Once Upon A Bet

/30/ Needless

Dedicated to amber_twirlingpages, for the amazing support so far <333

My mother.

She was here.

She was freaking here!

How? I couldn't breathe nor think, all my being tensing in anticipation of what she might do. My mother looked completely out of place in that familiar cafe; impeccable as always: perfect hair, perfect nails, make up, clothes... even her expression was stoic and perfect if you weren't the receiver of that murderous glance. But I was and my guts curled painfully with all the anxiety I'd barely managed to fight so far.

But then I noticed another woman by her side, a short brunette with a permanent frown: Mrs Lavast. I'd seen her often at the Country Club, always hovering around my mother. Her vicious tongue preceded her.

"See?" she was whispering to my mother, throwing me a disapproving look and I felt my whole body both growing cold and hot, numb in anticipation as my head spun. "I'd told you it was her."

"Can see that, Polly. Thanks." even her tone sounded calm, but I knew better than that.

I knew she wanted to scream at me like there was no tomorrow, grounded me 'till I was old enough to be a nanny and throw my phone away just in case. But she couldn't since we were in a public place.

I barely noticed the few people in the cafe paying attention to this little scene, attracted by the stuck-up demeanor of my mother as she kept her chin high. Her gaze fell slowly to my clothes and scrunched her nose in disgust making me curled more over myself, folding my arms shakily as if that would conceal anything.

"Novella." again, my name in that tone made me shiver even through the drumming in my ears as the worst apprehension slid through my veins like liquid ice and I wanted nothing more than for the earth to shallow me and never let me go. She couldn't create a scene, but she also couldn't let me go unscratched. Not in front of Mrs Lavast, and the three of us knew it. I could see it in the smug look of the woman and my mother's narrowing eyes. "This is unacceptable."

I flinched, slouching in the bench under the weight of each unsaid word and harsh look. Reading clearly as day what she really wanted to say through the carefully chosen words she was obliged to publicly mutter in order to content Mrs Lavast. If the word spread around through the woman's vicious tongue that I'd been allowed to go around like this without a proper reprimand it wasn't only mine or my mother's reputation at risk, but the Jensen's. And if something my mother valued over everything, that was the conscientious perfect image of our family she's struggled to project all this time.

So I pressed my lids trying to loosen the clenching in my chest as her lecturing proceed. In front of the short woman, in front of Jake... if she kept it up any longer we would gain more attention and embarrassment was already choking me from inside.

"-Undressed at this time in the morning, in such a place." she hissed shaking her head and I felt myself sinking more and more in my humiliation, ten times worse than how I felt when Jake made me step out the car in the first place. I knew I shouldn't have left that car. "I'm so disappointed. Get up."

"Mother-"

"I don't want to hear it. Up now, we're leaving."

Not wanting to cause a bigger scene and under the glowers of both my mother and Mrs Lavast I slowly did as she commanded, my head down.

"It's my fault, Mrs Jensen." Oh no. My blood froze when Jake decided to speak. What is he up to now? I tried to catch his eyes and silently plead him to shut up, but he was looking at my mother. "She wanted to go home, but I convince her to came here first." he explained but my mother wasn't having it.