Crystal

"I may be famous for skateboarding, but I never FEEL like I'm famous."

- Crystal

Crystal Covell is the main protagonist of the series. She is a famous skateboarder but has never felt like she is.

All three books are told in Crystal's perspective. They are told in first person with Crystal narrating from her point of view.

Backstory/Life
Born April 17, 1995, in a small hospital in Camden, New Jersey. Her parents divorced in 2001 and left her on her own when she was only 6 years old. Andrew Nodee and Jamie Woods were her best childhood friends.

She was never really able to afford much in New Jersey, as she was left with only about $500 from her parents, and once she spent all of that, she had to scavenge for whatever money she was able to find. Crystal had to learn to be resourceful and rely on her instincts.

At age six, shortly after her parents' divorce, she was playing in the dump across from her house, and found an old skateboard. Curious, she began playing around with it, and discovered she was good at it and she liked it. She took the skateboard back to her house and kept it. Every day, she would go out and practice new tricks with it, improving her skills so much that she began rising to fame around age eight or nine. With her newfound fame, she was able to make money by skating in shows or showing up at events, giving her just enough to get by.

When she was eight years old, all the money she had from her parents was gone and whatever she could find lying around wasn't enough. As a result, she was evicted from her house, due to being unable to pay the bills. She was also starving and all her clothes were too small for her, so Jamie's mother took her in. She lived with Jamie's family for three years. She started becoming famous and making money from it shortly after being taken in. At age eleven, she had enough money to support herself, so she moved out of Jamie's house and back into her old one.

She took the title of "Best Female Skateboarder in the World" in 2009, when she was 14. She earned it the summer between her 8th and 9th grade years. By the time she won it, she was becoming extremely famous and making more money than ever.

In June 2012, Crystal decided to try and find her parents, thus starting the events of the first book.

Throughout the first book, Crystal lives in New York City for 2 weeks, Tampa for a month, and San Diego for four months before finally settling down with her parents in Waikiki, Hawaii for nine months. At the start of the second book, she moves one last time, this time to Los Angeles, where she is going to college. She lives in L.A. for the rest of the series.

Appearance
Crystal has white skin, straight brown hair that goes to the middle of her back, and hazel eyes. She is 5'7, an average height for her age. She is also quite thin, mostly due to the poverty she grew up in.

Having grown up poor and parentless, Crystal learned to accept herself at a very young age. This helped prevent her from becoming body-conscious and obsessed with looks, as she does not really care much about appearance.

Personality
"Them? Kick MY butt? I'd like to see them try."

- Crystal, regarding Sabrina's Group.

Crystal, for the most part, is down-to-earth and friendly, but does admire fans. She has always been a tomboy, and her lifelong goal was to earn the title of "Best Female Skateboarder in the World", which she finally accomplished at age 14. She sometimes likes the attention she gets from male fans, but in Manhattan, she ran away from some who kept trying to ask her out. She can also be very brash and occasionally cocky and overconfident. But no matter what, she never gives up.

She is mostly extroverted, as she enjoys being around people and is rarely seen alone. She is shown to occasionally get bored when she's alone, although there are times when she doesn't mind as much.

After she moves away from New Jersey in the first book, she seems like she's trying to work on being nicer and less of a troublemaker. She is shown trying her best to keep this up in Crystal's College Years.

She is a self-described "total tomboy", and has said in Crystal's College Years that she's taking an acting class, which she quotes is "as unfitting as my first name".

Her skateboarding has also made her quite street smart. She is not the most book smart person, although she gets better during college.

Crystal admits in the third book that she was bullied in elementary and middle school, always being told she could never do anything right and that she would never make it anywhere. When she discovered she was good at skateboarding, she took that ability and ran with it. It was the bullying that made her a determinator and taught her not to give up.

She admits in the third book that if she had been older when her parents abandoned her, she probably would have tried to get a job. She doesn't resent her parents for abandoning her, because if they hadn't, she may never have discovered her love of skateboarding. When she finds them, they seem genuinely sorry for leaving her and promise they'll never do that again.

Melissa
Crystal and Melissa are basically best friends. They get along, despite being very unlike each other. Emily describes them as an Odd Friendship, because when skateboarder Crystal transfers to San Diego's public high school, the only one willing to befriend her is popular, preppy Melissa.

Tanisha
Tanisha is basically considered Crystal's other best friend. Like Crystal and Melissa, they are also described by Emily to be an Odd Friendship, as Crystal is the down to earth skater girl while Tanisha is the mean, popular queen bee. While the two started off as enemies, their friendship grew to the point of being practically best friends. Tanisha has shown her real personality since befriending Crystal, as she is seen to be a friendly and loyal person.

Michael
Michael is Crystal's best male friend. She is seen to deny feelings for him on some occasions, but her denial always sounds nervous. They are best friends, and there have been light hints that Crystal may have a crush on him. As of Chapter 12 of the second book, Crystal and Michael both admit to having feelings for for each other. However, they make a decision to not try a relationship until they will see each other again, as she states "Long distance relationships don't usually work". Although they later become an official couple in the third book.

Trivia

 * Crystal is (very) loosely based off of the story's author, Emily.
 * According to MBTI, Crystal is an ESFP (Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving).
 * Crystal ranks #1 on Emily's list of favorite characters from the series.
 * Despite practically living on the streets most of her life, Crystal talks normally and tends to address people rather formally.
 * For some reason, she still refers to Chrissy as Chrissy instead of Christina, although this is most likely because no one actually calls her Christina.
 * In Jessica's case, Crystal isn't the only one that calls her Jessica instead of Jess. Other people besides her have done this.
 * Although, in chapter 11, Crystal does refer to her as Jess, but after that, she never calls her Jess again.
 * As for Michael, she probably only calls him Michael because no one ever calls him Mike.
 * Crystal was originally going to be colder, hard to get to know, more antisocial, more book dumb, and a complete rebel. Emily simply ended up not going through with that, and made Crystal friendlier, more willing to get to know people, more outgoing, a bit smarter and a bit of a troublemaker but not a complete rebel.
 * When Crystal was first created back in 2005, her original information involved her being from Detroit, Michigan. This was quickly scrapped and changed so she instead hailed from New Jersey.