“The what?” I ask.
“It’s a secret club where the rich and famous meet and party. “No one knows anything, but everyone wants part of it, some say even Royals are members,” Bella says, and as I look more puzzled with every word she says,
“Come on, Mia.” The speculations are in the tabloid every month. She’s an institution. Her family is one of the wealthiest in Britain, and she is friends with all the people you know from magazines only.”
“My dear Bella,” I say, “We have been living here together for more than seven years now. When will you finally understand that I’ll open a tabloid the day someone holds a gun to my head and tells me to read it, or I die.”
Bella laughs, I don’t.
“You’re missing all the fun,” she says. “Damnit, I wish you hadtold her to come inside. That would be a great story. Tea with Victory Fitzroy in a Greenwich two-bedroom flat. That would be a headline.”
I groan and get back to my room.
I snuggle back into my blanket, lift the clingy one of my cats on my lap and open a book. But I can’t focus on the words. My mind wanders off the entire time, and when I read the same passage the tenth time, I give up.
Who the hell does that woman believe she is?
How dare she?
Not knowing me and having an opinion.
I am rarely angry, but this woman causes my chest to be tight from it.
Telling me I don’t feel worthy enough, who is she?
Does she know me? No.
How I hate rich people!
It has been the same behaviour my mother had grown into after she left my father and married that rich arsehole. He has made her even worse. Money makes people the biggest arseholes. They crush souls, destroy our planet, believe they’re above everyone else and cross boundaries like this.
My fingernails dig painfully into my palm.
I have a stable job, I am a nice person, I help my neighbours, I teach children how to be kind and empathetic, for god’s sake, and that woman comes here and calls me things.
I should have said no to Robert.
That entire thing was what started it.
Robert.
Urgh.
Only then do I remember how all of that could happen. That man. Talks only about himself, asks me no questions, and then tells me he had a great time and that we should do it again.
That Victoria woman was right about that,tells a voice in my head to me.
“But that doesn’t mean everything else is right, too,” I say out loud, trying to shove my thoughts away.
Only my mind doesn’t let me.
If I were completely honest with myself, which I am not, I’dacknowledge she’s right. I don’t have much self-worth; my mother has taken care of that. If I had self-worth, I’d eat in front of other people. I would’ve said no to Robert. But I don’t. Because I am a kind person who thinks of others.
So, what if I have low self-worth?
What does it matter to her if I am okay with it? I have to live with myself, and I am doing just fine.
Everything was fine until that woman opened her mouth and came here. I have everything I need. Peace. Quiet. My cats. Books. There is not much else I need from life.
