Lahat ng Kabanata ng HE LEFT ME FOR MY STEPSISTER, I MOVED ON TO THE NEXT: Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

Chapter 51The vibration of my phone pulled me out of the half-distracted daze I’d been in all evening. The notification light pulsed like a heartbeat inside my bag. I brought it out and it felt like lead in my hands.When I looked at the screen, it was a message from an unknown number. It seems my phone has become friends with unknown numbers lately.I tapped it and opened my phone with my pass code. I decided to remove biometrics from my phone because of the incident at Jasper’s house. The message I saw stirred up the fear that I had been having all day.“You can protect her all you want, but when I’m ready, even your little Alisha won’t be safe.”My breath caught. The words were sharp, uncoiled and dripping with venom.I didn’t move at first. My thumb hovered over the screen as though touching it again might summon the sender to sit beside me. I had some enemies and now I couldn’t even place my mind on which of my enemies would send me this.I got home and ran to my room ignoring

Chapter 53Sunday mornings were supposed to be calm and soft or maybe a little lazy. The kind where the world felt quiet enough for me to hear my own heartbeat but this morning wasn’t any of that. It wasn’t even close.I woke with that hollow ache in my chest, the kind that doesn’t really fade no matter how many times you tell yourself you’re fine. I had been trying to convince myself for days that Nathan’s absence was just… space. That maybe he needed it. That maybe I needed it. But who was I fooling? Every second without him felt like my heart had been left in some cold, airless room.That’s how I found myself calling a cab and giving Nathan’s address to him. I was going to his house without any warning or texting to see if it was okay. I didn’t need his permission because I had the spare key he’d given me months ago, the one he’d dropped into my palm with a half-smile, saying, “For emergencies… or whenever you miss me too much.” Today felt like both.Moreover I can’t even get throu

Chapter 55 I was about to leave Nathan’s house when something caught my eye. It was something small, almost ordinary, but it stopped me in my tracks. It was his camera. It sat there on the edge of the table, like it had been waiting for me all along. My breath hitched. Nathan loved this camera with his life. He named the camera “Carl”. He never went anywhere without it. He’d told me once, “Some moments are too important to trust to memory alone.” And now he says he left but left an important part of him behind....... Oh.... God.... My fingers trembled as I picked it up. It felt warm, as though someone had held it not too long ago, though that wasn’t possible, it's just the thought of him that makes it feel so.. warm. My heart gave a strange thump. Maybe this was a piece of him that he’d left behind, unintentionally or deliberately, I didn’t know. I turned it on. The familiar click and whirr filled the silence of the room. His scent lingered around me.... that comforting mix o

Chapter 57The moment I left Nathan’s house with the camera clutched to my chest, I felt like the ground had disappeared beneath me. My legs carried me, almost without thought, straight to the police station. My heart hammered the whole way, my breath shallow, like if I didn’t move fast enough he would slip further away.By the time I reached the front desk of the inspector, my palms were clammy and I could barely form words.The officer at the reception barely looked up. “Yes, ma’am?”“I..... I need to file a missing person’s report,” I stammered. My voice cracked on the word missing. Saying it aloud made it too real.He finally raised his eyes to me, clipboard in hand. “And who’s missing?”“Nathan Cain,” I blurted, my chest tightening. “He’s.... he’s my....” My tongue faltered. Boyfriend? Friend? The man who owned my heart? I swallowed hard. “He’s someone very important to me. He hasn’t contacted me, not once and that’s not like him. Something is wrong.”The officer studied me with

Chapter 59What I found was a plane ticket bill. The thin piece of paper felt heavier than anything I had ever held. I clutched the plane ticket bill in my trembling hand like it was the last thread connecting me to Nathan. My heart thumped loudly in my chest as if it were trying to break free, and every step toward the police station felt like wading through water.When I got there, Inspector Hayes was waiting, arms crossed, his sharp eyes narrowing as he spotted the ticket bill.“You found something?” he asked quickly, as though afraid I’d vanish before handing it over.“Yes,” I said, my voice breaking. “This.... this was in his drawer. He was supposed to be on a flight.”His gaze flickered down at the ticket bill, and he studied it with the precision of someone who knew that every second counted. He didn’t waste time. “We’re going to the airport, now. If he boarded this flight then we will end this investigation on the note that he left voluntarily but if he didn’t board the fligh