Chapter 8 - The Trap Closes
The highly professional, incredibly well-dressed waiter quietly approached our massive, highly chaotic table and gently placed the sleek, black leather check presenter directly in the exact center of the white tablecloth.
Without a single, fleeting moment of human hesitation or basic decency, my incredibly abusive father arrogantly, highly aggressively pushed it directly across the wide table straight toward me.
He smirked incredibly widely, showing all of his white teeth, and loudly, incredibly arrogantly announced to the entire table that I could certainly, easily afford to treat my highly loving, deeply supportive family to a nice meal.
The entire, highly bustling private dining room seemed to instantly, violently freeze as the ambient, highly energetic noise completely, entirely faded away into the quiet background.
Sixteen pairs of incredibly greedy, deeply malicious, and highly expectant eyes locked directly, aggressively onto my calm face with overwhelming, highly toxic, and incredibly heavy expectation.
Not a single, solitary person sitting at the massive, sprawling table looked even slightly surprised by this highly aggressive, deeply premeditated, and entirely orchestrated financial ambush.
Not one single person bravely objected to the highly obvious fact that they had just aggressively forced me to completely pay for a massive, gluttonous feast that I did not even remotely participate in.
My mother wore the exact same highly satisfied, deeply arrogant smile she absolutely always had whenever she firmly, highly confidently believed she completely, flawlessly controlled the entire outcome of a situation.
Julian leaned incredibly comfortably back in his highly expensive, deeply plush velvet chair and arrogantly, highly obnoxiously swirled the remaining, highly expensive vintage wine in his heavy crystal glass.
My Aunt Beatriz suddenly, highly conveniently found the melting, clinking ice cubes in her expensive artisanal cocktail to be the absolute most fascinating, highly captivating thing in the entire, vast world.
Everyone was eagerly, highly aggressively watching and entirely waiting for me to completely break down in hysterical tears and totally, pathetically submit to their highly cruel, entirely unreasonable demands.
I slowly, incredibly deliberately reached my hand forward and casually, highly calmly opened the heavy black leather folder to quietly examine the incredibly high final total printed on the receipt.
The neatly printed, highly official restaurant receipt clearly, undeniably displayed a completely staggering, incredibly ridiculous final amount of exactly four thousand three hundred and eighty-six dollars and seventy-two cents.
For a brief, incredibly highly tense, and completely silent moment, I simply, completely calmly stared down at the incredibly large, bold numbers printed clearly on the crisp, pristine white paper.
Then I did something that completely, entirely shattered their highly arrogant, deeply entrenched expectations and permanently, totally ruined their pathetic, highly orchestrated little plan.
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I slowly looked up directly at my incredibly abusive, highly arrogant father and smiled a genuinely warm, incredibly bright, and highly confident, deeply powerful smile.
His highly smug, incredibly arrogant expression immediately, violently transformed into a completely shattered mask of deep, profound confusion and highly visible, rapidly escalating panic.
