Pride

“I want that one. No, that one. No, that one looks prettier.” The little girl with the pigtails runs up and down the display as she points at one cupcake after another. Her mother doesn’t pay her any attention, too busy with texting on her phone.

“Sure, honey. Take whatever you want. Just keep it down,” she tells her daughter in an uninterested tone of voice. “There are other people in the shop.”

Which is not the case if you don’t count Melissa or Natasha and Melissa is sure the woman doesn’t. It shows how much attention she’s giving her surroundings. Melissa would love to slap her and tell her to pay attention to her daughter. But her boss wouldn’t want her to slap her customers, so instead, she decides to just ignore the woman.

She turns to the little girl and smiles at her. “Why don’t you buy all three of them? That way you can eat all three of them and then decide which one you like better.”

The little girl claps her hands and beams at Melissa. The loud sound takes the mother by surprise, causes her to almost drop her phone.

“For goodness sake,” she curses and glares at her daughter. “Don’t scare your mother like that. What did I tell you? No loud sounds. ” She turns to Melissa and smiles at her. “Anything she chooses is good with me.”

Melissa nods her head. The woman’s attention returns to her phone and she starts texting at top speed. It makes Melissa a bit envious, she’s a very slow texter herself.

The pink, velvet and blue cupcakes go into a small pink box with the crest of the bakery on it. Melissa puts a small bow around it and ties it in a way that makes the knot look like a small flower. She hands the box over to the small girl, “Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

Well, at least the girl is polite, unlike her mother. She probably doesn’t do any of the raising. She doesn’t look rich, so it’s probably a mother is a sister who helps her out.

Melissa tells the woman the price of the cupcakes. She doesn’t look up as she walks towards the register. She only puts her phone away to grab her purse from her bag and pulls a debit card from it. While she pays for the pastries, her daughter is standing behind her, a smile that stretches from ear to ear on her face as she looks at the box in her hands.

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

The woman doesn’t say anything back, just walks out of the bakery with a hand around her daughter’s arm, who does say goodbye while she’s dragged over the threshold.

“That girl was cute,” Natasha coos. She leans back against the display, crosses her arms and grins at Melissa. “I bet if I put her in the display with our cupcakes, nobody would see the difference.”

“I think they would,” Melissa tells her friend with a snicker. “She’s a bit big for a cupcake, you see. I don’t think she would even fit.”

“They’ll just think we’re selling a humongous cupcake.”

“Alright, Nath. This conversation is getting weird, even for you. Let’s stop talking about putting girls in the display.” Melissa looks at Natasha with one eyebrow raised and a smile of amusement on her lips. “Have you and Tristan already gone on a date?”

Tristan was a guy at Natasha’s school who she has had a crush on for the past year. Melissa has tried to convince her to ask him out on a date for almost just as long, but up until two days ago, Natasha kept finding excuses not to.

“Yeah, Yesterday,” Natasha tells Melissa. Her eyes wander to where her arms are crossing her stomach. “It wasn’t as great as I’d hoped. He was a bit of an ass, to be honest. Not at all as I’d imagined he would be.”

“That’s the case with most people. They’re often not what you imagine them to be.” Melissa turns around and leans next to Natasha against the display. She puts an arm around her.
“You’ll have better luck next time. Just ask the next guy out sooner so you’ll know right away what he’s like.”

“If it’s best to ask guys out right away, why is it that you haven’t asked out Zayn yet?” Natasha asks, one eyebrow raised.

Melissa adverts her eyes, finding the tiles on the floor suddenly very interesting. “That’s because… it’s because… we don’t quite move in the same circles,” she mutters. “Besides, I don’t really want to get involved with the F4.”

“Isn’t a bit too late for that, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s different. I’m just someone they like to torment at the moment. They’ll move on soon enough.” Her words sound ensure, but Melissa just hopes Natasha can’t detect the uncertainty in her voice. She doesn’t want her friend to worry about her. She turns her head towards Natasha and smiles at her. “That’s why I’m going to go to the party. You know, to speed up the progress. Maybe if the F4 see they can’t crush my spirit, they’ll leave me alone and move on.”

Word is that people stop bullying when they see their jabs don’t have any effect on their victims. It only stands to reason that Natasha thinks that the F4 function just like other people. She doesn’t know any better.

“Are you really sure you should go. What if it’s a trap?” Natasha’s eyebrows are creased in worry.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, is there,” Melissa replies.

—-

The first thing that tips Melissa off that Natasha may be right is the way she’s dressed and the rest of the people in the ballroom aren’t. They’re all wearing expensive dresses and tuxedos, unlike Melissa, who’s wearing a green blouse and hot pants. She’s so underdressed for this party, she could’ve come in her pajamas, it would’ve looked equally ridiculous.

The three girls clearly think so too because they’re doubled over, laughing at Melissa while everybody in the room is watching. Melissa has never felt so humiliated, her face is as hot as a summer sun and she’s trembling all over.

The first able to talk between fits of laughter is the tall redhead. “You look ridiculous. Do you really think a party this expensive has a casual dress code?”

The next one to talk is the blonde. She looks at Mellissa like she’s some insect attached to the bottom of her shoe. “Do you finally understand you have no business being here? Not at this party or at St. Bernard. You’re a disgrace, dragging the name of the school through the mud.”

“No, I leave that to people like you,” Melissa tells the three girls, a sneer on her face. Her hands tremble with anger. “Now, if you don’t mind. There’s a glass of champagne with my name on it.”

Head held high and completely ignoring the hisses of indignation coming from the three monsters in pretty dresses, she walks straight to the refreshment area. People have gone back to chatting and dancing, only sparing her a glance once in a while.

Melissa grabs two glasses. She’s going to need a lot of alcohol to get through this night. One of the glasses is empty within seconds, so Melissa grabs another one. The taste isn’t at all what she imagined, it’s much better.

A guy suddenly immerges from the crowd of people on the dancefloor and he walks up to Melissa. “You’re a pretty girl. What’s your name?”

“Melissa,” she tells him. He’s fit, with dark hair and brown eyes. He has sharp cheekbones and a tan skin that tells Melissa he has Italian roots. “What’s your name? I bet it’s Italian.”

“The name is Domenico. It’s nice to meet you.” The guy holds out a hand, so Melissa shakes it.

Domenico looks Melissa up and down with appreciative eyes. “I like the way you dress. It clear you have your own style. I like that.”

“So, that’s how you do it?”

Fuck, why can’t they just leave Melissa alone?

Melissa turns her head to glare at the tall redhead that walks up to her and Domenico. She and her two friends glare back at her. “Do you have no decency? Stop taking advantage of people.”

“What is she talking about?” Domenico asks Melissa, a look of confusion on his face.

“I’m talking about this girl over here being a skank.” The redhead looks at Melissa with a look of disgust in her eyes. She and her friends are standing next to Domenico, arms crossed and identical looks of anger on their faces. “She sleeps with every rich guy she comes across. She’s only sixteen and she’s already got five abortions.”

Domenico’s eyes grow big with shock. He’s believing the lies these monsters are telling about her. Typical.

‘I’m just… I’m just going to…” he stutters as he backs away. Melissa doesn’t care. Let him run. It’s not as if she cares what this rich guy thinks of her. His opinion is not important.

“It was you, wasn’t it.” Melissa turns to the redhead, her eyes narrowed in anger. “You were the people who wrote on the white board.”

“Wow, bravo. She finally figured it out,” the blonde girl sneers. “I can’t believe you thought we wanted to be friends with the likes of you. You think you’re all that, don’t you. Trying to steal the F4 away from us. They’re meant to marry us, not trash like you. We were raised to marry guys like them. How dare you think you have a chance with Zayn Malik!”

Melissa has always prided herself on having a good aim. Not you don’t need it when the target is as close as the blonde’s face is to the glass in Melissa’s hand that was filled with champagne only a few seconds ago.

“Oh my God, Sarah,” The redhead exclaims, eyes big as she takes in her friend’s soaked face. She turns her heads to glare at Melissa. “How dare you, you filthy…”

“Do you want some champagne too?” Melissa asks, one eyebrow raised. “There’s plenty to go around.”

That shuts the redhead up.

“Just so you know, you can have the F4. I’m not interested. You can marry the bastards for all I care. You deserve each other.”

Melissa throws the glass to the ground in front of the three girls, making it shatter. “Have a nice night. And don’t ever, ever talk to me again.”

And like that, Melissa makes her exit on the most horrible night of her life.

Notes

It seems you guys were right. They weren't to be trusted.
Please let me know what you think.