Laura’s POV 138
Mellisa’s face clouded over.
“Laura,” she said softly, half-heartedly, “this isn’t like you either.”
“Once upon a time you were kind and considerate and wouldn’t say such shady things to hurt your family!”
“Now you think I’m shifty?” I bristled, “That’s because I don’t think kindness can be exchanged for anything at all, including the warmth of loved ones!”
“You …”
“Mom!” I was a little chilled, “Why did you do that? You clearly know how Fryday harmed me in the past, why do you still let her in the door! Is it that in your heart, a daughter is never more important than a son? I will never be as important as Carter?”
“What are you talking about!” She glared at me, “You’re so old, why are you still fighting for favor in front of your parents like a little kid?”
“Because I’ve never been favored by my parents!” I shouted, “I don’t know what it’s like to be spoiled by my parents!”
I felt this conversation turn extremely ironic.
Tears welled up in my eyes as my heart suddenly sank. “Mom, can you spoil me for once, Fryday is my arch nemesis, she has harmed me several times, can you not let her be my sister-in-law?”
“Laura, you …”
There was a flash of guilt in Mellisa’s eyes.
She sat down gently beside me and stroked my hair tenderly, a warmth that was so far away that I subconsciously flinched and tried to escape when she first touched me.
“You and Carter, you’re both the same in Mommy’s heart.” She said softly, “Laura, I feel more guilt towards you … If you think I’ve been unfair, it’s probably because you weren’t around me growing up.”
“As for your brother and Fryday, it’s settled, so will you stop fooling around?”
“Me fooling around?” I looked at her, thinking how strange this woman was.
“Fryday, even though she’s a thousand times worse, she’s done The Lynch Family a great service.” Mom’s eyes narrowed slightly, her complexion faint, “She is without background or power, a child of a poor family, and has spent so much time in the show business kind of fish and dragons, and is not a clean … person, but she has done your brother a great favor, and is also a great favor to The Lynch Family. It can be said that without her, your brother might have been counted dead in that big prison!”
“What?” I mentally shuddered.
“Isn’t that … that weird?” I wondered, “Carter got out and it wasn’t Becky who helped?”
“Becky certainly played a bit of a role, but the main thing is still Fryday,” Mom sighed, “Laura, you’ve always thought that your brother kidnapped you on purpose, but haven’t you ever thought about it? you’re siblings, after all, and your blood is thicker than water, so even if he kidnapped you in a moment of confusion, could he really have Would he really kill you with a gun? You and Carter grew up together, his character does have dark places, but he is not so heartless to his family!”
“Heh, he didn’t mean it? That makes it my fault?” I laughed coldly.
All in all, Mom’s words were all in Carter’s favor.
Not to say that women in The Sterling Family have no place, things aren’t much better in The Lynch Family!
“Think about it.” Mom patted me on the shoulder, “Let’s not talk about your brother, but what are your plans for marriage? Are you still going to marry Rafael?”
I scowled.
“I heard you’re going to Southeast Asia with Cameron?”
I raised my eyes, “Heard that from Fryday?”
“Don’t care who I heard it from, I just wanted to ask you, are you really going with him?”
“It might be a good way out too.” I replied absently.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.
Mellisa’s face darkened.
I knew for sure she didn’t approve. She hated Cameron, and no matter what Cameron’s last name was, it didn’t change the fact that she hated him.
But the more she disapproved, the more I wanted to do it.
It’s sad to think that I get along with my own mother like this.
I stood up to say goodbye and Mellisa didn’t see me off, but stood silently in the living room. I felt her looking at me, and that gaze made me cold and sour, but then I thought of her favoritism towards Carter, and I ran out of the house quickly and without a care in the world.
I didn’t expect to run into someone in the yard.
“Laura?” asked Fryday, taking off her sunglasses and seeming a little surprised.
“I was just leaving.” I said coldly.
“Hey, wait first!” Fryday caught up, “No wonder Auntie called me and said she wanted me to come over to explain things … to you!”
I raised my eyes to look at her, “Explain what?”
“Go, go to the backyard to talk!” She ordered the maid as she walked, “Backyard flower room, send some black tea and dessert over! The black tea should be Big Red Robe, and the dessert should be two pieces of avocado pastry.”
Before we even walked in the door, we were acting like hostesses.
We went to the glass flower room, where The Lynch Family keeps orchids, the most expensive of which is worth about six figures. The Lynch Family has always kept orchids, the most expensive of which is worth about six figures. They are delicate and not hardy, so this light-filled flower room is dedicated to them, and has since been converted into a small lounge. With bookshelves and sofas, sipping afternoon tea and reading a novel in a cozy room was the most luxurious time of my youth.
Fryday took off his jacket and greeted me, “Sit down!”
I laughed softly, “I’m much more familiar with everything here than you are.”
She paused and chimed in with the same smile. “Yes, of course you are more familiar than me, this is your mother’s home! Feel free to come back more often when you have time in the future!”
She said this in a sheepish way, meaning that I was going to marry too, and that she was the only one who could be the mistress of this house.
“Fryday,” I said, “there is no point in arguing with you, but I still want to tell you, as long as you and Carter are not married, you do not want to be the master of this house! You should still have a little sense of proportion as a human being. Quasi-sister-in-law and sister-in-law, only one word difference, but the meaning is too far apart. What’s ‘permitted’ can turn out to be ‘not permitted’, you should know this very well, you have the experience of being withdrawn from marriage!”
Fryday did not speak, her face flushed a shade of red.
For a long time she wrapped her arms around her chest, “I know you don’t see me in a good light, and I’ve never seen you in a good light. But this is also fate, not enemies do not get together! In fact, I didn’t think about marrying Carter at first, because I didn’t want to get involved with you. But then I thought, marrying him doesn’t mean I have to live with you, and I, too, really need to find a rich family to deliver the rest of my life.”
“Is a mansion really that important?” I asked.
She looked a little sarcastic, “You’ve never been poor, you don’t understand.”
“I’ve been poor …”
“You that is considered poor?” She laughed and laughed, and there were tears in the corners of her eyes, “Laura, forget it, when have you ever been poor? You’ve been poor enough to go to New Avalon part-time and live in the sunshine! Do you know what it means to be poor? Do you know what it’s like to watch a loved one have no money for medical treatment, to watch him die in front of you?”
I was shaken.
Even when she was crying, she was forcing a smile.
And it was as if I had unintentionally uncovered a deep scar on her body.
Fryday kept smiling, but the corners of her eyes were wet.
This woman who had always been flighty and domineering suddenly made me feel pity.
The maid brought refreshments as she ordered, she picked up a piece of avocado pastry and gently bit into it, smiling, “You know what? I didn’t even know avocado before I entered the acting industry, much less thought that one day, I would be sitting in the back garden of a posh family, taking avocado pastry as afternoon tea!”
She talks about her birth.
She is not from Jerez State, her hometown is in a small mountain village. It was surrounded by mountains and closed to transportation, and people lived in near isolation, many of them never stepping out of the mountains in their lives. Their ancestors have lived a very primitive life, farming, cattle and sheep, relying on the sky to eat.
If there is a disaster and there is no harvest in a year, they have to go hungry.
In such a harsh environment, Fryday has developed into today’s such a charming and attractive appearance, in fact, God is still fair.
She said, “I am the oldest of three children in my family, and I have younger siblings below me. I didn’t go to school for a few years, I didn’t graduate from elementary school because my family couldn’t afford to pay for it, and the idea there was that there was no need for a girl to study a lot, and that she would have to marry sooner or later anyway.”
“If I had given in to fate, we wouldn’t be sitting together right now.” Her eyes looked out the window, “Now I would have probably married into a neighboring village early, exchanged a bride price for my brother, and given birth to a few children, out of shape, with dull eyes, and only knowing how to work every day.”
At that she hummed softly, as if laughing at herself.
“My father was long gone, and my mother dragged the three of us along by herself. In our kind of place, orphans and widows in the family are the most bullied. You can’t even imagine how I suffered through my childhood … When I was fifteen years old, my mom couldn’t stand it and ran away with a man from the neighboring village.”
My heart shook.
Fryday looked bland, like she was telling someone else’s story. “My younger brother was ten years old that year, and my younger sister was eight, so I had no other choice but to take them both with me. I was like those young girls in the village, to earn more money to work in the city, that was my first time to go out.”
“I what kind of dirty work tired work have done, and then in order to take it easy, I can only accompany the foreman to sleep …”
“Fryday …” I heard it and felt bad.
“Heh,” she laughed softly, “for the first time, and I don’t know where to account for it.”
“But even so, I couldn’t save my sister when she was sick …”
Said her voice a little choked.
She hurriedly picked up her teacup and took a big gulp of tea, just like pouring wine, as if pouring it in would solve a thousand sorrows in one drink.
“But God still favors me.” She wiped the corners of her eyes, “At least I’m pretty, and I seem to have a natural sensitivity to acting. Once I went to a theater audition, the casting director picked me right away, even though it was just a group performance with no lines.”
“That’s how I got into the acting world …” she looked at me, “I was lucky to run into George, who was the first man I ever liked, but we didn’t really get along. After he made me famous, we broke up peacefully, and then I met Rafael.”
Her eyes went straight to me, “Laura, Rafael was the first man who was willing to give me marriage. Do you know how much I longed to marry a man like that? I even used a miscarriage to make him feel guilty and compassionate towards me…. What woman doesn’t care about her children? Do you think I’m willing to personally count off my own flesh and blood in my belly?”
“So it’s true?” I was shocked, “Willow said at that time, that carpet in her room would not run to the door of your room for no reason … I also relieved her, saying that you can’t be this kind of person, I didn’t expect you … ”
“Didn’t think I was so vicious, did you?” She sneered.
“Why?” I was incredulous, “This will not do you any good, you hurt your own body, harmed a child, and framed Willow!”
“The only good this will do is make Rafael feel like he owes me forever!” She raised her voice.
However her gaze dimmed again, “But I hadn’t counted on you coming out halfway through the day!”
“I get it all.” I let out a long breath, “I finally understand why you are against me at every turn and why you hate me so much.”
“People are born unequal.” She said softly, “I’ve fought most of my life to get to this point in my life to be able to sit in the bower with you and have afternoon tea, but this is the environment you grew up in. I’ve gone to great lengths to keep Rafael on a leash by having an abortion, but you have no trouble getting his heart … How can you make me not hate?”
“Fryday,” I closed my eyes and tried to say something else to her but nothing came out.
“Laura, I actually still hate you now.” She said coldly, “But I would prefer you to leave the circle. As you said before, you leaving this circle won’t affect you in any way, but acting is all I have.”
“I really wish you’d get the hell out,” she snorted softly, “Get the hell out to Southeast Asia and be with your Cameron!”
After a long time, I laughed and looked at her, “I don’t hate you so much now. Fryday, you have a good life with Carter. I don’t expect anything else from you, just don’t give my mom a hard time!”
“You don’t have to worry about this. Since I entered this family, I know how to be a good daughter-in-law.”
“Thanks for everything.” I faintly excused myself.
“Wait.” She called out to me.
Her eyes were a little hesitant, but she told me, “There’s something else I want to tell you. Rafael and I are no longer possible, so I’m telling you this entirely from the standpoint of your future sister-in-law … Rafael kind of person, it’s time to leave!”
I was stunned.
She smiled, “You think he really took that bullet for you?”
My heart snapped into my throat.
“Heh, actually, sometimes when I think about it, Rafael and I are really on the same page!” She laughed, “I purposely miscarried in the first place to make him feel guilty about me, so why wouldn’t he play a bitter trick to make you feel guilty about him too? Our tactics are really the same!”
My ears buzzed and my heart never beat so fast.
“What proof do you … have for saying this?”
“Listen for yourself.”
Fryday pulled a small chip out of her bag. “The proof is all here … Don’t ask me how I got it, heck, when I was obsessed with Rafael, I hated to put tracking devices on his entire body. I got this recording from a wire, even he doesn’t know about it!”
I took it, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
I realized why my mother didn’t object to Fryday being her daughter-in-law, and why she said that Fryday had done The Lynch Family a great service … It turned out that all the secrets were hidden in this tiny chip.