Can The Player PLAY The Player?

Point 13.

A.M

"What made you want to come to the mall with me?"

I slid my phone into my pocket as Kylene stood next to me, peering around the many stores in awe. "I just moved here during the summer and I haven't had a chance to go out and go shopping," She clicked her teeth before continuing. "I also wanted to get Zaid something for his mom since her birthday is coming up," She said it like it was nothing and I fought like hell to keep the scowl from making its presence known on my face.

"Oh yeah, you know Katrine?" I grumbled, feeling spite creep up my spine like a sudden itch. "Yes! Zaid introduced me to her when she came by during our study hall, looking for Mrs. Neal," She simplified and I rolled my eyes, grinding my teeth. "Great."

Not that it bothered me because it didn't, I just noticed how awfully close she and Zaid were becoming. 

Kylene narrowed her eyes behind her glasses as we walked into Tommy Hilfiger, hiding a smirk. "You shouldn't be wary of him or me, Aaron. You have no competition," I took that in the way that meant that I was far superior to him in this bet and I nodded in agreement. "Of course. I'm the king of Northvale," I winked, walking to go look at a rack full of shirts. She raised a brow, indicating that she wasn't talking about the same thing, but she disregarded it after.

She snorted before picking out a few things to purchase as did I. I was lucky to be me because I got a cashier's discount once she rang up my charges and I didn't have to pay that much. Kylene gave me a glare as I walked out with three bags for the price of one. She called it conning, I called it making use of who I was. We went to a few more stores, buying things and sharing jokes before she decided that she was hungry.

It was then when we were chomping down on cinnamon sugar pretzels, that she turned to me to ask a question. 

"What do you think of Zaid?"

I made a face at her. "What do you mean, what do I think of that fool?" I grunted, immediately disgusted at the fact that she had the nerve to ask him about him. "Ignoring all reasons why I currently detest him, He was—is my best friend," I sighed heavily, displeased with myself. Even if I was angry with him, I wasn't going to deny that he was still very much so part of my life, and he will always be. 

"It's hard to shake off a bond so deep like ours because it's been ingrained in us for years. He's clueless, prone to accidents," I recalled a time where he tripped on a rock as we were hiking up a mountain, and he didn't think that it would turn into a very painful sprain that had him out of commission for two weeks. "Nosy as hell, stupid," I snorted at all of the memories we had bundled up inside of our minds, just waiting to explode in the form of words.

"But there is a reason why he's my best friend and not anyone else's."

He figured out his own way of getting me to calm down when my temper got the best of me, something my parents are still trying to do to this day. He told me that whenever I got so angry when he wasn't around, just think of the time when he fell off the monkey bars in 5th grade. I would go from being angry to rolling around the floor, laughing like an idiot. He always knew what to say and I could trust him with any secret. That was purely why I was still hesitant about forgetting about him because a good best friend was hard to find, and finding family in someone like that was especially harder. 

"He is a pain in my ass, don't forget that," I proclaimed in a serious manner because that was one thing that people had to know about Zaid. 

"That's a side of him that only I had the privilege of seeing. I don't mean to boast, but we are the most transparent with each other than we are with our own parents," I attested to that because it was so true.