Mga Maiikling Kuwento at Nobela Emotional Realism

For eight years, I was James Carter's secretary and secret lover. Eight years of giving him my heart completely. I truly believed he loved me back - he was always tender and attentive when we were intimate, seemingly caring about my every need and desire. But then I overheard him telling others, "She's nothing but a stand-in, just someone to satisfy my physical needs when I'm bored. Did you really think I would marry her?" In that moment, I finally found the strength to let go and stop loving him. I handed in my resignation and walked away from it all. Yet after my whirlwind marriage to someone else, why did he suddenly start searching for me desperately across the city? Now he's here with tears in his eyes, claiming I'm the one he truly loves? Wasn't I just his convenient replacement all along?

I had just returned from studying design abroad when my grandfather insisted that he had already arranged a childhood betrothal for me. The moment I got back to the country, he dragged me straight to the Hunt family's residence to discuss the engagement. The adults talked endlessly, and I quickly grew bored sitting there. Slipping away quietly, I wandered into the Hunt family garden for a walk. Out of nowhere, a woman rushed toward me and slapped me hard across the face. "Where did this shameless woman come from? How dare you steal my things!" I covered my cheek and stared at her in shock. The woman lifted her chin arrogantly, her tone dripping with condescension, as if she were granting me charity. "That ruby on your hand was a birthday gift from the young master of the Hunt family. A poor girl like you—how could you possibly afford to wear it?!" I opened my mouth, about to explain that it was mine. But before I could say a word, she struck me across the face again. "Do you even know who I am? I'm the Hunt family's future daughter-in-law—the future Mrs. Hunt! The entire Hunt family will listen to me!" I pulled out my phone and, right in front of her, sent a message to the contact labeled Fiancé. "Lucas, there's a mad dog in your house. Are you going to do something about it or not?"

In our town, every family that welcomed a daughter planted a cherry tree the year she was born. When she got married, the tree would be cut down and crafted into two matching hope chests, filled with her dowry as a blessing that husband and wife would stay together for life. Half a month before my sister's wedding and mine, my brother, Ace Bates, came home with the finished chests. He struggled to carry them through the front door. Rianne's eyes lit up the moment she saw them. My mother, Martha Bates, gently stroked Rianne's hair. "My precious girl is getting married already. It feels like just yesterday you were still my little baby." My father, Ira Bates, frowned, his voice firm. "If that boy ever treats Rianne badly, I'll skin him alive." No one seemed to notice anything was wrong. My gaze drifted behind Ace. There was nothing. No second chest. I looked at him and asked, "Ace, where's mine?" He froze for a second, as though he'd only just remembered that I was getting married that day too.

On the night I add my new girlfriend, Celia Spencer, into my group chat with my friends, my college roommate, Kevin Wright, suddenly posts more than a dozen screenshots in the group chat. Those screenshots feature the fragments of daily life I occasionally post on my social media feed. "Now here's where things get confusing. We only earn thousands of dollars per month. Where on earth did you get your money from in order to live such a lavish life? "I've been holding my tongue for far too long. At first, I intended to protect your pride. But now that you're dating such a wonderful, beautiful, and rich woman, I don't have the heart to see her getting lied to." In the end, Kevin tags Celia in the group chat. His words are filled with regret and pain. "Ms. Spencer, you're a rich scion, so you might not know anything about the bottom feeders' tactics. A fake scion like Luke who has racked up a huge online debt and brands his social media feed to look rich is very common in society! You have to keep your eyes open, you know! Take care not to get tricked by scammers!" As I suppress my anger, I respond with, "I never stole nor robbed from others! What's wrong with me spending my own money?" Kevin quickly retaliates with a lengthy audio message. "Your own money, you say? Your net worth isn't enough to afford even one segment of that luxury wristwatch in the photo! Why are you still pretending to be rich?" I just laugh in response. Does Kevin really think that rich people don't wear cheap stuff? What he doesn't know is that Celia, the so-called rich and beautiful woman he's trying so hard to kiss up to, is actually just someone I've hired to play the part. I'm the actual scion here, whereas Celia is just a fake heiress.

While picking up my parcel from the mailroom, I run into Ivan Judd, an underprivileged student from my grade who is working part-time there. While we chat, he finds out that I'd spent 128 thousand dollars during the Black Friday sales. Dumbfounded, Ivan cries, "I've never even seen that kind of money in my entire life! And you're spending it so casually? Did your mom send you to college to study or to blow money like this?" He yanks the parcel out of my hands and physically blocks the exit. "Return it immediately! Kids like you never understand how hard it is for adults to earn money! If you're this wasteful now, what man can afford to marry you in the future?" I can't help but laugh angrily at Ivan's ridiculous attitude. I retort, "What does me spending my mom's money have anything to do with you?" "How does it not?" He looks completely justified when he says, "I'm dating your mom. Every cent you spend counts as our future marital assets!" I am shocked. Isn't Mom a lesbian? Since when did she start liking men?

My husband, Leon Hobbs, calls me to tell me that his grandma, Phoebe Reid, has forgotten to bring her blood pressure medication, so he wants me to deliver it to her. "Hurry up, Elsie! Grandma's blood pressure is spiking again! You're the one who's closest to her right now!" With the medication in hand, I've just reached the corridor when comments pop up on my phone out of nowhere. "Don't go! The old lady will die in the living room ten minutes after you enter the apartment!" "The blood pressure medication has been swapped out for poison, and your prints are on the bottle! Everyone will think that you're the one who poisoned the old lady!" "Your husband and your mother-in-law have left the apartment purposefully so that you'll be the only one facing the old lady's corpse! Then, they'll use the assets that you and the old lady have left behind just to buy a new home for your husband's pregnant mistress!" I remain rooted to the spot as I stare at the bottle of medication. Leon had passed it to me last night, claiming that it was a bottle of newly prescribed medication. He wanted me to keep it for Phoebe for the time being. My fingerprints are all over the bottle at this time. Three seconds later, I turn on my heel and head toward the nearest pharmacy. Then, I place the bottle of pills on the counter. "Please help me check whether or not this bottle of medication fits the label."

Jessica has just landed her dream job and sold the film rights to her novels. Then she stumbles across an online post from her closest friend, Linda, asking strangers how to ruin her life. When Linda tries to sabotage Jessica's career, expose her pen name, steal her boyfriend, and destroy her author account, Jessica quietly gathers every piece of evidence and turns Linda's own schemes against her. By the time Linda realizes she has been caught, Jessica is ready to send her former best friend to prison and take back everything she earned.

The year my parents "divorced," I was twelve. My twin sister, Lily Reed, and I were split up between them. Lily left for California with our mother, Rachel Reed. I moved with our father, Grant Reed, into a moldy basement in Newark. Dad got hooked on gambling and buried himself in debt. Every day after school I washed dishes at a restaurant, and even my free school lunch had to be split into two meals. Six years later, Lily sent me a link out of nowhere. "Here's an eighteenth birthday present for you, sis." It was a paid livestreaming platform for the rich. The hottest stream on the homepage was called "Raised Poor vs. Raised Rich: Which Child Turns Out Better?" The screen was split in two. On the left, I sat in the leaky basement, doing homework by a broken desk lamp. On the right, my parents sat with their arms around Lily on the couch of a mansion in Alpine, cutting into a birthday cake. [The sister still has no idea, right? Her parents never divorced.] [The gambling debts and debt collectors are fake too. It's all for the show.] Lily looked into the camera and smiled sweetly. "See, sis?" "This is our real home."

On the very first day of my rebirth, I immediately quit my job, a dream position with a lucrative salary and weekends off. Instead, I went straight to a shady loan shark to borrow ten million dollars. In my past life, my boyfriend’s childhood best friend used a system to steal my hard-earned paychecks. She took my money and traveled the world with my boyfriend. She even went live online to donate money to retirement homes, praised by netizens everywhere as a literal angel. Meanwhile, the one million dollars I had saved up for my mother’s life-saving surgery after working overnight shifts was wiped out in an instant. I begged her to return my money. Yet, she put on a pathetic, innocent act. “Have some self-respect! If you want money, earn it yourself. Why are you forcing me to hand over mine?” My boyfriend sneered at me. “Why can’t you learn from her and be an independent woman? Would you die if you weren't so greedy?!” The very next day, rumors framing me as a gold-digger blew up across the internet, which led my mom to die of a heart attack. My boyfriend and his childhood friend took my one million dollars, bought a luxury sports car, and went on a joyride without a care in the world. As for me, I was smuggled into an offshore scam compound, turned into a cash-generating puppet, and ultimately died after having my organs harvested. This time around, I’d love to see how his childhood friend travels the world while carrying a massive, mountain-high debt!

At the company's gathering, everyone has the right to order for themselves. When it's my turn, however, the new intern, Hayden Belmont, snatches the menu from me. "The order's complete, so there's no need to order anything else." I merely ignore Hayden as I tell the server, "I'd like some continental herb-baked snails, please." But Hayden slams the menu at my face while glaring at me angrily. "I said you're not allowed to order! Who do you think you are, huh?" The hard edge of the menu leaves a scratch on my face. Blazing pain is all I feel at the moment, which fuels my temper even more. So, I pick up the menu and throw it back at Hayden's face. He's quick to shriek and yell at me in fury. "Do you have any idea who I am? My mom is Natasha Belmont, the biggest client of this company! Even the CEO has to show some respect to me, and yet you have the nerve to lay a finger on me? "I'll have your 800-thousand-dollar bonus canceled right away! Soon, the entire industry will blacklist you!" I'm stunned, to say the least. My biological aunt, Natasha Belmont, has been single for 40 years. Since when does she have a grown-up son?

My father-in-law kept saying he wanted to cook something special for his granddaughter, so I took him to the upscale gourmet supermarket my wife had just bought. He'd barely picked up a package of imported prime beef to read the label when a man in workout clothes snatched it out of his hands. He slapped at the packaging in disgust and pointed at my father-in-law. "Your hands are filthy, old man. You think you get to put them on meat that costs a thousand dollars? "If you can't afford it, don't touch it. Could you even pay for it if you ruined it? "You smell like you walked in off a farm. It's disgusting." I stepped in front of him. "He was reading the label. Why are you talking to him like that?" The man sneered at me. Then he threw the beef on the floor and stomped on it twice. "And what if I am? "The woman who owns this supermarket is my girlfriend. "I could tear this whole place apart and she'd thank me for it. "So take your country cousin here and get out." I looked at the meat on the floor and took a slow breath. Then I walked straight to the checkout counter, took the storewide announcement microphone out of the manager's hand, and turned the volume all the way up. "Attention, shoppers. "There is a man in the fresh-food section who says he's the owner's boyfriend. "He is currently destroying store property, and he has assaulted the owner's father. "For your own safety, please gather in an orderly fashion. "And while you're at it, somebody call the police."

I drive a Rolls-Royce to the venue where my high school reunion is held. When my former classmates ask me how much the Rolls-Royce costs, I tell them that it belongs to the company. They begin telling everyone behind my back that I work as a company driver, and that I'm not living a good life at the moment. Then again, the car does belong to the company. It's just that the company is mine.

In my previous life, my boyfriend's adopted younger sister, Rita Wood, came to me at the hospital for a prescription because she had a sore throat. I asked her if she was allergic to any medication, and I even explained the dangers of being allergic to medication. She told me "no" very firmly. When I insisted on producing the informed consent form and having Rita sign it, she started a video call with my boyfriend, Ryan Wood, on the spot. On the screen, Ryan frowned at me before saying coldly, "I know Rita's health very well. She definitely doesn't have a history of allergens. She's my younger sister, so don't keep targeting her over the smallest reasons. I'm very busy, you know. Bye." So, I gave in and prescribed Rita the medication without undergoing the official process. Three days later, Rita showed signs of miscarriage due to her allergy toward the medication, leading to her being sent to an emergency treatment room. Apparently, she hid both her allergy to medication and her pregnancy from me. Thanks to her, I was held accountable for this incident, which led to me losing my chance to get promoted. At the same time, this incident got onto the news as a medical mishap. I ended up getting blacklisted by the medical world permanently. Not only that, but I had to pay off a huge debt. In order to clear the debt, I worked three jobs at the same time through day and night without resting. Finally, I collapsed and never got up ever again on a particularly exhausting night. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Rita is here for a prescription.

I had just been discharged from surgery for a collapsed lung when my boyfriend took me to a childhood friend’s birthday party. At the party, he yanked off my ventilator and used it to inflate party balloons. My chest seized violently, as if my lung had been torn open. Justin Miller turned to Sophie Shaw proudly and said, “See? This is so much easier than blowing them up with your mouth.” I gripped the doorframe. I was gasping as my vision blurred. “Justin, I need that to survive! I can’t breathe!” His expression darkened. “Sophie was kind enough to invite you to her birthday party. Know your place! Besides, she put in a lot of effort for this day and spent hours preparing for it. Are you really going to ruin the celebration?” I struggled to speak through the pain. “Is her surprise more important than my life?” I extended a trembling hand toward the ventilator, but Justin waved it aside. He said impatiently, “I already checked. You won’t die from holding your breath for just a moment. Don’t be so selfish!” At that moment, pain stabbed me in the chest, and I used every ounce of my strength to press the emergency call button my brother had given me.

Simply because I upset my adopted younger brother, Owen White, my older sister, Quinn White, and my wife, Elaine Sinclair, banish me to a remote mountain village as punishment. Before she leaves, Elaine even gives the villagers money and instructs them to make sure I learn my lesson. From that day onward, I'm reduced to the villagers' plaything, a punching bag and a tool for their depravity. If I show even the slightest resistance, I receive even more brutal punishment and humiliation. It takes only three months for me to go from desperately fighting for survival to becoming completely numb and willingly stripping for them. Then, one day, the village chief, Martha Campbell, storms into my house. Instinctively, I take off my only tattered coat, but she snaps at me, "Put it back on! Ms. Sinclair is here to take you home." In a daze, I wrap my clothes tightly around myself, a single thought echoing in my mind. "Do I still have a home?"

My wife, Linda Bennett, and I spend six years saving for our first home. Just when we finally have enough, her brother, Howard Bennett, suddenly falls seriously ill, and every dollar in our savings disappears into his medical bills. I don't blame her. I tell her we'll start over. To help cover the expenses, I even drive Uber after work, taking late-night shifts and going six months without buying myself so much as a new shirt. Then my business suddenly takes off. I rush home, excited to tell Linda how much money I've made, but before I open the door, I hear her talking to Howard inside. "You got the house?" "Yep! Thanks to the money you gave me, I had enough to buy it outright." Linda's next words stop me cold. "Good thing you came up with the idea of faking an illness. If I'd told him the money was for your house, he would never have handed it over." I freeze. Howard was never sick. The medical bills were all a lie. For six years, I've worked myself to the bone for our future, only to discover that Linda has taken everything we saved and secretly used it to buy Howard a house. I push open the door. Their laughter dies instantly.

I'm a privileged only child hailing from the wealthy coastal region. In fact, my family has just received three brand-new apartments from the government after they've bought up our old property for redevelopment. On Christmas Eve, my cousin, Patrick Snyder, brings his girlfriend, Kelsey Randall, back for dinner. She stares at me for a while before gasping in shock. "Hang on, you look really familiar! You must be 69goddess, right? I saw your videos on a porn site before! You really have an amazing figure!" The atmosphere at the dining table goes eerily silent at that moment. My relatives all shoot me disgusted looks simultaneously. Dad is so pissed that he tosses his newly-shelled crab away. Meanwhile, Mom can barely catch her breath after hearing the news. Patrick shields Kelsey from me while looking disdainful. "You bring nothing but shame to the family, Jillian! Don't go around telling others that you know me from now on!" I wipe my hands with a napkin slowly. Then, I shoot a wide smile at the pretentious Kelsey. "Have you forgotten that I'm the one performed the gender-affirming surgery on you, Kelsey?"

The day my little brother had his asthma attack, I poured every drop of his nebulizer medication down the bathroom sink. When Mom burst into the bathroom, the empty bottle was still dripping in my hand. Cradling my gasping brother in her arms, she slapped me across the face so hard that my ears rang. "You're only eight years old! How can you be this evil? Would you finally be happy if he died?" I wanted to tell her that the medicine was not the right one. The bottle smelled like harsh, burning bleach. The new nanny, Sophia, had grabbed the wrong bottle from the cleaning closet. But Mom didn't let me finish. She grabbed my arm, dragged me into the unfinished walk-in closet and locked the door from the outside. "You can come out when you realize your brother's life is more important than your petty jealousy." Outside, Dad was screaming while rushing my brother to the ER. Inside, I mistakenly knocked my foot over a plastic construction bucket and a thick, toxic white liquid began to puddle over my bare feet. I clawed at the door gap with my fingernails, sobbing, begging for Mom. The next morning, the hospital called. They confirmed that my brother's medication was laced with industrial cleaner. That was the exact moment Mom finally remembered that the key to the closet I was locked in was still sitting in her purse…

To help my husband, Henry Carter, pay off a million-dollar debt, I clean windows and scrub toilets in an office building on Valentine's Day just for the triple pay. After I'm done with the windows, I am about to transfer the last 50 thousand dollars of the debt when a post suddenly pops up on my phone. The title of the post is, "What is something you see in real life that makes you feel sorry for someone, even if they are your enemy?" One of the top comments says, "The person I hate the most is my boyfriend's wife. My boyfriend pretends to be poor to spend money on me and cheats his wife out of over a million. That woman works day and night at a cleaning company just to make money for me! "This has gone on for eight years. That woman has been scrubbing toilets for eight years! Even if she is my enemy, I feel sorry for her." I freeze, and my fingers tremble uncontrollably. No way. It has to be a coincidence. I stare at those words, stunned and unable to recover from the shock. Then, a new comment appears, "Now, my boyfriend plans to fake an illness by telling his wife that he has cancer. He's going to trick her into giving him money to buy me a car." At that exact moment, Henry sends me a message. The instant I open it, I feel my heart skip a beat. It reads, "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sick—I have cancer. The doctor says we need to prepare 80 thousand dollars for treatment. I hate myself for this. Why am I even alive? I'm just dragging you down with me." The words "late-stage liver cancer" in the attached diagnosis report are painful to look at. I think in dismay, "Henry, you do not need to pretend to be sick. You are indeed in the late stage of cancer."

After I helped my husband’s company go public, he generously rewarded every member of his family. “Mom, this luxury river-view apartment is for you. Raising me wasn’t easy, so you deserve to enjoy the rest of your life.” My mother-in-law held the property deed and smiled from ear to ear. My husband then turned to his younger sister and handed her a set of Porsche keys. “The sports car I promised you, Sarah. Take it! You’ll look good wherever you go.” Even the family’s housekeeper received a $20,000 year-end bonus. “Linda, you’ve worked hard cooking for us this year. Take it and spend it!” When it was finally my turn, I instinctively smoothed down my old clothes and looked at him expectantly. After all, I sold my dowry to raise enough money for his start-up capital. But my husband’s smile instantly disappeared. He casually tossed an exquisite gift box at me. Then he raised his glass and called out to everyone. “Everyone has their share. Let’s toast!” I opened the gift box with trembling hands and found an apron inside, along with a handwritten card: [Perfect Wife and Mother Award: You’re still responsible for all the cleaning and cooking at home.]