. But it was inevitable.

So yeah, seeing as I was the only one not in college, I tried to go the mature route. I even took a course so I could get certified and work in a hospital. The job was boring, and I took attitude from some nurses. Some were cool. Some were snobs. Some were alcoholics. And some were like drill sergeants.

That job just hadn’t been for me, that is, until I met some bounty hunters who came in with a knife wound.

There was a conversation between us and now I was standing outside this bowling alley that needed a paint job badly. The trim was faded. The paint was stripped off in most places. The sign needed a tune-up.

It was four in the afternoon, and there were six cars in the parking lot.

I had no clue if that was good business or not.

The front door was painted red, half of the color was gone.

Add that to the missing A lighted letter neon sign, and I was sensing a whole theme. Desperation and apathy.

I headed inside, hearing the squeak that mimicked the sound of a screeching cat. Heading inside was like night and day. The sun was blinding outside. Inside, hot and dark. They had no air-conditioning, hence the six cars, because I was seeing there were only two people bowling. A guy and a girl, on what looked like an awkward date. Stiff shoulders and all. The guy seemed like he had to adjust his hard-on when the girl bent over to bowl. In an un-air-conditioned bowling alley.

Extremely awkward date.

She came back, a shy grin on her face