Arthur pointed out the stairs to me leading to the stage where my father continued speaking. And with everything happening before my eyes, I couldn't help feeling humiliated and used.
The old me, the old Christine, would have run away to cry in the bathroom or simply gone home to suffer and lament the kind of family I had, who didn't care about hurting me as long as they benefited. But now that I knew them perfectly well and knew how far they could go to achieve their goals, all I did was smile and clap slowly at my father's presentation as he invited us to come up on stage as if he were proud of me.
This time, I leaned on Arthur to get up on stage as quickly as possible while showing my most brazen smile to go to my father's arms and give him a kiss on the cheek while cursing him. What
