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Chapter 19
Last Updated:
2025-05-08 13:21:29
Latest chapter
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 22
Alice’s povThe courthouse waiting room smelled like old paper and disinfectant everything was plain—plain walls, plain chairs, plain faces trying not to look too hopeful or too tired. I sat in the far corner, my palms pressed to my knees to keep them from shaking.I wasn’t nervous not exactly. I was holding everything too tightly for nerves.Ryan sat a few seats away from me, scrolling through his phone like the glow of the screen could shield him from the weight of today. Reeves hadn’t said much since we arrived, just handed me a coffee and nodded when I took it. That was enough words would’ve ruined the calm I was trying to fake. He’d gone over everything with me a dozen times. The documents, the photos and the testimony, I kept replaying it in my head.Aaron’s book and his voice. The look in his eyes when he handed it to me.I wasn’t just fighting for visitation anymore. This hearing meant more. It was a chance to shift custody, a chance to be seen again not just as the mother t
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 21
Alice’s povAfter the door clicked shut behind Ryan, I didn’t move.I stood there, hand still resting on the knob, my forehead lightly pressed to the wood. It was quiet again and still but not the same kind of stillness that used to follow silence. This one didn’t sting. It didn’t feel like abandonment, it felt like space.Space to breathe, space to think, space to feel whatever I needed to feel without explaining it.I listened to his footsteps fade down the stairs, then across the gravel until they disappeared completely. For once, he didn’t look back and strangely, I appreciated that. No lingering glances, no unspoken questions hanging between us. Just… presence. And now, absence. The clean kind.I walked back to the kitchen and poured the rest of my coffee down the sink. It had gone cold and bitter. I hated when things tasted like something they weren’t supposed to be.My phone buzzed. A message.Made it home. Let me know if you need anything.I stared at the text for a while, th
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 20
Ryan’s povThe sky was still soft with that pale gray light that happens just before sunrise, when the world hasn’t fully woken yet, but somehow everything feels louder. The crunch of gravel under my shoes, the chill in the air biting at the back of my neck and the quietness.I stood in front of Alice’s door, hands shoved deep in my coat pockets, not entirely sure what I was doing here so early. I hadn’t slept much—not from nerves, not really. Just… thought. Too many thoughts strung together with her voice in my head. The way she’d looked yesterday when she stood up to Victoria. That steady fire in her eyes. It had stayed with me all night.I knocked once, light enough that I could pretend I didn’t mean it if she didn’t answer but the door opened almost immediately, like she’d been waiting.Alice stood in the doorway barefoot, wrapped in a soft gray cardigan, eyes still smudged with sleep, she blinked at me, confused for half a breath. “Ryan?”“Yeah.” I gave a half-shrug. “Morning.”
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 19
Ryan’s pov I stood outside the building, watching the silhouettes shift behind the glass, my fists clenched in the pockets of my coat. The late afternoon sun had already slipped behind the buildings, casting long shadows across the pavement, the air was sharp with that kind of cold that bit at your skin, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.Inside, I’d watched Clara walk out first her posture rigid, her lips tight, there was something in her eyes I hadn’t seen in a long time. Not control, command or fear. Maybe even something close to defeat.That was new.Aaron followed a few steps behind, his shoulders hunched, but his gait more steady than usual. Not like a kid being dragged through the motions anymore. No, he looked like he’d chosen to walk forward. That scared the hell out of me more than anything because he hadn’t looked for me. He hadn’t scanned the sidewalk for my face and when his eyes did catch mine, he didn’t stop. He just kept walking and maybe I deserved that.“Ryan?”I tu
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 18
Clara’s pov It was the hesitation that stayed with me, not the drawing, not Alice’s quiet defiance and not even Victoria’s smug, polished contempt, which usually had the power to stir something sharp and righteous in me. No what lingered was the moment Aaron didn’t move right away when I told him it was time to go.That second just a second where he held on to a piece of paper like it mattered more than my voice. That paper should’ve meant nothing but it didn’t.Back in the car, Aaron was quiet. Mera’s drawing rested in his lap like a secret he didn’t want to share yet. I kept my hands tight on the wheel, fingers clenching and unclenching, trying to focus on the road, not the weight in my chest. I knew that weight. It was the same one I’d carried since the first time Aaron stopped calling me Mom. Since the first time he looked at me like I was a stranger.“Did you like seeing her?” I asked, keeping my voice even.He didn’t answer right away. His fingers traced the edge of the paper
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 17
The waiting room felt unusually sterile today, the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights above me doing little to drown out the thoughts running through my head. I held the crumpled, old piece of paper that Mera had drawn on her usual messy but beautiful sketch of two stick figures in spacesuits one holding a book and the other reaching out. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to show it to Aaron yet, but I wanted to have it with me, it felt like a bridge I could offer him.The time had come for our next visit. The counselor had told me Aaron was eager to share his story with me, a book he had been working on about a boy lost in space. I could almost feel my pulse quicken.This was a moment, a turning point. I was about to meet Aaron where he was, and this time, it wasn’t going to be through some cold, clinical sheet of paper or a session monitored by someone else. This was us.The door opened, and I saw him standing there, holding a book close to his chest, eyes downcast, shifting from foot
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 16
The summons comes at 7:12 a.m . It was hand delivered of course.Victoria doesn’t do digital. She wants the weight of paper, the performance of it. She wants me to feel it in my hands like a threat you can fold and tear but not outrun.I don’t flinch, not anymore. But I do read every line twice. Then once more out loud just to hear the words spoken into the world.Emergency hearing in three days.They want the visits suspended “pending psychological review.” They want me shut down again and this time, they’re trying to make it stick.Reeves is already at my apartment before I finish my coffee.“I figured you’d get the notice this morning,” he says. “She filed it before dawn.”“She couldn’t sleep,” I mutter. “Guilt’s loud.”He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t smile. “Victoria doesn’t feel guilt. She feels threat.”“So that means we’re winning.” I say looking at him.“It means she’s bleeding somewhere, and hiding it.” He replies back.I sit at the kitchen table, eyes on the stack of document
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 15
I show up early for the next visit. Too early, I sit in my car outside the center with my hands locked around the steering wheel, staring at the brick wall in front of me like it owes me something. The engine’s off and the silence in the car feels too loud. I’ve got twenty minutes to kill, and no part of me knows what to do with them.I already know I won’t go inside early. I don’t want Aaron to see me waiting like I’m desperate even though I am.Desperate doesn’t even cover what I’m feeling.I’m not waiting for a miracle. I’m just waiting for something small a smile, a joke, a flicker of trust. I’d settle for him looking me in the eyes a full five seconds without shutting down.That would be enough, that would be everything.When I finally step inside, the counselor gives me a nod like she’s trying not to smile. “He’s in the room already.”I blink. “He’s early?”She shrugs. “He came in quiet. Said he didn’t want to wait in the car anymore.” That lands heavy, quiet but sharp. He did
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 14
The woman at the center keeps smiling like that’ll make this easier. It doesn’t. She tells me things I already know. That visits are supervised, that the child leads, that if he’s scared, we don’t push. She uses words like “reunification” and “adjustment period,” like this is some soft story with a neat ending.I nod like I’m listening. I’m not listening though. I’m counting the seconds until that door opens.Five years, that’s how long it’s been since they told me he died. Since they took him out of my arms and disappeared with him like I never existed and now he’s walking through that door any second from now.The counselor straightens in her seat. “He’s here.”My heart slams so hard I almost choke on it and then… the door creaks open.He walks in slow. His shoulders hunched, small hands tucked into the sleeves of his hoodie. He’s not the baby I remember, not the soft, wrinkled little thing I brought into the world.He’s a boy now, grown in someone else’s shadow. But I know him, i wou
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