My Snack Stand

The opening firecrackers at the amusement park rang so loudly they hurt my eardrums, but my hand holding the skewers stayed steady. After all, this snack stand was a steady foothold I had only dared to take over after saving for three years. Colorful balloons dotted the sky, children's laughter rising and falling around me as I bent down to pack sauces for a customer who had just ordered. Suddenly, a sharp jolt shook the stainless steel food cart, and hot oil splattered onto my wrist. "Ouch!" I exclaimed, stepping back and looking up just in time to see a little girl with braided pigtails kicking the grilled sausages scattered on the ground. "This tastes awful, what a terrible thing!" She wrinkled her nose, her voice sharp like nails scraping glass. I endured the burning pain in my wrist, trying to steady the food cart, when a gleaming black leather shoe stepped onto the fallen oil paper before I could. Following the crease of the neatly pressed suit trousers upward, when that face appeared, my breath caught abruptly. It was Raymond Luke. After nine years apart, he had lost his youthful thinness; dressed in a suit, he carried an air of refinement I had never known. "Nina, no messing around." His voice was low, yet without a hint of reproach, more like a casual reminder. Nina Luke snorted and ducked behind him, then made a face at me. I looked at the toppled food cart, the spilled ingredients scattered on the ground, and the rapidly reddening burn on my wrist, my throat tightening. "Sir, please keep your child in check, and also—" Before I could finish, he pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and lightly tossed them at my feet. "Is this enough? If not, I'll add more." His gaze swept over me as if I were something trivial—no surprise, no emotion, just pure indifference. The bills scattered among the grease stood out starkly. I crouched down, not to pick up the money, but to collect the bamboo sticks from the ground; my fingertips trembled uncontrollably. "Raymond Luke," I looked up, meeting his eyes. "I don't want your money. I want an apology, and for your daughter to show me some respect." He raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised I knew his name. After a brief pause, he sneered, "Wendy Scott? What are you doing here?" That question was like a needle, suddenly piercing the softest part of my heart and dragging out memories I hadn't dared touch for nine years. That was the orphanage's iron fence, rusted and spotted, yet it had trapped both him and me throughout our youth. I still remember the first time I saw Raymond Luke; he was curled up in a corner, covered in scars, his gaze as wary as a small wild animal's. The orphanage director said his parents had died in a car accident and that he had just been sent over, asking me to take care of him. I handed him half a steamed bun I'd hidden in my sleeve. After hesitating for a long time, he took it and devoured it ravenously. From that day on, we became each other's support. Life in the orphanage was hard, but having each other made it a little sweeter. The winter blankets were as thin as paper; he would pull me close to keep me warm with his body heat. In summer, with so many mosquitoes around, he would stay up late chasing them away for me, silently enduring the bites all over his body. He said, "Wendy Scott, once I become successful, I will definitely take you away from here so you won't have to suffer anymore." I believed him. From thirteen to eighteen, I clung to that promise as the light that kept me going. On my eighteenth birthday, I waited for him outside the orphanage. He said he had a surprise for me. But the call I received wasn't a surprise—it was from the hospital, saying he'd been in a car accident and was undergoing emergency treatment. I ran to the hospital like a madwoman. The doctor said immediate surgery was necessary, and the costs were prohibitively high. I emptied all the savings I'd scraped together over the years from collecting scraps and doing odd jobs; then I knelt before the orphanage director and begged for a long time, borrowing from anyone I could, until I finally managed to raise enough for the surgery.