The Joke

At the annual company raffle, I had barely stepped onto the stage when my supervisor, Lily Smith, pressed a crumpled slip of paper into my palm. "A special reward for our top salesperson," she chirped. "Go ahead, open it. Let everyone see." Under the eager gaze of the crowd, I unfolded the note. Written in messy handwriting were the words: Clean the company toilets for three days. The room erupted in laughter. Lily folded her arms, cocked her head, and smirked at me. "Nice, right?" she said. "Everyone knows those sales of yours came from sleeping with old men. Dirty money. To keep things fair, the others get a break, and you pick up a little extra work. You don't have a problem with that, do you?" The laughter surged again, nearly lifting the roof. From the side of the room, my boyfriend, Seth Hoffman, the company's CEO, watched everything unfold. As usual, he said nothing in my defense. They all thought I would fall apart, cry, or make a scene. Instead, I simply gave a calm nod. The very next day, the company was hit with over three hundred property cancellations. Its cash flow collapsed overnight. That was when Lily and Seth rushed to me, demanding I go plead with the buyers. I smiled and said, "No thanks. I wouldn't want to help the company recover and end up with strong numbers again. That might make everyone even more uncomfortable."

My best friend loved playing 'jokes.' On my birthday, she projected my worst photos in front of everyone, saying she just wanted to 'liven up the mood.' When I was on my period, she deliberately gave me a defective pad. Even when she saw the stain on my clothes, she said nothing–claiming she was helping me 'get more attention.' After I started dating, she edited my photos into suggestive images and spread them across social media groups, pricing them like a product. When I finally snapped and confronted her, she just laughed. "I'm just helping you test your boyfriend," she said. "If he doubts you, then he doesn't really love you. How can you blame me?" Later, a man used the information from those posts to track me down and harm me. I did not survive what followed. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day she first shared those images.

On the night meant to celebrate her two-years wedding anniversary, Hadley’s world burns—literally and emotionally. After two years of standing loyally beside her husband, Andrew Shaw, even helping him secure a major deal with Sky Group as his company’s director, Hadley receives a terrifying call: his office is on fire. Without hesitation, she rushes into the flames to save him… only to find him entangled with her own sister, Laura. Betrayed, humiliated for being overweight, and trapped in a blazing inferno, Hadley watches in disbelief as the two people she trusted most choose each other—and abandon her to die. But fate isn’t done with her yet. She survives. And this time, she walks away. Divorced and carrying Andrew’s child, Hadley disappears from his life, only for the truth to surface—she was never just the devoted wife he discarded. She is an heiress, powerful and untouchable, with a new life rising from the ashes of her past, and no longer overweight. Now, the woman Andrew once betrayed and mocked for being overweight is no longer someone he can control or insult anymore… yet she becomes the one he can’t forget. As regret consumes him, Andrew begins his relentless pursuit to win her back. But Hadley has already learned her lesson. This time, will she choose love… or revenge?

My SAT scores are out. It turns out that I'm the top scorer of my state. But I insist on applying to an obscure, third-rate private college in front of my friends and family. Everyone thinks that I've gone nuts. Mom even gets down on her knees and begs me not to destroy my future. "You can go to any top college you want! Why must you attend that trashy college instead?" I remain unmoved despite the fact that everyone keeps convincing me to change my mind. What they don't know is that if I don't go there, everyone will die in three days.

As soon as my husband sat at the dining table, he couldn't stop himself from talking. The humiliations of my school days had become his favorite entertainment, served up to his drinking buddies like appetizers. "Back then, she got her clothes torn off in the bathroom, beaten so badly she crawled on the ground like a dog, too terrified to make a sound. If it weren’t for my kindness—" That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I told him I wanted a divorce. He laughed it off, utterly unbothered. "Seriously? It’s just a joke! That was ages ago. You’re way too uptight—it’s just for a laugh, right?" For a laugh? Was I the only one with a past? Did he think he was untouchable? Maybe I should tell a few embarrassing stories about his precious childhood sweetheart. Fine. If it’s all about “fun,” I hoped his sweetheart found it equally hilarious when her turn came.

After my husband's brother died, he took Miranda, his widowed sister-in-law in. He claimed that he would give me his love—but gave all his money to her. He said that since she had no official status, being with him would make her the subject of gossip, so he took her with him and left me behind in the countryside. Every month, he wrote me three love letters, yet sent all his allowance to her. During the famine, she and her two children sat in a warm little house eating well, while my two children died before I could return from selling my blood. One froze to death, the other starved to death. Later, my husband finally came back, but he didn’t shed a single tear for the children. Instead, he told me he wanted a divorce. "Nathalie, to apply for housing, we need a marriage certificate. It hasn’t been easy for Miranda all these years. I want to give her a home. Don’t worry, even if I marry her, I’ll still divorce her afterward—because you’re the only one I love." In the end, I was devastated and threw myself into the icy river. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my children were about to die. This time, I shook them awake, ready to go reclaim everything that was rightfully mine.