"Wow, who's that woman?"
someone's voice suddenly asked. Ximena body's stiffened at the sound. But the embarrassed look on her face was gone as soon as it came. She went back to picking food from the buffet as if nothing had happened.
"Wow, wow..." A woman cast a look at Molly and moved her mouth to the direction of Ximena. "A sparrow will never become a phoenix. Well, someone must have felt happy for having caught herself a rich man in exchange for her body."
The group of women that she was with started giggling when she finished talking. Their laughter was that of mockery.
Molly frowned. She looked at the group of women, and then at Ximena, who was standing casually by her side and was picking a piece of mousse cake into her plate. She was acting like she didn't hear anything.
Molly admired her for her composure and courage. Stay calm in the middle of a storm! That is not easy at all! How do we take cruel words with just a grain of salt? Ximena definitely knew how. Molly turned to look at the women again. They were enraged by the fact that Ximena was just ignoring them. Their face twisted into a grimace.
"Ximena, what a bitch!" One woman sneered, "What does it feel like to be a snake stealing Aaron from Vivi? It must be nice to be the other woman, huh!"
Then Vivi, probably, piped, "Just let it go. It was no one's fault. I lost him and that's that..." Her voice was soft and weak as if that was all she could muster out. Her eyes were welling up with tears. It was obvious that she was the one that got hurt the most in the love triangle that was her, Aaron, and Ximena.
As if they didn't hear Vivi at all, the group of women just started talking badly of Ximena and Aaron. Ximena was just right here and here they were talking so cruelly about her. Ximena, however, graceful as ever, remained calm. She wasn't looking directly at them but she could definitely hear everything.
Molly looked at Ximena, who had just tightened her grip to the food tongs in her hand. As someone who knew nothing about what was happening, Molly knew to suspend her judgment until further notice. But for some reason, she didn't believe a word those women said about Ximena. Even if Ximena had been the other woman - for sure that wasn't the only side of the story. Her relationship with Brian was complicated. Ximena might have her reason as well.
Molly turned to study Vivi, who looked quite naive and pure. But that might have been what she really wanted the people to think of her. For some reason, Vivi reminded Molly of Becky who hid under the pretension of naivety but was really wicked on the inside.
"That's enough!" Molly finally cried, "You're in public. Please be careful of the words that you choose to say. This isn't the time or place to be inappropriate."
"And who are you?" A small girl in a white dress said as she measured Molly up and down. Then she continued before Molly could answer, "Well, I guess it's true, birds of the same feather do really flock together. She got herself another sparrow too! So you must like taking men away from other women too, huh? "
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