Page 13 of Bitten Vampire
I turn to face them, keeping my arms at my sides, relaxed. I want to fold them defensively across my chest, but I refuse to give in to the urge. Body language is everything in this situation, and I don’t want her to think she’s getting to me or that I’m scared. I give both women my best non-expression.
“Yes, that’s her,” she sneers, her blue eyes—so similar to her son’s—narrowing with disdain as she assesses me. She casts a scornful glance at my casual clothes, her lips curling in distaste. My outfit can’t compete with her immaculate designer suit and perfectly coiffed grey hair.
The urge to defend myself to this woman is almost overwhelming.Come on, Fred, you no longer need to be polite.“Are you still slandering me, Theresa?” The words spill out before I can stop them.
“Slander? It is not slander if it is true.”
“Is it true?” I challenge. “Where’s your evidence?” I raise my hands, tapping my wrists together to mimic handcuffs. “Where are the police? If I’m a thief, shouldn’t I have been arrested? No one’s knocking down my door, because it is not true. You are a liar.”
“What Jay ever saw in you, short, fat?—”
I stop listening. When I was younger, her venom might have broken me. But I’m not that sweet woman anymore.
Years of enduring her sharp tongue have hardened me, and now I’m confident in who I am. My sense of self can still wobble a bit, but I know my worth. Someone like her, who finds it acceptable to fat-shame, lie, and sabotage someone’s career merely because they left her son, will never understand.
Her cruelty comes from weakness, not strength.
I stand a little straighter, as though a steel rod runs along my spine. Even though she’s taller, I tilt my head so I’m looking down on her and tune back in.
“I am so glad Jay did not marry you.” She turns to her friend and scoffs. “Could you imagine her in our family? Good God. Melissa, his fiancée, is so much more his equal—she’s got a degree. She’s smart.”
I have a degree. I’m smart.
She must be disappointed that I’m not reacting the way she hoped. I already know about her precious son’s wedding.
“And Melissa is an absolute marvel. They have been together for a year, and he knows she’s the one?—”
I freeze. What? A year?
They’ve been together for a year?
But… but I left him almost five months ago. He cheated on me? No—that can’t be right.
Come on, Fred, stop being so naïve. Of course he did!He’s a forty-four-year-old spoilt child who wants what he wants when he wants it.You are not so observant now, are you?my inner voice snarls. When it comes to Jay, I stopped listening to my screaming inner voice years ago. I thought I was perceptive; I even believed I had some supernatural gift. A gift? What a joke. There’s nothing special about me.
How many other women did he cheat on me with?
Everything warps around me. My ears and nose feel blocked. The weight of her words crushes my chest, and the world distorts, as though I’m at the bottom of a swimming pool.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry in front of this woman.
“After everything I did for him,” I mumble. “I didn’t think he would cheat.”
“Pardon?” Jay’s mum snarls. “Cheat? How can you cheat on a placeholder?”
Ouch.
“Don’t you dare speak about my son.” She strides forward, heels clicking on the tiles. With a sharp nail, she jabs my breastbone. “You.”Poke. “Are.”Poke. “Useless.”Poke. “An embarrassment.”Poke. “Not good enough for my son.”Poke. “Of course he replaced you. What do they call it, Margaret?” She glances at her friend, who only gapes back at us.
“That’s right,” Theresa continues. “Monkey branching, that is the term. We did not have words like that in my day, but now it is everywhere. He kept you on a leash while hetested out his new fiancée.” She smiles coldly. “Best decision he ever made, getting rid of you.”
“I left him,” I say quietly, my voice thick with the weight of it. Where she poked me, there’s a sharp throb. When she jabs me again, I swat her hand away. I rub my chest, suddenly furious. “Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
Behind the counter, my order’s called. I turn away, grab the bag with a “thank you” and then get the heck out of there. I’ve got a job to do. Thanks to her, I’m not sitting in a fancy office somewhere, doing the work I trained for. I’ll be damned if she’s going to make me lose this job too.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me!” Theresa screeches.
I pay her no mind and keep walking. Her voice rises behind me, but I don’t listen. I leave the restaurant via the side door, hurry to my car, and in a daze, drive to drop off the order.
