If Only Being Switched at Birth Was Easy

/1/ Well You're a Boy

"Hey, get back here!" a security cop yelled at me and my friends. I hopped on my skate board and skated faster than the fat cop could run down the sidewalk. Later that I anticipated, he ran out of energy from his frosted donut and slowed down, yelling at us hooligans...as usual.

"Man, that was sweet," Ryan commented as we stopped at the skate park at the end of our getaway. We all assembled around and on the table that was tagged with Sharpies. Our sharpies.

"What about later we go crash the mall?" Danny suggested, placing his board under his feet as he sat on the bench's top.

"Nah. I need to go school shopping. We can't get kicked out again yet," Adam denied. I rolled my eyes.

"F*cking nerd," King commented.

"Whatever," Adam retorted, pushing King's head away.

We continued hanging out as we normally did, which was more socializing than our peers thought we were capable of. After all, we were the outsiders of the main crowd—the skaters, the punks, the scene. I didn't know what unironic terms the current youth came up with for us. And I didn't care. The five of us were solid and that's all that mattered.

Ryan accepted the labels just as he accepted invitations to any challenge or dare thrust upon him. Ryan Riot was the craziest person I had ever known...and has gone through more skateboards and hospital visits than I had ever known. He was up for anything though, and I respected it. He had absolutely no fears and only one usual motivation: girls.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was Adam who was usually referred to as "f*cking nerd." He was definitely the smartest and most perceptive of us all which is why he wasn't too thrilled about any semantics floating around about us. He was still one of us though—good at skateboarding and sneaky. The latter characterization he learned on his own though. Upon meeting us, his grades fell which wasn't too great for his parents' interpretation. His grades still rode at B's which were still a A's for our standards. Our standards were low—and he knew it—but he still rode with us and was down for anything as long as it didn't cost him a permanent record.

Lacking academic knowledge, but making up for it for street smarts, there was Danny. He came before everyone else in my opinion because he was technically around before everyone else. He had ridiculous jokes and stunts that would only be successful by Ryan's standards, but Danny was still the most normal of us all.

But I guess everyone was "more normal" when being compared to our last and certainly not least "leader" King. I had known him since basically birth and didn't have a single memory without him in it. I, of course, held the memory that "King" wasn't his real name but it was easier and better and suited him well. We had grown up in the same foster home and I treated him like the brother he truly acted like considering he avoided me, teased me and acted as annoying as any brother would on the surface. Of course if anyone else tried messing with me, he'd be the first to defend me. Even though he had dark blue eyes (the kind girls would drown in) hidden in a mess of black hair, they'd be mistaken quite quickly. His eyes were misleading because they were purer than his intentions in life. He was a champion street MMA fighter who refused to join a school sports team because neither football nor wrestling let him lay uppercuts on his opponents. MMA was his healthiest outlet considering he was a delinquent foster kid with dead parents he'd never get to know. He was more than his past though, considering he was actually academically intelligent behind his idiotic benders to break the law. He was so smart he was my secret tutor...but that only meant he would do the work for me because that saved him time from "trying to teach someone as stupid as me."

Deep down, I already knew that he secretly hated me. It was only a matter of time before I pissed him off enough for him to knock me into a coma.

"Hey!" someone called from behind. We all turn and I flipped my dark bangs out of my face only to see our mutual friend Jack skate up to us. Along his side was a new boy with dark brown hair that reached past his ears and a hoodie that draped his body.