He's Just A Substitute That Doesn't Matter Novels & Stories

He removed his jacket, placing it neatly on the chair before turning to face me. “From now on, you don’t move without instruction.” My chest tightened slightly. “I understand.” “No,” he corrected calmly. “You don’t.” He walked closer. Slow. Deliberate. “You think this is just acting?” he continued. “Smiling, nodding, saying a few lines?” I stayed silent. Because I knew the answer. “No,” he said. “This is survival.” The word hit differently. “You’re not replacing her in a room,” he added. “You’re replacing her in a world that knows her.”

"What am I supposed to do about tomorrow's competition?" Dad felt bad for him, and he urgently said, "Just give us a little more time, Zach. We'll find a way to transfer his system to you. Once that's done, everything will be over." I returned to my room in a daze as everything I had just seen kept replaying in my mind. What exactly was going on? I fell asleep in a daze. The next day, a mechanical voice in my head woke me up. 'Host! You finally remember me!'

With each phrase he spoke, my chest clenched a little more. "When you saw me on Television, did the only thing you really see in me was Liliana, your wife and not Zaniyah Moore who was your childhood friend?" If I had believed that nothing could be more painful than what he had spoken before, I would not have imagined that his refusal to give me my expected answer would have driven a knife further into my chest. "It's always been Liliana, Zaniyah. I only take you here because I want you to be her substitute. I want you to be my substitute wife."

He sobbed out, “Nita, don’t worry. I won’t keep bothering you. I only want to say something to you before I leave. “Unlike the others, I never had any parents. After I was born, I didn’t even meet them. I don’t have any relatives or friends. In my whole life, I only had Risa. “Then, you came into my life and brought me home. Although I never said it, I see you and George as my family. “If… If Risa were never there, I think we would have had a different ending. Nita, do you believe in alternate universes? Perhaps in another universe, Risa never came between us. You would be my only salvation, and I would love you as though you were my whole world. “That’s… That’s an ending we could have had…”

I mean, they will tear me in shards. “Well, it will be a very difficult fight at first but it will not end up nicely for neither of us.” So, I used some of my intelligence and decided to become a substitute teacher. “My college degree did not waste.” He says to me, and I'm really really confused. So, why are you here? Are you a bad guy or you're good guy? Which one exactly? I say to him, and then he smiles. Oh, Maria! “I am not the one you should be so worried about it.” I know you have began to sense the power you have already? He says to me and that is definitely true.

“It has everything to do with you. You’re the replacement. It always does.” The word hit harder spoken aloud. Replacement. People said it casually, commentators, fans, strangers online, but hearing it here, human to human, stripped of glitter and commentary, felt like someone had pressed a finger directly into a bruise I didn’t know I had. I tried to swallow around the tightness in my throat. I wanted to shrug it off. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to say something confident and gracious and above it all. Instead all I could think was: It shouldn’t matter. Why does it matter so much?

Like Marcus would sound. "Difficult." His eyes stayed on his plate. "One of the workers died." "I'm sorry." "Are you?" I looked up. His blue eyes locked on mine. "Of course I am," I said. "Why wouldn't I be?" "Marcus told me once that workers were replaceable. That's how business works." Had Marcus really said that? God. What kind of person was my brother? "That's... I didn't mean..." I fumbled. "People aren't replaceable."

"Why are you even here?" "A man needs to catch a break sometimes," he shrugged, "yesterday was my first time here." "Hm-hm." I rolled my eyes at him and he laughed. "I hope my daughter was not too much trouble today." He raised one eyebrow at me and I only shrugged in response. "Should I order another bottle? You keep gulping so much down at once, you look like you really need this." He said. "If you can." I nodded. I was starting to feel so much lighter and none of my problems seemed to exist to me anymore. Dan, my money issues, everything was gone.

The words hurt more than I meant them to. I swallowed. "Then why haven't you replaced me yet?" His gaze locked onto mine, piercing and unwavering. "Because no one has been good enough." The air was all sorts of weird. I hated how much I wanted to believe that he meant something by that. But I knew better. I stood up tall, jaw clenched. "That's no longer my problem. My replacement will not be me, Tristan. Stop looking for someone perfect and start looking for someone competent."

He impatiently checked his watch now and then as I was wasting his time. "Zeke, was I just a substitute?" I asked, my voice trembling. Zeke's eyes flickered with something unreadable, but he quickly masked it with impatience. Tears streamed down my face as I struggled to comprehend all the facts. "All these years, was I nothing but a replacement?" I asked in a hoarse voice. But then again, he remained silent. And I took that as a ‘yes’ to my questions. "I can't believe this. After everything... I was just a substitute." My voice was laced with bitterness as I muttered my conclusion. And Zeke didn’t even bother to clear it up which only meant one thing—I was right.