Laura’s POV 109
I didn’t realize that it was raining again on the way, and although it wasn’t too heavy, we both arrived home drenched.
I took Willow and hurriedly changed, sat down on the living room carpet, and turned on the warm air again.
“I didn’t realize this outfit would come in handy.” I smiled at her, “I bought it and never wore it.”
She looked down at the aqua blue loungewear with three little squirrels with their teeth showing on the chest and looked at me with a tearful smile, “Ms. Laura, I didn’t think you a child’s heart. You wear such a cute loungewear, can your boyfriend raise his ‘sex drive’?”
“Hey, you child …”
“Don’t call me a child!” She blinked her big eyes, “I’m sixteen, I’m not a kid anymore. I know all about that stuff between you adults!”
I was dumbfounded.
But yeah, she grew up in a family like that, she must be a precocious child. I really can’t treat her like a child anymore.
I laughed softly and got up, walking over to the liquor cabinet. Cameron had stocked quite a few wines here, all of which were vintage.
Just as I’m hesitating, Willow suddenly squeals, “Wow, a 1982 Lafite?”
“Oh my god, this is awesome… 1 1990 Romanee Conti!”
“And Burgundy!”
Her eyes sparkled like she had discovered some new continent, her face reddening with excitement.
“Ms. Laura!” She was giddy, “Your boyfriend has such good taste! These wines, I’ve only seen them in my dad’s private cellar. But it’s just to look at, he never lets me move it!”
“You … all know?” It was my turn to be stunned.
“Yes.” She nodded naturally, “My dad is using these wines to pretend to be a gentleman to cheat women, look at which one to bring people to the cellar, drink two cups of … things will be done! Heh!”
She laughed with some mockery.
And that laugh, also let me some heartache. She is still a child after all.
I patted her shoulder, “You know better than me, then you choose a bottle.”
“Really let me choose?”
“Pick it!” I said, “Promised to make up for that drink.”
She chose a bottle of ’98 Merlot.
She opened the bottle, sobered it up, poured it slowly into a glass, slowly shook it in her hand, looked at the wall hanging, and gently sniffed it …
A series of movements that she did purely and unobtrusively.
I was surprised beyond words, “It seems … that your mental age is not at all more than sixteen.”
“That’s for sure!” She smiled smugly, “By the way, your boyfriend won’t mind, right? We just privately automated his wine … like this.”
“He won’t mind.” I shook my head and solemnly told her again, “And … he’s not my boyfriend.”
“How could he be!” She rolled her eyes and smiled badly, “Ms. Laura, you’re not being honest with me oh! If he’s not your boyfriend, how come he has a key to your house and comes to cook for you? Oh … is he chasing you? Are you guys on top of friendship and not yet lovers? But his cooking really smells good, and he’s handsome too, won’t you consider accepting him?”
“Hey!”
I couldn’t stand this girl’s series of questions and hurriedly changed the topic, “Forget it, don’t talk about him anymore! Let’s talk about you, what’s going on these two days? Absent from class for no reason, you’ve been on several teachers’ blacklists.”
She hung her head listlessly, staring quietly at the red wine in her glass.
For a long time, she said softly, “Ms. Laura … My dad doesn’t care about me anymore, why do you still care about me?”
I gently stroked her back to comfort her, “How could Dad not care about you? At your age now, you are in the rebellious stage, and you must think that whatever your parents do is wrong. Actually daddy loves you very much.”
“You’re not him, how do you know? He’s the one who kicked me out today!”
“What?” I was stunned.
She paled, and not much later, she pulled out her cell phone, flipped through it, and handed it to me.
What she flipped out was a piece of news, and this piece of entertainment news I had an impression of.
The popular actress quickly befriended the tycoon and wanted to take this opportunity to marry into the rich family.
At that time when I read this news I just laughed it off and didn’t care, this kind of thing is endless in the entertainment industry. But I never thought that the man in the news would be Willow’s father.
“Know how much of a womanizer my dad is? Look at this photo …” she sneered in a low voice, “Heh, the shot can be really clear, the good people in the arms it! You know, that woman is twenty-four this year, not much older than me! How can he be like this?”
“Willow …” I don’t know how to persuade her, “This … is after all your father’s private matter, your parents have divorced, you’re are about to become an adult, so don’t interfere with him …”
“I’m just not willing!” She said with gritted teeth and hatred, “He’s swept me off my feet for such a goblin!”
“Willow.”
I squeezed her shoulders and I realized she was thin, so thin her shoulder blades stuck out.
She must be having a hard time, a philandering father, a mother who can’t get next to her, and having to deal with all those warblers outside her father’s house at all times, dealing with women not much older than herself, boarding …
I let her lean on my shoulder, and her meek appearance suddenly reminded me of my daughter Sunny.
I couldn’t help but feel sad and advised her a few words, “Willow, don’t bother with your parents … Sometimes you’ll realize that they are indeed not as good as you in many places, but they also have bitter feelings.”
“And,” I cupped her face and looked at her, “that home is your father’s home, and does not belong to you.”
“What are you saying?” She got a little agitated, “How is that not my home? I lived there for sixteen years!”
“That house was your father’s, that home was given to you by your father. You lived there because you were his child and he was obligated to raise you. But after you turn eighteen, when you become an adult, he has no more obligation to raise you. That’s when you should be independent and go build your own home!”
Willow was slightly stunned, her lips moving as if she was repeating my words.
It was also as if she was chewing on the meaning of my words.
In the middle of the day she lowered her eyes and murmured, “So … that’s not my home, so …”
“It’s okay,” I patted her on the shoulder, “You’ll work your way through it and have your own home. And your home doesn’t have to be worse than your dad’s.”
She nodded, “You have a point, Ms. Laura, no one has ever said anything like that to me.”
“That’s because they want to flatter your dad, in front of you, so of course they pick the nice things to say.” I looked at her with a smile, “Look, you’re at the mercy of your dad even for what kind of words you listen to, how dare you say that family is yours?”
“All the money you have in The Denoble Family was earned little by little by your father. He has the right to dispose of his property, and he can give it to you, and even more so to any woman he likes. These properties, you have the right to inherit them, but your father has no obligation to give them all to you.”
She listened for a long time, sitting on the carpet with her knees wrapped around her, her chin resting on her knees, her long hair covering her cheeks.
She looked pale and forlorn.
I knew these words were too cruel for her, but she was going to be an adult eventually, and she was going to have to face this cruelty of the adult world eventually.
Just like what I’ve been through in the past, I didn’t expect that life would have so many variables. But the only thing I can do is to clench my teeth and move forward, walk on, and the sky will be bright.
I took a sip of wine, “Can’t figure it out for a while, there’s no rush, you’re only sixteen, there’s plenty of time to take your time.”
“I know what I should do.” She looked at me, “Thank you, it seems like friends with you, not like teacher and student at all. I don’t have many friends, and those teachers at school, they’re always thinking of ways to lecture me.”
“Then you think of me as a friend.” I rubbed her head, “Talk to me if you have something on your mind, or come to my place.”
“Oh, that’s a no!” She laughed, “That man would hate me if I came here more often! I’m such a big man out of nowhere!”
I was about to argue when the outer door suddenly clicked and Cameron walked in, the words falling on deaf ears.
“I’m not going to hate you, I do wish you came around more often.” He laughed, “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard your teacher Laura talk so much!”
“Cameron, you …” I freeze.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.
Why did you come without saying hello again?
He smiled at us, his face changing a bit as his eyes moved to the bottle of wine on the carpet.
“Heh … two women together sure are a disaster, you guys dug up all my good stuff!”
Willow and I smiled at each other and gently clinked our glasses.
“We’re getting a little hungry.” I said to Cameron, “I wonder what we have to eat at home?”
“Handsome Uncle!” Willow makes a mischievous face, “The last time I saw you cook a table, there was a plate of what looked like little buns, they looked chic, so they should taste good too, right?”
“Uncle?” Cameron raised an eyebrow, “With that name calling, I’ll starve you both tonight!”
But in the end, he still made a table of food with sharp movements, including the plate of “chic buns” that Willow was interested in.
“It’s called Crab Roasted Wheat,” I gave her one, “and it’s your handsome uncle’s secret recipe!”
Willow ate like a little glutton, and I was surprised that such a pretty, slim girl had such a big appetite.
“I haven’t eaten at home in a long time.” She wiped the grease stains on the corners of her lips while rubbing her round belly and rolling her eyelids to the ceiling, “When was the last time I ate at home with my dad?… Probably the year I graduated from elementary school.”
“Then you come often in the future.” I smiled, “Handsome uncle loves to entertain pretty girls.”
Cameron blows his beard and makes a swinging motion at me.
Willow’s head shook like a rattle drum, “No, no, no, I still have this awareness! Ms. Laura, I treat you as a friend, I won’t steal my friend’s boyfriend! I will keep my distance!”
“You’re such a big kid. What do you think about all day!” I was dumbfounded.
She looked at me with a defiant face, “Who says only brotherhood is righteous? We are siblings, and between siblings, it’s even more righteous!”
“Besides … handsome uncle is not my dish.” She suddenly blushed, lowered her head and laughed, her voice was also much smaller, “I have a favorite person …”
I froze slightly, she did not say any more, just couldn’t help but laugh.
I get up and clear the table, leaving Willow to watch some TV in the living room for a while before putting the dishes in the sink. Behind me, there’s suddenly an extra pair of large hands that wrap around my waist, then gain an inch and work their way up, down my shoulders, my arms, and all at once, holding my hands.
“Put it down. I’ll wash it.”
I felt his warm breath hovering just behind the back of my neck, a sudden rush of intent, my body tingling.
“You go rest.” He pushed me away and turned on the faucet.
I stood frozen for a moment before coming back to my senses.
“Hey,” Cameron asked me softly, “when is she coming home? It’s getting late!”
“Her?” I paused, “Oh … she’s not going home tonight.”
“Not going back?” He almost dropped his bowl and looked at me dumbfounded.
“Keep your voice down!” I hastily signaled, “She ran away from home, why go back?”
“So where is she sleeping tonight?”
“Sleeping with me.”
“Laura, you …,” he said, his eyes wider than brass bells.
“What?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the exasperated look on his face, “Is it hard to believe you want to stay here tonight too?”
Cameron takes a couple deep breaths, closes his eyes and opens them again.
I had a new idea and told him, “Or you could stay here tonight! We’ll probably talk late and we’ll definitely need a snack in the meantime.”
He narrowed his eyes, bit his lip, looked at me hard, and made a choking gesture with his free arm.
I was suddenly attached to the feeling that Cameron would get jealous of someone else, even if the other person was just a teenage girl, for me.
Willow and I talked a lot that night, and she pretty much told me her story from birth to the present, but I had the vague feeling that she still had some reservations, such as the fact that she never explicitly said what it was that she ran away from her family for, and pissed her dad off with high blood pressure.
If it was just because her father had found a young star, surely that wasn’t it. Hadn’t she seen enough of them since she was a child? What could a young star do to her?
However, if she didn’t say, I didn’t want to ask.
She actually asked about me, “Ms. Laura … original that handsome uncle, he really is not your boyfriend?”
I froze and didn’t react to the meaning of this word for a moment.
“So he is your daughter’s father?”
I immediately broke out in a cold sweat, hurriedly covered her mouth, my whole body sweat hairs are going to stand up, alertly looking at her, “How do you … know this?”
She was stunned by my appearance, stayed for a while, before she remembered to break my hand blocking her mouth.
“Before going to bed … when you were downstairs in the living room, you said you went out to buy some snacks, so I talked to him for a couple of minutes.” She looked at me timidly.
For a moment I didn’t know what to say to that, Cameron had even told her that!
So would she know about my relationship with Cameron too?
“You …” I stared at her intently, “What else did you hear him say?”
“Nothing!” She shook her head vigorously, “I swear, Ms. Laura, there’s really nothing else!”
Afraid that I would be upset, the little girl flopped down on my back and wrapped her arms around me in a pouty hug, “I didn’t mean to pry into your privacy, so don’t be mad! I except know you have a daughter, no longer know anything else … if you do not like, after that handsome uncle said what I do not listen to, OK?”