Carlos twitched his mouth awkwardly, trying to force a smile. He almost never smiled, but now he did it just to make Debbie happy. It didn't look convincing, it looked sad.
Before the wedding ceremony started, Megan arrived at the venue. She called Wesley at the entrance, and he left the table to guide her inside.
He hadn't brought Blair with him today, so Megan took a seat next to him, cautiously.
She greeted the others. They responded stiffly, as if it were just a formality. There was little warmth left there. Soon, their minds were on something else. Debbie went on talking to Adriana, and Carlos continued watching over Debbie nervously. Damon talked to him from time to time, but Carlos barely acknowledged him.
Then the emcee announced that the wedding ceremony was about to begin.
This was the first time Debbie had ever been to a wedding. She was amazed at how sumptuous and dreamlike everything was. The music, the lighting, the decorations, the wardrobe. It was incredible.
When Colleen appeared in her wedding dress, Debbie's eyes glistened with admiration. The sacred white wedding gown was so beautiful that any woman would think it was the perfect wedding dress.
Noticing that she seemed engrossed, Carlos gave her hand a light squeeze. Debbie glanced at him and turned her attention to the bride and the bridegroom again. "Colleen is so beautiful today! Her dress is amazing. Look at them. They're so perfect together!" she said excitedly.
"You like that dress?" Carlos asked. And that was when he suddenly realized what a lousy husband he'd been.
He hadn't even given Debbie a proper wedding, the most treasured thing in a woman's life.
"Yes, it's gorgeous!" Debbie responded without looking at him. Drawn in by the sweet moment when the bride and the bridegroom exchanged rings, she didn't sense the subtle changes in his tone and expression.
Carlos said nothing else. He was putting together a plan.
When the new couple's parents were asked to come up on stage, the happiness and excitement drained from Debbie's face.
The couple that stepped onstage were her grandparents, the ones she resented.
For the first time, she would be face to face with them, in public. Her grandpa, Elroy Lu, was an 82-year-old man with gray hair and a gray beard. His creased face wore a wide smile.
His wife, Sybil Qin, was 57. Before she had given birth to Curtis and Gus, Elroy Lu had already had three other kids with his first wife, including Ramona, Debbie's birth mother. After Ramona's mother had died, he had married Sybil Qin.
So, Elroy Lu had five kids altogether.
Carlos had told Debbie that Elroy split her parents up.
"Go for a walk?" Carlos whispered in her ear when he noticed her downcast face.
Debbie shook her head. "Isn't my... isn't he coming? He's Curtis' nephew after all," she asked. She had met every member of the Lu family except her brother.
'Curtis' nephew? She means her brother, ' Carlos thought. He stroked her hand and said, "He... Elroy told him not to."
Actually, not only him. Elroy Lu would have thrown Debbie out if she hadn't come here with Carlos. The benefits of being Carlos' wife.
Debbie smiled bitterly. She was smart enough to know that if she weren't Carlos' wife, she wouldn't have been allowed to be there either.
She swallowed the bitterness and joked, "Hey honey. I guess that's one more perk of being married to you. He can't kick me out."
Carlos could see that she was pretending to be strong despite the pain. His heart ached. "No, Curtis would have put his foot down there."
"Why is Curtis so good to me?" she wondered. But Curtis and Ramona were only half siblings. Debbie didn't think she and Curtis were that close. Sometimes his regard for her seemed over the top. She wondered why.
Carlos turned to look at Curtis and replied, "He saw how badly Elroy Lu whipped your mother just because she wanted to see you. He also heard Elroy Lu viciously threaten her." Reportedly, Debbie's mother's flesh hung from her in bloody shreds by the time he was done. Carlos spared Debbie that morbid observation told to him in secret.
Debbie looked at Carlos with shocked eyes. How could Elroy Lu treat his own daughter like that? "So it's because Mr. Lu feels bad for... that woman," she said.
Carlos shook his head. "No, he feels bad about you."
Another thing Carlos didn't tell Debbie was that Curtis had known for a long time that Ramona had a son and a daughter, but back then he hadn't known who they were.
Until one day, by chance, he met a girl who was bringing takeout to the man she liked. She came to the man's company with the food, carrying it through bad weather in rain-drenched clothing.
However, what she got was a good scolding from him—the food was not what he wanted.
The girl's eyes reddened, but she didn't cry. She smiled at him and told him that she would get something else for him.
But the man just walked away in anger. He didn't spare so much as a word as he stalked off. She stood there alone.
After the rain stopped, Curtis went out to eat. Then he saw the man eating at a table with another girl, laughing and talking.
A few days later, Curtis came to the hospital, intending to visit someone. At the entrance, a badly beaten girl was carried to the emergency room.
He hadn't paid much attention to her, but when he saw the man following them, he recognized him immediately. In the elevator, Curtis looked at the unconscious girl on the hospital gurney and recognized her. She was the girl who had brought takeout to the man the other day.
When the girl's condition stabilized, she was moved to a double general ward. It was fate, kismet, whatever you wanted to call it. She was in the exact same ward as the patient Curtis had gone to visit.
Then the man came with a rose and asked her to be his girlfriend. The girl smiled through her swollen face. Wincing from the bruises covering her body, she smiled happily and said yes.
The girl was Debbie and the man was Hayden.
Later, Curtis noticed that Ramona almost never came home, and when she did, she'd disguise herself from head to toe and go to Curtis' school—but only when Elroy Lu wasn't home. Every time she arrived, she would watch a girl from afar.
Debbie had been a freshman back then. When Curtis discovered what Ramona was doing, he had someone look into Debbie's background and found out that she was a Nian. That was how he found out that Debbie, the girl who Elroy Lu had bullied Ramona into abandoning, the girl who was so humble in front of her boyfriend, was Ramona's daughter, and his niece.
He had started to help her out, influencing things behind the scenes, ever since. She'd never know the extent he had gone to.
That time at the cruiser party, Elroy Lu had wanted to kill her. Curtis protected her secretly.
Although the Lu family was powerful, they couldn't hold a candle to the Huo family. So, after Curtis had learned that Debbie had married Carlos, he didn't have to hide it anymore, and he had started to be good to her openly.
Elroy Lu had warned him a million times to leave her alone, but Curtis didn't give a damn about the old man's warnings. So right now Curtis' relationship with his father couldn't be worse. And Curtis didn't care, because he had a strong sense of wrong and right.
Today, if it weren't Curtis' wedding day, Elroy Lu would have outright refused to appear in the same place as his son.
But Debbie knew nothing about all this.
She thought that Curtis felt bad about her because her mom had never been around. That was all. Then the issue was the last thing on her mind. She didn't think much more about it.
When the wedding ceremony was over, Elroy Lu, Sybil Qin and the newlyweds took their positions, and were ready to offer some toasts.