Chapter 3. The Abusive Siblings

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 WhatsApp has a password on it. How come I never realized this?” I muttered to myself suddenly the moment I hit my finger on the WhatsApp 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 WhatsApp 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 WhatsApp 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 WhatsApp 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.