Semua Bab Pregnant With My Stepbrother’s Child: Bab 101 - Bab 110

EVELYN Some silences are deafening, even. That’s what our house felt like now like grief had moved in, rearranged the furniture, and painted every wall in red blood.Mom started acting differently. No, not different. Lost.At first, it was little things. Almost invisible, the kind you’d miss if you weren’t paying attention, except I was. I had to be. Someone had to notice when she stopped opening the curtains in the morning or when the coffee machine stayed cold because she didn’t bother anymore. Dad was the coffee drinker. Black, no sugar. She used to make it for him every time she was around, even before he asked.I told myself she just needed time. People say that a lot, like grief, follows some schedule like if you flip enough pages on the calendar, everything will start to make sense again.But time didn’t fix the way she held Dad’s picture frame like it was a lifeline. I’d catch her with it, her fingers brushing over the glass, tracing the outline of his lips like she could k

EVELYN Nearly all the food was gone. The fridge hummed like it was mocking me, its shelves stripped bare except for a bottle of water and a half-used jar of peanut butter I couldn’t bring myself to throw out. I stood there, staring into it like maybe, if I looked long enough, something would appear. But it didn’t.This silence didn't just fill everywhere, it suffocated me.That’s what our house felt like now. Not quiet in a peaceful way, but quiet like everything inside it had already given up like even the walls knew we didn’t belong here anymore.Mom’s condition wasn’t getting better— no, it was unraveling faster than I could hold it together. The drugs that once offered a sliver of hope now just piled up on the kitchen counter like forgotten promises. Every morning I forced them into her hands, watched her swallow them with vacant eyes, and every night I wondered if they were doing anything at all or if they were just keeping her breathing while everything else inside her faded.I

EVELYN I picked up my phone instantly, faster than my brain could catch up with the shaking in my fingers. He must be mad.Mad beyond the borders of sanity. Mad for not wanting to leave me the fuck alone. Mad for planting a fucking camera in a teddy bear and watching me live like some pathetic puppet. Mad enough to think I would ever want to hear his voice again. Mad enough to not understand the damage he has done, or worse, he understood perfectly and just doesn’t care. My hand was trembling. Not from fear obviously, I’ve had enough of that. It was anger now. I felt it in my chest, pulsing like a second heartbeat.I didn’t pick up my phone because I wanted to talk. Please. Let’s not pretend this was some emotional plea. I called to let him know that I knew. That I saw what he did. That I finally, finally figured it out and I know what his little secret was.But I wasn’t calling to cry. I wasn’t calling to share how Dad was dead, how Mom had crumbled since then, or how the house we

EVELYN Friends like Trina are rare.Not the kind that texts you twice a year to ask how you’ve been or sends you memes when they can’t handle your silence. I mean she was the kind of friend who grabbed your hand when you were drowning and didn’t let go, even when it meant getting pulled under with you. She doesn’t wait for you to ask for help. She showed up, held your shaking body, and told you that you’re not crazy, not disgusting, just broken but not beyond repair with her mighty hands.Trina didn’t patch me up like I was some charity case. She didn’t treat me like glass or walk around my grief like it was a landmine. She walked straight into it. Sat with me, ate silence with me. Took my phone when I didn’t want to answer calls and played music so loud it drowned out the thoughts in my head. And when there was still no place for me to go, she gave me a roof.To be sincere, Trina’s place has been a saving grace. Not just a roof or warm meals, though those mattered. But the air h

EVELYN Three Years LaterI sat cross-legged on the floor of our small living room, a tiny hill of crumpled naira notes and mint-fresh bills fanned out before me like a ceremony. My fingers were dusty from counting, my lips a bit dry, and my back ached from being hunched for too long but none of that mattered when my chest was a little tight. I didn’t know if it was pride or disbelief, or maybe something between the two, but I sat there, just breathing. Soaking in it. Letting it sink through my skin like warmth from sunlight.I stared at the money— my money. Not stolen, not borrowed, not owed to anyone. Mine that I worked for. I let out a soft laugh, too weak to be heard across the room. Three years ago, I was sleeping on a friend’s bed with nothing but borrowed clothes and the echoes of my mistakes. Now here I was, counting my savings like it was a ritual like each note held a story, like each kobo had its own testimony.My voice cracked when I muttered, “I’m doing okay.” Saying it