The Annoying Stepmom

I looked at the orange she handed me and, surprisingly, smiled at her.

I said, “It’s okay, Stepmom.”

She froze for a moment, but when she saw me take the orange and start eating it, she quickly snapped out of it, smiled, and began peeling another one for me.

She peeled it so fast and nervously that her nails dug into the orange peel and squeezed out the juice.

“Do you like it? I can buy more tomorrow. It’s sweet, right?”

I felt like laughing as I watched her. A strange, secret satisfaction bubbled up inside me and almost made me grin from ear to ear.

Before she could finish speaking, my dad came out of the bedroom with a dark expression.

He was holding my health insurance card in one hand, and his other hand was clenched into a fist.

His eyes darted between me and Scarlett. Then, through gritted teeth, he asked, “Who touched the drawer in the wardrobe?”

The veins on his arms were bulging, and his expression was terrifying.

As I had lived with him for over ten years, I knew this was the warning sign before he lost his temper.

From the moment my dad started questioning me to glaring at me with cold, sharp eyes and rolling up his sleeves to hit me, it all happened in under two minutes.

When I was little, during the New Year, while everyone else was celebrating and enjoying fireworks, he kicked me out of the house. He pinned me down in the snow and beat me until I was crying and begging for mercy.

It was all because I had dared to tell him at the dinner table to drink less.

When my dad questioned us, Scarlett looked up, confused, and asked, “What drawer?”

She was completely innocent, of course, but I had to act even more innocent than her.

I stayed silent and stared blankly at my dad.

When he did not get an answer, he lost his patience and said directly, “The 20,000 dollars in the drawer is gone.”

Scarlett looked even more confused. “Money? Could it be that you put it somewhere else when you were drunk last time?”

I glanced at my dad, then at Scarlett.

He stared at her face for a long time and tried to find any trace of guilt.

But then he turned to me, grabbed my shoulder, and shouted, “Did you take it?!”

I did not dare look up, and my body started shaking again.

I tried hard to stop my arms from trembling.

A moment later, I decided to look my dad straight in the eye. I calmly said, “I didn’t take it.”

I was lying, just like he had lied countless times to cheat money from my grandparents or make excuses to borrow money from my godfather.

I was his daughter, after all. I had his blood and looked so much like him that anyone could tell we were related with just one glance.

So, naturally, I inherited his ability to lie effortlessly.

He did not push me further. On the surface, he seemed to believe Scarlett’s idea that he must have misplaced the money while drunk, but I knew he was suspicious of everyone in the house.

He started searching everywhere, and Scarlett helped him.

Finally, after all their searching, I watched as my dad pulled a thick wad of cash from Scarlett’s coat pocket.

Dad was not the only one who froze in shock. Scarlett was also rooted to the spot.

Scarlett was not stupid. She knew what it meant for the money to be found in her pocket.

Her face turned pale as a sheet. She grabbed my dad’s sleeve and desperately said, “No, it wasn’t me! How could the money end up in my coat?”