The Bet I Lost

EXTRA CHAPTER: Unkown Caller

One week after.

I had bought a new phone since I broke mine a week ago. My dad wasn't happy he didn't have any way of screaming at me. When I walked into his office he seemed a bit distracted. I cleared my throat and he looked at me.

"Blake" it was the first time my dad said my name without screaming. I sat down in front of him "One of the files you sent had an error, I sent it back, fix it for today" I nodded. He was going to say something else but stopped "you can go" I stood up and walked out.

I had a class in two hours so I decided to eat lunch at the diner and then go to class. Cheryl had lunch with me. She knew about Tina and eventually I told her about the bet. She told me it was a very immature thing to do but that we both were to blame. 

With practices and class I tried to keep myself busy and not think about Tina. Ivan had made me work extra hard in the house because of my behavior that night. I signed up for Kick-Boxing and tried to keep my days as full as possible. Ivan restricted the parties to Fridays and Saturdays and not everybody was happy. I got into a fight with Elias and his brother Francis, turns out they planned the bet because Elias had a crush on Tina and Tina never payed attention to him. Francis just straight up didn't like me and wanted to see me suffer. 

Class was done soon and I drove to the gym for my kick-boxing class. Jonathan greeted me and we started practicing me. He made an excepting for me and gave me private classes. I really needed to control my anger or Ivan would kick my sorry ass out of the house. He warned me again when I got off the hospital that night. 

"Blake, how are you?" Jonathan asked me when we were done. I smiled and took a sip of water. 

"I'm good, thanks Jonathan" I left and drove to the diner to have dinner. 

Cheryl was free at nights so I had dinner with Janice and Robert. It felt almost as going home every time I walked into the diner. They were always warm and welcoming and had a nice thing to say every time. 

On my way home my phone rang in my gym bag but I couldn't get it. I parked in front of the house and walked upstairs to take a shower. Ivan saw me walking to my room from the bathroom and asked me how my day went. Since that night Ivan had become more of a friend and I really appreciated it. 

I walked inside my room and heard my phone ringing again. I looked for it inside the bag and got it. It was an unknown caller.

"Hello?" I said drying off my hair. 

"Blake" It was a woman's voice I didn't recognize "hello, it's me Clarisa, your mom" the towel fell from my hands I stared at the wall unable to move "hello?" she spoke again.

"Yeah, I'm here" I said sitting on the bed. 

"I've been trying to talk to you for weeks now but your dad told me not to" she sighed "I hope I'm not calling in a bad moment" she said. I was still in shock.

"No, but what do you want?" I sounded very defensive but what the fuck could she want 19 years after she left? She sighed.

"I understand if you don't want to talk to me, you're in all you're right but I want you to hear the reason why I left" she paused "Your dad is an abusive man"

"No joke" I said with irony. 

"I know you probably know about that more than me" she continued "I had to get away from him before he hurt one of your brothers" hold on. Brothers?

"Wait, brothers?" I said interrupting her. She sighed and remained quiet for a few seconds.

"Yeah, I have two other sons with another man, they're older than you" she explained calmly "I couldn't let him hurt them, I... I could handle it for a while but then... then it got too much and I was seeing how it affected them so I had to run..." I interrupted her again.

"And forgot you had another son? One that was younger than them?" I felt the anger raising in my body. How could she call me nineteen fucking years later to tell me that she abandoned me to go with my brothers who I didn't even know I had. 

"No, Blake, I didn't forget you, I just couldn't... you reminded me so much of him" I stood up from the bed, my whole body shaking. 

"Don't you fucking say that" she sobbed.

"I left and I got married and I wanted to go and find you but I was afraid he would kill me if he found out"

"Hold on" I said stopping my pacing up and down "you're telling me you left me with my abusive son of a bitch father to go play happy family with another man and my two half brothers?" she babbled. 

"It's not like that, Blake" she started. 

"You know what" I interrupted her "I don't want to hear it"

"Please, Blake" she begged "I want to see you, maybe we can meet to eat lunch together, I'll be in town next week" she sounded hopeful.

"Bye, Clarisa" I hung up and threw my phone on the bed. 

Ivan heard me screaming and rushed into the room. I told him about my mom and the conversation and that was the first time I heard Ivan cursing. I called my dad and we had fight and for the first time my dad didn't scream, I did all the screaming. What hurt me the most was that she compared me to that motherfucker. 

I grew up with so much hatred and violence because that stupid coward couldn't stand up to that motherfucker. She couldn't handle her cute little babies getting hurt. But what about me? Wasn't I her child? How could she call herself a mom?