His Playboy Ways

Standing As Strangers

I swallowed down the creamy yoghurt and eyed Amber who was sitting opposite me with a deathly glare towards the rowdy bunch at the table to the left of us.

"Amber." I drawled. "Stop glaring already!"

Amber didn't seem to hear me because she didn't tear her eyes away so I snapped my fingers in front of her. "Amber!"

Amber finally tore her gaze away and looked at me. "What?"

"Cut it out." I said. "Glaring like that isn't going to kill them."

Amber curled her fingers into fists and banged it on the table. "Killing them - or more specifically him would be a good idea." She said between gritted teeth and a glare that way again, she then looked at me and added, "If only you'd let me."

I knew it would only take Amber one second before she was over there to probably amputate all of Mason's limbs if I just said go ahead but I wasn't going to do that. It was a month since Mason and I had spoken, the last words he told me were goodbye and he meant it just as he meant he was going to show me who really was.

In the past month not only have Mason and I not spoken to one another but we wouldn't even glance at each other; we were like strangers. I would notice him in class at times, walking around the school hallways and even at the cafeteria but he was just another student at school, a very popular student but he was no longer my friend - my best friend.

Our friendship was over and I think he and I both knew it, he stayed out of my way and I out of his. My eyes glanced to the table and I saw Mason laughing at something someone from his popular clique probably said, he looked so much like the Mason I knew - or thought I knew - but I knew he wasn't that person, he was someone else and I saw that over the past month.

Mason was the utter definition of arrogance, he walked around school as if he was king and the rest of the students were his disciples and what was even more saddening was that many students actually acted as his disciples and treated Mason as royalty and his friends as governing members. I remembered how everyone was so happy when they started realizing that Mason was going back to his 'old ways' as they put it; I think the girls were even more happy because Mason started offering them his attention again and was back to his old playboy ways.

Although Mason offered his attention he wasn't all that serious with them as he and Ashley had grown really very close, they were always together, I have begun thinking that they were a couple. I managed to tear my eyes away but didn't miss when Ashley walked over to Mason and sat down on his lap, pecking him on the lips.

"I'm sorry." Amber said breaking away my reverie. "This happens every day, I should stop looking and speaking of that jerk."

I sighed and offered a small smile. "You don't need to apologize Amber, but you need to stop this daily glare-at-the-popular-kids thing of yours."

Amber looked at me sheepishly. "I can't help it Carls." She admitted then her expression turned into an annoyed one. "It's just every time I see Mason's pathetic face, smiling and laughing, I feel like killing him!"

I laughed lightly at my best friend's craziness and temper. I laid a hand over hers and smiled gratefully. "You're an amazing friend you know that right?" she flashed a faint smile and nodded. "But I need you to realize that whatever so-called friendship I had with Mason is now over and I don't want to spend my time reminiscing over something that was nothing but a game. I don't think Mason is important enough to be thought over."

I meant every word I said to Amber, I was done with Mason Clarke and anything that involved him. Mason had insulted our friendship - a friendship that meant the world to me but nothing to him. For a moment I thought that maybe I had overreacted and should've given him a chance to at least explain himself to me but when I saw the change in him the next week I changed my mind. Mason was a whole different person, he was arrogant and cocky and when I made my way to go speak to him, he didn't even glance my way. He instead grabbed Ashley's hand and told her he didn't want to be surrounded by ordinary, nobody's before brushing pass me as if I were a stranger he'd never seen before. From that day forth I knew our friendship was officially over and I had to start worrying about other more important things rather than a broken friendship that wasn't real in the first place.