Chatterbox: Inkwell

I'm currently writing a story, and I would like to post it here. Unfortunately, on the first thread I made about it, someone impersonated me and told the Admins to delete it. So I'm going to repost everything.

I'm too salty to rewrite the whole original introduction, but I would like to point out that many of the main characters in this are LGBTQ+. If that was the reason whoever the impersonater was told the Admins under my name to take it down, then I cannot say how awful that is.

Please don't do it again. To me or to anyone. It feels super, super, super bad. It feels like you're being taken advantage of. Like you're not being regarded as a person. 

If you don't like this story, don't read it. That doesn't mean you should steal someone's identity and demand for someone else's hard work be deleted.

Thanks. Here's part one again.

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It was one of those things that he never expected to change.

Suddenly it did, and it felt so right that he didn’t question it. And it changed again and again, but he scarcely noticed that everything was different because he was all caught up in the swirl and excitement and joy of living.

Then one day, he was hanging upside down from a branch on that big tree in the backyard that Liza joked would never stop growing and one day swallow up the house and all of Los Angeles. He was holding his phone (tightly, lest he drop it) and laughing as he typed out a text to Jack and Adri and Theo, when he realized that, indeed, he and his life had become very, very, different since the day three years ago that cute, red-haired, freckle-faced boy had come up behind him after Math and asked if he could draw him.

“You want to know if you can… what?” Alex blinked, bewildered, at his questioner.

“Draw you. Oh, sorry—” The boy said sheepishly. “That was weird, wasn’t it? I mean, you seem like a nice person, and you’re really interesting.”

Alex was at a loss for words, which he thought with a kind of amused awe. Alex Quinn, he had been told and acknowledged himself, was very difficult to shut up.

“No! No! Ugh, human interaction is hard, gosh, I’m sorry— Can we start over?” Flustered, the boy ran a hand through his long auburn curls, the other pulling nervously at the edge of his too-large “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt.

Alex grinned. “Sure. I’m Alex Quinn. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Jack.”

They shook hands. Jack’s palms were soft, and even they were covered in freckles, like someone had dumped cinnamon sugar on him.

Alex gathered his binders and notebooks, carefully stacking them in size order. It was a habit, he supposed, but he wasn’t sure where it had come from— Only that it made him uneasy to have it any other way. It was just one of those things.

“So, why did you want to draw me?”

Jack’s hands started fidgeting, fingers tapping his sides in some sort of rhythm. “I’m an artist, I guess, and I’m best at drawing people, and you seem like… I don’t know.” He paused. “You’re really alive, you know.”

Alex paused at his locker, dumping his supplies in it and kicking the blue metal door shut. After considering a moment, he replied, “I’ve been told it’s really hard to get me to stop talking and moving. Or doing anything I want to be doing, really.”

Jack opened his mouth, seemingly struggling with deciding whether or not to elaborate on that, for a moment before closing his mouth and saying, “That’s kind of what I mean.”

Alex could tell that it wasn’t all that Jack had to say, but he left it be.

They walked in silence for a bit, and Jack glanced over at Alex, trying to commit his appearance to memory, all of his expressive hazel eyes and baggy blue sweatshirt and scuffed up converse and easy posture, the way his mouth upturned slightly as if preparing to say something, and that when he did you’d gosh darn better listen.

“Are you new here?” Jack said finally.

“Yeah,” Alex said as they neared the dark oak double doors that led to the dining hall. “This is my first year at this place. I moved during the summer.”

“From where?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Alex replied, a little too quickly.

Jack also took note of the way Alex bit his lip and ducked his head so his dark brown hair fell into his eyes when he said this, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Catch you later, okay? I have work to do.”

“Okay.” Jack said, and Alex had turned and walked away, hurrying out of the cafe and towards the direction of the library.

Lunch was quiet. Jack sat at a corner table by himself, just like usual, and took out his sketchbook to draw, just like usual. He would sketch people, just glance around and pick the first person his eyes fell on, but this time he drew Alex.

In the first attempt, he penciled out the boy’s profile, trying to capture the peaceable line of his jaw and the way his hair hung down the side of his face, tucked behind his ears. He stopped to analyze it. It wasn’t a bad drawing, but it wasn’t... Alex.

Half an hour and four abandoned doodles of Alex later, he slammed his book shut in a fit of rare frustration. There was something about the guy that he couldn’t quite ensnare, something deep and quiet and real and ragingly beautiful.

Jack was determined to find it.

Keep writing, Abi! We're excited to see the rest. To the impersonator, we do not tolerate that type of behavior. ~Admin