Short Emotional Realism Stories & Novels

When I turn 18, my family suddenly strikes gold. Dad makes a fortune in business. We move into a huge house with a driver and a housekeeper. My younger brother, Vincent Becker, is sent to study in Basmar. After that, he graduates and marries a rich heiress. Their partnership makes our family's business soar. I'm the only one who misses my college entrance exam because of stomach cramps, and my parents marry me off to a lonely man in some rundown countryside. He locks me in a basement and hurts me every single day. I crawl my way back home, half-alive, but my parents only look at me with disgust. "Useless brat! How did you not die out there?" Vincent says that he'll take me out to clear my head. Instead, he shoves me in front of a truck. I'm rushed to the ICU with nearly every bone in my body broken. Right before I die, he leans down in his designer suit and whispers in my ear. "Let me tell you the truth before you die. Our family didn't get rich from business. We got rich because of the hundred-million-dollar lottery ticket you bought. "We cashed it behind your back and never told you." I die full of resentment, and right after my death, they sell my organs for 120 thousand dollars. I open my eyes, and suddenly I'm there again—to the very day I bought the lottery ticket.

I always thought my wife was just an ordinary "brother-loving sister," the kind who would do anything for her brother. But one night, I watched in frozen horror as she dismembered her brother in our storage room. Then, as if nothing had happened, she turned and looked straight at me. She flashed her usual gentle smile. "Honey," she called softly, her voice sweet and familiar—exactly the same as always.

My husband was praised by my friends as the perfect husband in the world. Everyone said he loved me to death and practically put me on a pedestal. Then came my prenatal checkup. My older cousin, Catherina Bow, called him with a farewell message before attempting suicide. Without hesitation, he abandoned me and rushed off in panic. I was six months pregnant at that time. My mother expected me to be the bigger person and “lend” my husband to Catherina, who was depressed. My brother snapped at me, "The only reason you’re still in this house is because Catherina spoke up for you. Whatever she wants, you should give it to her!" I found it absurd. I was supposed to be their family. She was nothing but a cuckoo in my nest. When I finally decided to walk away from all of them, they regretted their actions.

The world snapped back into focus, the memories of my brutal end crashing into the present. I was back—right here, right now, the exact moment Jarrold Jameson was trying to hand me that obscenely expensive purse. In my past life, he'd had a nasty fight with his precious Cindy Mayford. To make her jealous, he decided to use me as his pawn. I'd been stupid enough to love him once, but my pride had revolted. I'd refused to be a stand-in. It didn't matter. He kept engineering "accidental" run-ins, crafting one public misunderstanding after another, all to get a reaction from Cindy. I had done nothing wrong. I gained nothing. But I became Cindy's enemy. Her jealousy festered until it turned lethal. She had me kidnapped. The men she hired left my body shattered and broken. And Jarrold? He held his sobbing darling close and whispered those unforgettable words, "She got what she deserved." In the end, they stepped right over what was left of me and walked off into their picture-perfect life. Now, staring into his smug face, a cold clarity settled over me. This time, everything would be different. I snatched the handbag from his grasp. "A present for me?" I asked, my voice sweet, a sharp, calculated smile on my lips. "I love it. But just so you know, for next time… I've always preferred the classic design from her family's brand. That's the one you should be buying me."

The underprivileged student I've been sponsoring suddenly shows up at my birthday party, swaggering in and waving around a pregnancy report. "Look—Pheebs is pregnant with my baby! You'd better be smart and divorce her already!" I point at the report, stunned and confused. "Are you sure it's Phoebe who's pregnant with your child?" Victor Thompson, my beneficiary, smirks proudly as he fiddles with the pregnancy report. "Duh! We conceived the baby last month on our cruise trip!" The entire room falls into a stunned silence. My ex-wife, Phoebe Jackman, has been dead for three years.

It was my honeymoon trip, but my husband's best friend insisted on going into the sea for shark watching despite being on her period. I reasoned against it, as sharks would go amok from the scent of blood, only for Heidi to snap at me, "You're just jealous I have a nice body! That's why you don't want me to have fun with your husband!" My own husband and his other buddies joined in too, brushing me off impatiently. "It's rare for us to hang out! Don't be a buzzkill!" "That's right! Hannah is young and beautiful. She should take pictures with the sharks." With that, they all went down the water despite my earnest protests, and her menstrual bleeding drew schools of sharks toward her right away. When I tried to help, she kicked me in the head, knocking me out and leaving me in the water as the sharks tore me to pieces. While I died under the sea in agonizing despair, Heidi, my husband, and their friends managed to get to safety. Once they returned to civilization, they reported my death as a drowning and pilfered all my wealth. While they rose to the peak of their existence, my parents, devastated by my death, both took their own lives. That was when I opened my eyes again and found myself back on the desert island where they were going for shark watching.

My sister-in-law, Cynthia Ziegler, has my name written on her cancer diagnosis report. As such, the entire Ziegler family assumes that I'm the one with cancer. Overnight, my husband, Leonard Ziegler, sends a text message to his mistress, Irene Ludlow. "Our time will soon come! That old bat is about to die at last, so I'll finally be able to marry you!" My grandmother, Amanda Powell, cries and clings onto my hand, begging me not to seek treatment. She is not only discussing with Leonard on how best to split my insurance money after my death but also employing various methods to hasten my death. However, they are all unaware that Cynthia used my medical insurance card when she went for her physical examination. I feign sadness and nod with tears in my eyes. "I won't seek treatment, Mom. Let's not seek treatment no matter who is diagnosed with cancer."

After our class reunion, my best friend naturally expected me to play chauffeur and drive everyone home. I agreed. However, halfway down the road, a limited-edition luxury car slammed into the back of my car. The owner, who claimed to be a wealthy businessman from overseas, waved off the idea of filing an insurance claim. He said the crash was fate, and with a grand gesture, handed the luxury car over to me on the spot. From that day on, I drove the million-dollar luxury car every day, until jealousy consumed my best friend. She secretly sabotaged my car, and it ended with my death in a fiery wreck. My boyfriend turned on me, insisting I had simply fallen asleep at the wheel. My parents, unable to bear the shock, both died of heart attacks. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the reunion.

My son, Andy, had a sudden liver failure and needed a liver transplant. The only compatible match was my wife, Vivian Grant. I had begged her for 20 days to give Andy a liver transplant. Finally, she caved in. I waited the entire day in front of the operating theater, but she didn’t appear. On the same day, her first love, Jason Sanderson posted on his social media. [20th day of traveling around the world. Dr. Grant had given up her career to help fulfil my son's dream of traveling the world.] Only then did I find out that Vivian had been travelling the world with Jason and his son, Luke, since day one. That night, I received a call from Vivian. "Charlie, Luke had gotten full marks on his exam. His wish was to have his Daddy and Mommy travel around the world with him. As you know, he doesn't have a Mommy. I couldn't bear to watch him not get his wish. "We'll return in three days. We can have the surgery for Andy then." She had no idea that what awaited her at the hospital was Andy's lifeless body.

My stepmother, Mary, hated me to the bone. All because when I was little, I went to a classmate’s house to play and forgot to close the courtyard gate. Her son ran onto the road and was hit to death by a car. My father loved my younger brother the most. After learning what happened, he was heartbroken. “Were you jealous of your brother? That’s why you deliberately left the gate open?” I desperately explained that I had closed the gate, but Dad didn’t believe me. He locked me in the basement and raised me like a dog for the rest of my life. Until one day, when Dad went on a business trip, Mary didn’t give me any food for three days. Starving, I crawled upstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat. That was when I saw Mary sitting on a man’s lap, saying softly, “If you hadn’t forgotten to close the gate back then, I wouldn’t be living in fear every day of my husband finding out… We’re the ones who killed Ethan.” Only then did I understand that I wasn’t the one who had forgotten to close the gate and caused my brother to run outside, but my stepmother’s lover. Just as I was about to sneak back to the basement, my stepmother noticed me. “What did you hear? No! I can’t let your father find out that I killed our own son!” In a panic, she grabbed me and threw me down the stairs, killing me on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day the car hit my brother. I blinked my innocent, childlike eyes and pointed upstairs, speaking in a soft, baby voice, “Dad, I closed the gate. It was the man in Mom’s bedroom who didn’t!”

Ever since we brought our six-year-old daughter, Elise, home, she's been keeping her distance. My husband, Patrick Sheeter, chalked it up to "adjustment issues." Told me to bring her more gifts when I got back from my overseas trip. I was halfway out the door when I heard her voice in my head. 'Should I tell Mom that Della always hits me? 'Dad says Mom hates tattletales. Especially me. 'But if I keep quiet, I might not make it till Mom gets back.' My stomach flipped. I turned around. Elise was curled up in the corner, eyes glassy with tears. Silent. But I still heard her. 'Maybe I lived again just to see Mom one more time.' Patrick, noticing I was frozen, casually reminded me I was gonna miss my flight. Right. Like that mattered. I turned and slapped him so hard. Screw the business trip. I was staying. Let's see who's got the guts to mess with my kid now.

I went abroad for a year to further my studies and kept in touch with my girlfriend through video calls every day. One day, I saw her first love posted a photo with a caption: [We are finally back together after ten years!] In the photo, my girlfriend was visibly pregnant, holding the arm of the man next to her with a sweet smile.

A car accident left me with severe brain injuries. I was left hanging by a thread. My wife, a renowned medical genius, personally operated on me for 18 consecutive hours, pulling me back from death's grasp. Yet, the first words I said to her after waking up were, "Grace, I want a divorce." Her eyes were filled with tears. "Derek, I just saved your life, and now, you want to leave me? Is it because I've been too busy at the hospital? Because I haven't spent enough time with you?" I frowned. "It's exactly because you saved me that I want this divorce. I won't let you sacrifice your reputation for me." The family elders tried to reason with me. "Grace is such a wonderful wife. She takes care of everything and loves you deeply. Why insist on a divorce? Why throw away such happiness?" No matter who approached me, I dismissed them with the same response. "If you think she's so perfect, then she'll be available once we're divorced." The elders were furious. "Fine! Get your divorce! But don't come crying to us when you regret it!" I whispered under my breath, "The only thing I regret is not divorcing her sooner."

I decided to choose a new husband after being reborn. I looked at Asher Vance, the boyfriend I'd devoted five years to, and I turned away without a second glance. Instead, I let my soft form lean into the solid, reassuring strength of his uncle, Alexander Vance. In my past life, I'd ignored the powerful CEO who wanted to marry me and insisted on loving the wild, free-spirited Asher. It wasn't until a sudden miscarriage ripped through me that I uncovered the truth—he'd been lacing the tonic he fed me every single day, without fail, with abortifacients. And his reason? He believed I wasn't as refined, as pure, as my sister Celeste Lockwood, and didn't deserve to carry his heir. Memories of our tangled moments in bed rushed back, how he'd so often whispered Celeste's name against my skin. Only then did I piece it together: every loss I'd suffered had just been a sick, flirtatious game between the two of them, a cruel inside joke at my expense. Fine. If that's how they wanted to play, in this new life, I'd just marry someone else. But on my wedding day, the ever-arrogant Asher collapsed in tears right at the ceremony.

My mom is a retired supermodel. She's added a monitor to the weight scales at home so that she can monitor my and my sister, Abigail Teller's perfect body weight. If my data goes up by 0.1%, Mom will ban me from eating for the next three days. But the thing is, Abigail keeps eating fried chicken every day, yet her monitor's light is always green. Mom claims that Abigail's still going through puberty. I defend myself, saying that I've gained weight because of the bloating caused by my period. As Mom points at the red light emitted by my monitor, she exclaims, "The data is never wrong! If you've gained weight, that means you've been snacking far too much!" After getting punished many times, I begin believing that being fat is a sin. On the night of my 20th birthday, the long-term diet I've been placed on has triggered my kidney failure, which causes me to bloat up everywhere. I kneel on the floor and plead to Mom that I'm seriously ill. But that's when the monitor lets out a shrill alarm. When Mom sees the 5% increase in my body fat data, she puts me through a devillish punishment. I can feel the electric currents jolting through my body. "It's bad enough that you've secretly snacked on cake, but to even lie in my face about your illness? I'd like to see how long you can stay stubborn for!" Having said her piece, Mom locks the door and takes Abigail out to celebrate her birthday. I guess Mom is correct. Monitors never lie. I'm the one who's at the wrong for being a glutton. That's why I've transformed into a monster who doesn't deserve any love at all. I'm sorry, Mom. I'll only drink water in my next life.

On the day I attend the centennial celebration of my alma mater, I encounter my first love, Victor Whitmore. After he delivers a speech as an alumni representative, he publicly presents me with a diamond ring. "Back then, you said you wanted to use your 'Wild Roses' design to make me a wedding ring. Now it's my turn to propose. Claire Webb, will you marry me?" The auditorium erupts in excitement. Everyone waits for me to nod tearfully in agreement. After all, I once pursued Victor with such passion that it shocked the entire school. However, everyone has forgotten something. Back then, I was accused of plagiarizing Emma Palmer's work for my graduation project. Victor knew the truth, yet he slandered me as the plagiarizer. At the press conference, as the brand representative, he announced that they would cease collaboration with me and called for me to be blacklisted across the industry. On the very day my reputation was ruined, I moved abroad. Now that I'm back, his close friend keeps advising me. "He's been waiting for you all these years. Even though you embarrassed him back then, you're still the one in his heart. "He even made a scene at the principal's office just to get your graduation certificate. Claire, he truly loves you."

On day two of Matthew's so-called business trip, I was wiping down the counter when I said, "Auri, play some music." Instead of music, a syrupy voice chirped, "Sure thing, my Baby Moon. Oh, and Matthew, don't forget Bibi's birthday surprise tonight." I froze. The speaker blasted some random playlist, but all I heard was 'Bibi.' Matthew Kein was my husband. So who the hell was Bibi? I called him. "Did you mess with our smart speaker?" A beat of silence, then his fake laugh. "Oh, a buddy dropped by. Probably logged his account in. Why?" I laughed back like I bought it, then hung up. Two taps later, I was scrolling the login history, already hailing a cab to the company tied to that mystery account.

The butler's son took my secondary credit card and burned through my money so he could play the part of a trust-fund prince everyone envied. He made me, his employer's real daughter, bring him lunch every day and run errands for him. In front of his classmates, he smeared me as his family's servant and a desperate girl chasing after him. He even stole my family's heirloom jewelry to impress the campus belle. I finally hit my limit. I decided to give him a lump sum and cut ties completely, treating it as payment for the life-saving favor he once gave me. But after I brought it up, he and his father poisoned my family's food and seized every bit of our property for themselves. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my college classroom. Facing the butler's son, who was still flashing the wealth he stole from me, I took his card and cut it in half. "If you keep pretending like this, your butler dad's salary won't cover the act."

On the day we decided to get a divorce, I saw Miranda’s account book while I was packing up my stuff. Aside from our daily expenses, Miranda had also set up a scoring sheet for me. Miranda had taken notes of all the things I had done ever since we started dating. Some of them were such miniscule things that even I had forgotten. She took note of them all with a red pen, and she scored them by either awarding me points or deducting them. However, the further down the sheet, the more points were deducted. In the end, I saw Miranda add one line in black ink. [He’s no longer the Henry Jones who used to love me: -100]

One day, in the school's group chat, I accidentally revealed that I was the daughter of Sanfiric Inc.'s chairman. Out of nowhere, Sally jumped in with a scathing remark: [Do you have no shame? Clinging to some random man and calling him ‘Dad' just because you're desperate to be an heiress. Have you lost your mind?] Her accusation left me completely baffled. I didn't even bother responding, but she wasn't about to let it go. She bombarded the chat with photos and videos, all claiming to prove that she was the real heiress. In a video she shared, she was clinging to my father's arm, acting sweet and coy. I stared at the screen in shock, my mind reeling. Before I could even process what I was seeing, the school advisor kicked me out of the group chat entirely. "How could we have such a vain and shameless student? You're a disgrace to the school!" Furious, I whipped out my phone and called my dad. The moment he picked up, I exploded, "Roger Burberry, do you have another daughter I don't know about?!"