I didn’t know what I had done wrong that day or that I had even done anything wrong. There were five of us and we were going to a play but first we stopped at the mall to get some food, as we were all famished. We had gotten our food and were about to leave when two of my friends decided to run off somewhere and the rest of us couldn’t find them. So I called them only to ask where they had gone and if they could come back so we could get going; however,  one of my friends being the short tempered and impatient person he is took the phone from me and began to yell.

 

“Get your asses back here now I don’t want to be late for the show,” he screamed into the phone and hung up violently.

 

They came back and they got in my car while my other two friends got in another and we rode to the play. On the ride there I didn’t say much because I don’t like to speak a lot and I was enjoying the music.

 

What I did say was, “where did you guys run off to?”

 

“Hot Topic, we were hiding behind the rack at the door to see if you would notice us.” she spat in a rather annoyed and arrogant manner.

 

“Well evidently we didn’t.” I jested.

 

She was not amused by that.

 

When you are a person of few words your silence often gets mistaken for anger and hatred and so it was.  We went to the play and all was fine, or so I thought. I returned the next day only to find that one of my friends was acting differently. She was avoiding me in a way, unfortunately that was the last day before a break and it was a  busy day and I didn’t get the opportunity to talk to her about what bothered her and she refused to talk over text about it.

 

When school resumed I went through the first day and all was fine, until the end. She called me into a part of the hall where no one else was and started to acaust me about all the wrongs I had done her, about how I had yelled at her and how I reminded her of her father, amongst other incoherent babblings that were wrapped in tears and a feigned attempt at getting me to pity her. She wanted me to apologise – so I did but not for anything she accused me of because it was all false I apologise that our friends yelled and for the fact that my silence was mistook for anger but I was not going to apologise for things I had not done. I learned that day that apologies are mere niceties used to pacify the furious and soothe the sorrowful.

 

After that she spread things about me, Awful things, things that I care not to repeat. That was the day that I learned that there were very few people in the world I could trust that the people you thought you could trust only end up stabbing you in the back. But in the end it showed me something the way the cards fall may not always be in your favour but if you take the chance to sense what may come down the river you can always change the game just a little, enough to turn four cards with no meaning into a hand full of aces.

 

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