It was funny how Diana claimed I was as useless as a flashlight with dead batteries. If I were to be useless, as she claimed, would she see a house to move into when they faced bankruptcy? Would her son even have a job? But, of course, anything she said did not matter to me, and I only waved it aside.
“The rice is ready, and I will be serving now, Diana,” I said suddenly from the kitchen, like a conductor announcing the grand finale of a culinary symphony.
“Great! At least I won’t die of hunger, as you made it seem. And I hope it is not poison you prepared again." Diana said.
“Well, Emily and Olivia will definitely make sure of that,” Diana blurted.
As if they waited for Diana to complete her statement, I saw Emily and Olivia making their way down the stairs like monsters descending from the darkness and exploding in their wicked laughter.
Emily and Olivia were Tyler’s younger sisters. Even at sixteen years, their mouths were sharper than blades and their behavior was as rude as their mother.
“I perceive some delicious rice being served, but is the taste as delicious as the aroma?” asked Emily as she smirked loudly beside Olivia, like a pair of food critics ready to dissect a homemade meal.
“Of course not. It would certainly be like the scrambled eggs we had the other day. It had a delicious aroma, but it tasted worse than poop. Haha,” Olivia laughed like a wicked witch, and they all grabbed a seat at the dining table while I continued to dish their food onto their separate plates.
“Hold on, Alda,” Olivia said suddenly. “I think I have dirt on my foot; remove it.” Olivia ordered. Her tone carried authority, like a commander directing a soldier’s action.
After I heard that, I smirked once again. It was not news to me about their behavior. Aside from the fact that they always painted my food bad, they also made me do irritating stuff just to please their sarcastic desires.
“All your food is served, and I hope you enjoy it,” I said as I ignored Olivia's order by peering my eyes away from her and taking a step to head upstairs.
“That’s not all, Alda; come on! You forgot the most important thing." Emily smirked immediately.
Of course, each time I was done serving their food, it was always mandatory for me to taste from each of their plates if I wanted not to hear their derogatory words about me or my mother, and as I was told, I picked up a new spoon from the drawer and had a spoonful of their food one after another.
“Wait! You cannot go upstairs yet; you forgot you must wait for a minute long before you go?” said Olivia the moment I almost took a step forward.
***
I heard the sound of Tyler showering the moment I got upstairs. On the bed, I saw his neatly folded clothes, which he was planning to wear once he got out of the shower. Beside his neatly folded clothes was his phone, which was sleeping quietly on the bed like a slumbering companion, waiting to be awakened by the first light of morning.
Quickly and silently, I picked up his phone and pressed the power button to resurrect it from its sleep. Tyler was not the one who password-protected his phone, and with this, we could access each other’s phones with ease and confidence. However, this morning was different, and being meticulously cautious and looking incessantly at the door to the bath, I could not let him know I was on his tail.
“His W******p has a password on it. How come I never realized this?” I muttered to myself suddenly the moment I hit my finger on the W******p icon and launched the app.
Quickly, like a vibrant police officer on a murder case, I launched the phone settings app while keeping my eyes ready at the bath door. “Fingerprint successfully added,” his phone notification beeped as I set my middle finger on the fingerprint panel.
“It’s done,” I muttered again. Then I swapped to the W******p icon quickly and placed my finger on the fingerprint panel once again.
Immediately, my eyes read, “Unlocked!”
Being quick like a pickpocket on a mission, I swapped the W******p screen to the status page and launched its settings. “I’ve been really blocked from seeing his status update." I smirked immediately as I muttered this out beneath my breath. Nevertheless, this was not the end of my investigation.
Like a snake without a trace of its movement on the ground, I left the settings the same way I met them and quickly swapped the status screen back to the W******p chat screen.
“Why does he have so many unread chats and just one chat pinned at the top?” I thought. Seeing that the chat pinned at the top was not mine piqued my interest in this chat even more than a chipmunk interested in eating nuts.
Quickly, I flew my eyes to the bathroom door and paid full attention to the sound of his bath. Immediately, I could tell that he was not ready to be done in the bathroom, and with this, I opened the chat with the luxury of time I had left.
“Did she find out?” I read instantly. However, if that was not all I could see in their chat, it was a lie.
“Their chat is set on auto-clear messages.”
“There is no profile picture as well.” I wandered like a puzzle solver, staring right at the hardest puzzle she had ever encountered.
Hence, how precise the question in the chat was for him and how short and unclear it was for me to understand made me believe more that he was indeed cheating on me. However, I knew without evidence, this was a false accusation, and I'd lose my possessions to him in the course of dumping him like trash into the waste bin.
“Who is this woman?” I muttered again, determined to unravel the truth hidden in the shadows of his secretive messages.
Stepping out of the bath, Tyler entered the bedroom, finding me sitting on the bed with a smile on my face.It was unusual for Tyler to see me smile and not reciprocate with a wink or a passionate kiss on my lips, as he would remind me how tender my lips were. However, this morning was different.The moment he noticed my smile, his eyes darted towards his phone, perfectly resting in the same position he left it in. Immediately realizing I hadn't taken his phone, he approached me to carry out our usual routine.“I am so glad I married you, babe. Aside from the fact that you are a hardworking woman, you are so sexy, and your lips are always tender like the soft touch of a breeze on a warm summer evening," he said, kissing my forehead in the same manner.As he unwrapped the towel from his body, standing there naked, it reminded me of our wedding night—the way he was soft and intimate with me on the bed, making me long for him more and more each night after that.“Is this the same way he
“I am here to see Tyler,” I quickly said before this daring employee would bounce me off my own eatery and have security make sure I didn’t step foot in any longer.It was quite surprising that none of the employees had the face I knew. “Did Tyler sack all the former employees without my knowledge?” I wondered in the heat of the moment. Nevertheless, it did not change anything.“How dare you, dirty-looking woman, demand to see our boss? He does not have any time for someone like you.” The employee grabbed my wrist and headed towards the door in a visible raging emotion.However, if that was a success, it was a lie. Instantly, I pulled my hand away with every strength I could muster into my arm from her grip.“You are new here. That's why you act so reckless. I promise you, you will lose your job today. I don’t even know where Tyler got a rude someone like you from,” I yelled, immediately heading to the stairs leading to Tyler’s office angrily.“Hmph,” the employee scoffed upon hearing
As Emily made her leave, almost hitting me with her car, I gently picked myself up from the ground while everyone in the eatery was still filming and having that buoyant laughter on their faces.I knew it was a failed mission to abruptly go into the eatery again and cause a scene. Aside from the fact that the new employees did not know who I was, they were all looking at me like a crazy clown and were ready to get me arrested.Hence, at this moment, I sadly walked to my car and got inside with tears in my eyes. It was not enough that I was treated like a hated slave back at home; now, my own cheating husband had equally changed all staff, and I had no access to my own eatery anymore."I should call Nancy; she always knows what to say and what to do in hard times like this," I exclaimed with my teary voice. Immediately, without waiting a bit, I retrieved my phone from my handbag and placed a call through to Nancy."Hey, how are you?" Nancy voiced through the phone as soon as she picked
Calling her for the second time, I observed Tyler checking her phone to see who the caller was. Upon seeing my name, he smiled at Nancy, and his lips moved in a gesture that seemed to say, "Pick up her call and let’s hear what she has to say."To this effect, I saw how they both laughed out loud immediately, like they derived joy from my broken heart, and they wished it to continue until they could.Hence, suddenly, I saw how Nancy flickered her hair to the back and placed the phone in her ear.“I told you I was coming to meet you at home, Alda,” Nancy said immediately as she answered the call, and I couldn't be more shocked to hear that.If my thoughts were louder than my voice, she would have heard me cursing her out for this betrayal. “My very own husband? You husband snatcher.”However, my thoughts remained internal, as the other part of me wanted to stay calm and play along. As I have seen in several movies and read in different books, it was always better to catch them red-hande
I did not respond to Diana's question; instead, I headed towards the stairs. However, this didn't imply that Emily hadn't revealed the information in my presence."Oh, mother, she ran to the restaurant, asking for Tyler like he was some lost child. Seeing how she looked, Miss Emma treated her like dirt on the ground, and they did not let her into the eatery. She yelled and caused so much trouble. But she still could not find her way in." Emily mocked immediately; hence, Olivia joined in the same fashion."Moron!" Olivia called her in the midst of her derisive grin. "How would they even let her in? Doesn't she know she's a maid, and maids don't go seeking someone at the eatery? Pfft," Diana scoffed, resembling a scornful aristocrat dismissing a beggar at her palace gates.Nevertheless, whatever they said at this moment didn't bother me. It wasn't my first time witnessing such ill behavior from them, so I ignored it and began ascending the stairs."And I ask you again, where do you thi
If I was allowed to remain in my sobbing state for a whole ten minutes, that was a lie. In a fast moment, like a blink of an eye, Emily and Olivia were already standing in front of me, pulling my hair to raise my head.Once my head was up and they saw that it was full of tears, “the witch is crying, hahaha,” Emily mocked.“Are we supposed to feel sad for you?” Olivia mocked likewise, as they both stuck out their tongues like little kids teasing each other on the playground. Hence, they dropped the toothbrush on the floor and a bucket of water and soap near it.“Better start scrubbing because I want lunch ready in thirty minutes,” Olivia hissed as Emily and she walked away.Knowing fully well that if they said they wanted lunch in thirty minutes and it wasn't ready by thirty-one minutes, it was going to be a problem. I immediately sprang to my feet, wiped my tears with my wrist, and headed to the library.On my way to the library, I suddenly heard my phone ringing. Once I checked the s
Before she remembered that she left her phone closer to me, I quickly sprang into action like a coiled spring. I delved my hands into her bag and brought out the phone.First things first, knowing that my vigilant searching of her phone could be interrupted by any sudden call, I pulled down her phone screen and tapped on the airplane icon. Now that I saw that her network was off and her phone was in airplane mode, I knew that the darkness in the library could easily give me away; hence, I reduced her phone brightness to ten percent.With this done, I brought up her home screen and realized that her phone was not passworded or locked with any kind of different lock.“This husband snatcher is not that smart after all,” I thought as I lifted a brow and swiped the screen to the right in search of her WhatsApp.Scrolling past three screens of her phone and with my eyes searching through all apps at a faster pace, I realized her WhatsApp was missing from her app shelves.“Where the heck is
“We will talk about you later, Nancy. Just keep arranging; I have to be out cooking before fifteen minutes run out,” I said aloud for her to hear, and I waited a bit more to hear the sound of books she was arranging on the shelves so I could carry on with investigating her phone like a spy who is ready to infiltrate anywhere to get the information she needs. When I saw that she was now arranging the books, even though the sound of her tears never stopped, I gently picked up her phone again from the shelf and walked slowly to the left-edge corner, where it was darker in the library.As I reached the left-edge corner of the library, I pressed her home button gently and quickly shot my eyes at the right-edge corner on the other side. I saw her, not minding where I was in the library. Everything she kept doing was what I asked her to help me do. Thus, I suddenly wondered.“How can you sleep with my husband and still look at me in the face without remorse?”Wondering about that, I also wo