Midway through the last Friday before New Years Eve you'd imagine the Covington students would be packing their bags, shopping for last-minute gifts, or even already boarded a flight home to visit family members and settle in early. Instead a couple dozen of Covington's finest were sitting in the star bucks conveniently located on campus.
The most popular items that were currently being consumed were the seasonal drinks such as the Gingerbread Latte or even the peppermint mocha; the choices were endless and were a great add-on to the typical hang-out place for most of the students.
Maryse, Barbie, and Maria were sitting on the left side of the shop. Although they were all having the mutual conversation their minds were in completely different places. Maryse was blabbering on and on about all of Mike's flaws. Even though Maryse claims she isn't still bitter about being dumped Barbie and Maria both know that was anything but true and that every emotion Maryse felt towards Mike was built up by bitterness.
Barbie was distracted by the man sitting on the right hand side of the coffee shop, Dolph. It's been months since the last time they had spoken and they didn't exactly leave on good terms. It felt unnatural for Barbie to go on without Dolph obsessing over her 24/7, a great part of her missed it. Her blue eyes narrowed as she observed the interactions between the man and his female companion.
'Ha, AJ…talk about a down grade.' The blonde bombshell thought to herself. All she saw when she looked at the 80 pound obsessed woman was pale skin and griddle bones, knotted black frizz for hair, and a horrible dorky personality. A part of Barbie was angered by the downgrade but a massive part of her felt the weight of jealousy taking over, this was an emotion that she ran into too often.
Maria's focus however was on a much milder topic; all her brain could process at the moment was the tragedy of her broken fingernail and how incomplete her manicure now looked. Unlike her other friends there really wasn't any drama going on in her life, it was almost as if she shut off all her emotions by cutting out her past life. The last time she talked to Eve was over two weeks ago, Eve never stayed up past 12 o'clock on a school night and Maria never appeared at her dorm before 1 am so things worked out for Maria swimmingly. Without Eve constantly begging her to go out with her and the guys she never had to see Phillip's face, which was preferred.
"Excuse me ladies, I've been calling your number for a while now. I know you expect me to wait on you but that's not really my job."
Like magic all heads turned over to their companion John Cena, Maryse quickly noticed that he wasn't carrying their three ordered cups of coffee. Of course the French Canadian didn't even take in acknowledgement the annoyed expression that covered John's face. Her relationship with the quarter back was fickle, at times she really enjoyed his presence but at other times even the way he breathed made her irritable, this was one of those times.
"Well sorry John but if you couldn't tell we were in the middle of a conversation, now tell me, where is my peppermint mocha?"
"Oh it's on the counter with your name on it, you see when a customers beverage is ready that's when you, as the customer, are supposed to get up off of your lazy ass, walk over, and get it yourself." With that Maryse's jaw dropped 10 feet which left him with a bit of satisfaction and that extra oomph to continue on, "Now you ladies have about 60 seconds before I poor these drinks down the drain, okay? Okay."
As he left Maryse in awe the whole room was silent, it was as if they all bought front row seats to see if the almighty Maryse would cave and back down, and surprisingly she did.
With burdened shoulders and a shrunken ego the French Canadian stood up, walked over to the drinks in silence, grabbed them and looked at John with one of those signature bitchy looks of hers and spat, "you didn't want to test me John, truly you didn't."
Un-phased by the comment, the young student smirked that swift smirk of his and headed back to the kitchen to complete the rest of the orders, leaving the dining area in silence. Well, silent until there was a chuckle from the right side of the café.
"I guess this is my cue to leave then." Dolph stood up with a continued chuckle from his lips, "Come on AJ."
The pair began to walk out of the café, they both felt a mutual gaze on them but Dolph was the one who chose to turn and look to see who it was staring at them. That was when his blue eyes connected to Barbie's. He had to admit, it was kind of shocking to be receiving this type of attention and treatment from the woman lately, he was used to being her second choice. It was as if Mr. Popularity wasn't on her to-do list anymore and she could finally see clearly.
In a moment of weakness, Barbie decided to turn her head away to make it seem as if she wasn't focusing all her attention on him. She didn't want to be viewed as the chaser but instead the one being chased but at this moment Barbie didn't care, the blonde had spent too long pushing him away, now it was her time to push a bit.
After about five seconds she readjusted to see that Dolph's viewpoint hadn't changed and she was still the focus of his attention. Battling with the butterflies in her stomach Barbie offered a smile and a wave, it was her icebreaker. He waved back but there was no smile pursed across his lips, everything he wanted to say was said with his lifeless eyes. It was as if he didn't care anymore, which broke the spirit of the 'all-American perfect' girl.
With a bruised pride Barbie stood up from her stool and frowned, "I think I'm going to go too." Her companions waved her off, not even paying her an inch of attention. Maryse was caught up in sipping the life out of her latte while Maria rolled her eyes at the phone in her hands. Barbie let out a heavy sigh, but as she expected, they didn't notice that either eventually she found her way out of the coffee shop.
The stilettos' that were on Barbara's feet made a heavy collision with the pavement, causing her presence to echo around the whole campus. Only a few minutes of searching paid off because the woman finally found her target of interest, Dolph.
The bleached blonde was sitting with AJ on a bench overlooking the lunchroom entrance, once her shoes quieted down what they were saying became very vocal and clear.
"I like watching those Barbie dolls fall flat in defeat sometimes." AJ giggled while running her hand through her silky black hair. "It makes me feel superior knowing that those snobs sometimes come face to face with reality."
"I don't know if I'd call them Barbie dolls, just because they doll themselves up doesn't make them any better or worse than us. Don't get me wrong though, watching Maryse get played out like that is hilarious." Dolph chuckled, exhaling the fresh hair in fluently.
"That's funny for you to say, because if you don't remember you were head over heels for Mrs. Barbie Blank for about a year due to her petty Mrs. Perfect charm."
Dolph's eyes slimmed as he looked at his friend with an annoyed expression, "It's like you didn't even hear the last bit of what I told you about Maryse, yes I liked Barbie. Everyone knows it and actually, everyone else did too… but it doesn't have to be up for discussion every time her name is mentioned."
"I just think it's kind of hypocritical to say girls like that aren't paraded to be better than girls like me when you're the biggest example for it."
"Why are you even being brought up into discussion? Why are you comparing yourself to Barbie, you're two different people."
With a moan of disgust April just shook her head abruptly and added on, "I don't know. I just don't like her. This girl hurt you badly, she's too snobby, too arrogant, too…Barbie doll."
"Ah, using the parallels of my name and the label of the doll to insult me. Clever move, should I give you a standing ovation?" Quickly AJ's head turned to look at her nemesis standing with crossed arms.
"Speak of the bottle blonde devil."
"Wow, bottle blonde devil? Those are fighting words; I'm actually a natural blonde sweet heart." The distance between the women decreased as Barbie stepped over to the wooden bitch that the two sat on, a small chuckle came from her glossed lips before she continued on. "Look AJ, I know your insecurities are high but why do you always seem to take it out on me? Oh yes, I almost forgot that you're ridiculously jealous of me for a bundle of reasons."
"Jealous of you," the Latina spat out in anger "you're very funny."
"Oh don't be so naive, you know what I'm talking about. It kills you that you're little love interest here had feelings for me. I find it amusing how you like to play in that 'I hurt him' to make you seem any less desperate for his attention."
With those words the expression on Dolph's face changed tremendously, "Wait, love interest… do you mean me?"
"Oh come on Dolph, you're gorgeous but you're not dumb. You can't even pretend like you didn't have the slightest idea that you're best friend over here has had feelings for you for the past year. It's called honesty and reality is it'd be better for AJ's well being to not be dragged along any longer."
Then the atmosphere became completely silent, he couldn't possibly deny it. He knew what Barbie was saying was true, about AJ's feelings and such, but he didn't want to accept it.
"Now, I was coming over here to talk to you Dolph about your plans this Saturday but now I feel like me bringing that up would not only be completely awkward but also a complete shut down because of me chewing up your best friend and spitting her right on out…I guess I don't like it when people who I have never spoken to in my entire life talk bad about me every hour. It all eventually builds up and I feel it's needed for me to stand up and defend myself."
Making her goodbye just as monumental as the entrance, Barbie brushed the golden locks over her bronzed shoulder and escorted out of there causing the clatter of her shoes and the payment once again.
Each step she took was her own way of covering up the massive embarrassment that she was feeling. Barbie was a human, a female none the less, an insult no matter what it was or who it was from left a stain on her heart. It also didn't help to know that there was absolutely no one that she could resort to. Barbie and Maria weren't close and Maryse surely just didn't care.
The people left on that park bench were sitting in silence, they both attempted to think up ways to break the awkward tension but they both failed.
"Maybe I should just go?" The woman sighed, standing up on her two feet.
"You don't need too…"
"Yes, actually I do. See you later then?" With an effortless smile AJ was off leaving Dolph to soak in his own disappointment.
"Why are you looking at your phone like it's the carrier of everything disgusting, ever?" Maryse asked, looking at her friend with a raised brow.
With rolled eyes the redhead momentarily answered, "Eve has been texting me nonstop the past hour and she's just annoying the hell out of me. It's like she can't take a hint, you know?"
The moan of disgust that came from Maryse signified that she knew exactly what Maria was talking about. "I don't like her, every time I see her she's completely up Mike's ass like a whore. Ugh, and she always plays that see-through Mrs. Perfect act, it's sickening really."
"I know what you mean; Eve was like that with Phillip all last year until he got with Barbs. It's pathetic really."
"Cheers to that."
The two women smiled cheeringly while colliding their two Styrofoam cups together, it didn't take long for them to get back onto the topic of Maryse and Mike, like always. After minutes of listening to the endless banter even Maria's drink became bitterer. A saving grace was needed to get Maryse to finally stop coming and the saving grace had came, even if it wasn't what the redhead had preferred.
"Maria, I need to talk to you."
Her green eyes connected to the brown ones of the man to her right, Phillip. The moan that was released from her lips was almost like a reflex now, this was surely not what she expected nor wanted.
"Excuse me, Punk me and Maryse were talking about important things."
"Yeah, well Maryse never talks about anything important so I'm sure I can take you away for just a second." The tatted man muted out all of Maryse's annoying comebacks and skipped ahead to grabbing Maria's arm and pulling her away to somewhere a bit more private to condensate with her.
Like he had already expected, Maria pulled her arm aggressively away from his grip within seconds. "What the hell do you want? If you couldn't tell I don't really want to see you."
"I know you don't hide it even slightly. I just wanted to make it right, tell you everything I've been hiding and maybe we can get that clean slate I've been searching for and you and I can finally be friends again. What do you say?"
With arms crossed the message she tried to perceive was self explanatory, in time he decided to continue on.
"I know it wasn't right or fair of me not to be completely honest with you about everything…especially because you were so open with me, not to mention you were and still are considered to be one of my best friends. We were supposed to share everything with one another and it wasn't nice of me to keep this from you-"
"Please get to the point before I become even more frustrated and throw my drink in your face for getting me heated up again, okay?"
"Okay, sorry...it's just the girl that I've had feelings for, the girl that I hid from you…was Eve all along and I'm so sorry for not letting you know sooner."
The daggers that were in the Latinas green eyes now decreased into small withering puddles of disappointment, anything would have been better to hear then Eve's name. The thought just make her sick to her stomach but at the same time how could she not have expected that? It was so obvious; did her feelings for the man in front of Maria make her so oblivious to see the obvious truth?
"Eve?"
"I know you're mad and everything but I'd truly appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone, especially not Eve. I couldn't possibly deal with her knowing, especially not now with all that's been going on."
"You don't want me to tell poor precious Eve?" Anger filled up every pound that the woman consisted of. If her fingers weren't trembling her eyes were watering over and if it wasn't one or the other it was both. A heavy, bitchy laugh left Maria's lips when she built up the nerve to speak up again. "Do you even realize what you're asking me right now? Do you not realize how embarrassing this is for me?"
"I'm just trying to be honest with you, you can't be mad at me for not choosing you."
"Actually, that's where you're wrong. I definitely can be mad at you, Good-bye dick. Leave me be please." With teary eyes Maria left the coffee shop with the remaining bits of dignity she had left, this ongoing battle with overcoming this guy added a whole other layer.
Five reviews please?
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you had an even better holiday. Five reviews for another chapter. Next chapter things heat up even more, there will even be two parts!