Pendek Emotional Realism Cerita & Novel

My cousin, Monica Newman, turned down a blind date with a rich guy and insisted on marrying a broke kid instead. She begged me to steal her papers from my aunt so that she could get her way, yet two years after the wedding, she ended up killing me. She said it was all my fault that she had married an average guy and spent every day stressing about money. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the same day Monica was to meet that rich guy for the blind date. This time, I told her, "How do you know he's wrong for you if you won't even give him a try?" Since she blamed me for ruining her dream of marrying into money in my last life, this time, I would give her exactly what she wanted.

At the dinner table, my mother-in-law slid a contract across to me, right in front of more than 20 relatives. "Just sign it," she said lightly. "Consider it a favor to me." I looked down. A home mortgage agreement for 150,000 dollars. Across from me, my husband's younger brother, Jim Canfield, watched with a grin. Beside him, my husband's eldest sister, Cindy Canfield, urged impatiently, saying, "Shirley, what are you waiting for? Just sign it." I said I needed to go home and talk it over with Howard Canfield first. My mother-in-law's expression darkened. "What? You can't even make this decision for your own marriage?" That night, I did not sign anything. Later, she sent a three-minute voice message in the family group chat, accusing me of being childish, ungrateful, and heartless. More than 70 replies followed—not a single one in my defense. A month later, I came home from work to find three men waiting at my door, there to seize the house. I pulled out my phone and checked the property registry. The record was clear. [Mortgaged. 150,000 dollars.]

School had just dismissed us for the exam-break when my roommate begged me not to leave her alone in the dorm. She said she was scared and wanted to come home with me. Out of kindness, I brought her back with me. I had no idea that the very first night, she would sneak into my brother's room, and by the next morning, she was screaming that he had assaulted her. Because of that, my brother missed the exam, and his reputation was ruined. When the school board found out, they expelled him. No other school would take him in. To keep me from getting involved in this mess at school, my parents had no choice but to let that roommate live with us. After that, she treated our home like her personal hotel: never lifting a finger, demanding that my parents wait on her every night, and even having them wash her feet. My brother dropped out and took up work at an illegal factory just to support her spending. Then one day, a machine crushed him at that factory. My parents, already exhausted and heartbroken, fell gravely ill and passed away soon after. I was consumed by hatred. In the end, I dragged the roommate who destroyed my family down into the flames with me. Even as I died, I still couldn't understand. What kind of bitter grudge did her family have against mine for her to ruin us like that? But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day she asked to come home with me…

In order to prioritize saving a girl who needs to undergo a kidney transplant, I've gone to the bank to deal with the transaction. Judith Smith, the lady working at the counter keeps making my life difficult, though. "How can you prove that your funds are legal? Also, how can you prove that you are an employee of this charity organization?" "These are the documents that I've prepared according to the regulations that can prove the funds' sources. Here's my work ID and my driver's license. My photos are shown here." Judith merely glances at the identification documents before raising an eyebrow. "You don't look anything like the photos at all!" Since I'm in a hurry, I rush back to the organization and quickly get all the paperwork regarding my identity settled. I initially thought that I could finally transfer the check to the hospital. But that's when Judith speaks up lightly. "I refuse to go through this procedure." Furious, I decide to lodge a complaint about Judith. But she has the audacity to post about me on the Internet. There, she paints me as a rude customer who not only deliberately makes things difficult for her, but I apparently also refuse to comply with the standard procedures. Later on, the sick girl's prioritization gets canceled due to how crazy the public backlash has become. Just when I'm no longer in a hurry to transfer the payment to the hospital, Judith is the one panicking about the situation instead.

The company holds a management meeting. My wife's secretary, Lisa Carter, is checking IDs at the conference room entrance. She greets everyone who enters with a warm smile. But when it is my turn, she lets out a scornful laugh. I frown and pull out my Cybersecurity Department Manager's ID, but she doesn't even glance at it. "Mr. Torres, Ms. Shaw took pity on you and made you a manager. Do you really think you're somebody important?" I ignore her and dial the CEO's direct line instead. "Someone's saying my position is just charity from you. Is it true?"

My younger fraternal twin brother finally gets a girlfriend. Our parents, who are overseas, entrust me with the task of welcoming her. I instruct the maids to prepare a feast to welcome her. As we sit around the dining table, my brother scoops a bowl of soup for me himself. After that meal, my brother's girlfriend pulls a long face at me. "Who gave you the right to eat the soup my darling scooped? How could you be so lazy? You can't even cook, yet you're not even embarrassed to stuff yourself with all that food!" I'm stunned by her outrageous words. I reply in annoyance, "What does that have to do with you anyway? I'll do as I please!" She glares at me with hatred written all over her face and yells, "Why aren't you married yet? The family's assets belong to me and my darling. Who do you think you are that you can spend our money? "Just look at you. You will never be able to get married like this. Perhaps it'll be better for you if you beg me to introduce my elder cousin to you. He doesn't mind that you're lazy. All he wants is for you to give him a son. He earns over ten thousand dollars a month!" I'm dumbstruck by her shamelessness. I storm straight to the bathroom where my brother is and bang on the door repeatedly. "Come out here right now! What is with your girlfriend? And since when have our family's assets become yours and yours alone?"

My father loved silence. He believed noise was the mark of lesser people, so he installed a decibel meter in our home. Speaking above 40 decibels meant that we would have to pay him 10 dollars, laughing above 60 decibels meant 50 dollars, and crying or throwing a tantrum was a serious offense at 100 dollars per second. The year I turned four, I fell and broke my arm. I did not make a single sound. I bit down so hard that I cracked two teeth, but I saved thousands in noise fees. He praised me for it and called me a "high-value child," one that was worth the investment. I treasured that compliment and observed the rules carefully, keeping the house wrapped in suffocating silence. Then came the stormy night a thief broke in. He had a knife and was creeping toward my mother as she slept, and I watched it all from the gap in the wardrobe where I was hiding. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shriek and wake my father, to do something, anything. However, my eyes drifted to the decibel meter on the wall, and my hand found nothing but an empty pocket. I did not have enough allowance. One scream would cost hundreds, and I simply could not afford it.

The day my husband's first love shows up at my house, I catch a faint, cloyingly sweet scent of gardenias in the air. My genetically-linked asthma flares violently at the scent of gardenias. As expected, halfway through the meal, my chest suddenly tightens. I can barely draw a breath before collapsing onto the couch. My younger brother sprints into my bedroom like he's lost his mind, grabs an inhaler, and shoves it straight to my mouth. "Tess!" he roars. "Why the hell is there gardenia perfume?" Everyone panics. My dad grabs a liquor bottle. My mom lunges forward, grabbing the woman by the hair. And my husband positions himself in front of her, protecting his beloved first love as she trembles. Amid the chaos, I muster the last of my strength. I reach into the crack of the couch, grab another inhaler, take a deep breath, and slowly push myself upright. I let out a cold laugh as I fix my gaze on the woman cowering behind my husband. "Finished with your little performance? It's my turn now."

In my parents' hearts, there was always a "perfect son" who died too soon. I was just his flawed substitute, while my younger brother was their new hope. They pretended to be poor for 20 years, secretly funneling all their resources to him. While I was in the final stages of stomach cancer, writhing in pain, they were spending millions of dollars to build him a state-of-the-art study room. When the doctor told me to notify my family about hospital bills, I felt helpless, thinking they were just ordinary, broke workers. When my mom finally showed up at the hospital, she grabbed my hand, not out of concern. "Neville is under so much stress with his college entrance exams. Can you not die right now? He can't take it." My dad stood by, wearing a stern expression. "David was way more sensible than you."

Someone started a thread on a forum asking, [Do men become stingy with their wives after marriage?] The replies were full of women complaining about how cheap and calculating their husbands were. My husband, however, went in the opposite direction. After we got married, he handed me his payroll card to manage and kept only a few dozen dollars a month for his own expenses, as though he had truly given everything to me and to this family. I shook my head and was about to respond when my mother-in-law's call interrupted me. "Chloe, Josh's god sister is sick. She needs $4,500." My husband immediately slipped an arm around my shoulders and assured me, "Don't worry. We'll use my salary. You won't have to pay a cent." "Alright," I said. Seeing how certain he was, I transferred one dollar to him on the spot and added a note: Medical expenses transferred. When my mother-in-law saw the transfer, she flew into a rage, sharply accusing me of being jealous and petty, even withholding money meant to save a life. I remained unmoved. "That's all there is on the card." She completely lost her temper, threatening to come over and audit how many kickbacks I had supposedly pocketed over the years. I agreed to settle the accounts. That was when my husband suddenly lost his enthusiasm.

I worked tirelessly to secure a major project with the design institute, but my husband fabricated lies out of nowhere, claiming I was dragging the company down. He handed the credit for my work to his first love. Instead of getting angry, I laughed and gave my position as the company's Design Director to his precious first love too. "Working on projects all the time is exhausting. Why don't I just make you the company's Design Director instead?" Every single colleague thought I'd lost my mind, but nobody knew the project could only succeed because of my unique design style and my connections. Without me, the project would not just fail. The entire company would collapse.

The day my biological family comes to take me home, a car accident occurs. My parents and the fake son who had been living my life all die, but my sister, Kayla Bennett, survives. She despises me completely after that and blames the company's bankruptcy on me too. Desperate to make amends, I work over ten jobs a day, giving her every cent I earn so she can buy back the villa that has all our family memories. The day I finally save enough money, I discover my supposedly dead parents inside that same villa, celebrating Dylan Bennett's birthday. My usually cold sister is laughing warmly with them. As they bring out the cake, Mom mentions me. "Today's Nathan's birthday too. We've been punishing him for eight years now. Maybe we should bring him home?" Kayla cuts her off immediately. "We agreed on ten years to make sure he never suggests sending Dylan away again. Not one year less!" I clutch my medical report and laugh through my tears. But Kayla, I'm dying.

On the day of my marriage with the marquis’ heir, the adopted daughter of the marquis threatened to kill herself. William Taylor left me at the altar for her and escaped the wedding. I became the butt of the joke of the entire city. When I saw the mocking gazes of the wedding guests, I immediately announced, “I’ll marry anyone who’s willing to marry me today!” Three years later, William returned with his adoptive sister, Denise Gold. I sat on the couch as I drank tea. William stared at my pregnant belly and asked through clenched teeth. “Whose child are you having?” I took a sip of the tea and smiled. “Of course I’m having a child of this family.”

Past thirty, my usually serious husband suddenly developed a fascination with pink. The dark-colored furniture that had stayed the same for ten years was replaced with pink; even the utensils he picked up casually were pink. I stared at the line of pink pajamas, pink bow ties, and pink underwear hanging out to dry on the balcony, feeling something was off. "I thought you said you hated pink—that it was a color only women liked?" He was unpacking a new pink bed set and didn't even look up. "Oh, Jack and I made a bet. If I can replace everything in the house with pink, he'll give me his seaside villa for free. Honestly, after looking at it for a while, pink isn't that bad, don't you think?" I neither agreed nor disagreed. Instead, I called Jack, who blurted out, "What seaside villa? I don't remember ever buying one!"

Mom and Dad have given me all their love. They've decorated a princess bedroom for me, where unlimited Barbie dolls await me there. Since I love bathing a lot, they've also sunk in a huge amount of money just to custom-make a bathtub for me. They keep telling my younger sister, Olivia Grant, to protect me forever. But when Olivia and I are taking a bath together, she accidentally chokes on the bathwater. That's when Mom goes nuts. She strangles me violently while roaring at me, "We thought you'd learn to love your sister as long as we treated you well! Who would've thought that you're an ingrate who tried to drown her?" I can only shake my head in alarm. But Mom quickly shoves me into the washing machine. "You like bathing that much, don't you? Well, you can bathe to your heart's content!" After that, Mom and Dad take Olivia out to play. What they fail to notice is that they've accidentally turned on the washing machine. Water soon fills the chamber, and yet I can't climb out of the washing machine at all. As I feel myself tumbling around with the dirty laundry, I can only open my eyes with great difficulty as I look at my parents, who have returned home once again. I don't want to take a bath anymore. Can Mom and Dad please stop getting mad at me?

I bring Selena Bloomberg home because I find her pitiful, and I treat her very well as if she were my own younger sister. However, I didn't think that she would end up impersonating me as the Bloomberg family's heiress and kill me afterward before getting rid of my body. Now that I am reborn, I refuse to let the same tragedy happen again. I swear that I will make her pay. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!

On the first day I reunite with the wealthy Holloways, as soon as I step into the villa, I'm instantly whisked into a car with tinted windows. The fake heiress, Kate Holloway, cuts my ID and bank card with a pair of scissors right in front of my biological parents. She grins smugly at me the whole time. "You see, Rosalie, I've offended that one person who must not be offended at all costs in Ravenfield. You should go kneel in his estate for a few days. Think of this as your way to repay the Hollways for giving birth to you in this world." My heartless parents even tell the driver, "Make sure that she doesn't escape. It all depends on her whether or not our family will be able to survive this crisis." The journey to the mysterious man's estate is bumpy. But the scenery outside the window becomes more familiar as time passes. Finally, the driver stops right outside a well-guarded estate. He reports in a frightened tone, "W-We are here to deliver the girl to Mr. Whitethorn." Mr. Whitethorn? As in the powerful man who is prone to mood swings and can easily make families such as the Holloways go into bankruptcy with just a twitch of his finger? Wait, isn't that Dominic Whitethorn, my adoptive father who has doted on me since I was a little girl? The Holloways have chosen to make me the scapegoat in order to protect Kate. They probably never would've thought that the fearsome Mr. Whitethorn, who's capable of determining their survival, has scoured the entire city for me because I didn't come home last night.

My adoptive parents' long-lost daughter came back. She's a wellness influencer. She eats from crystal bowls she "cleansed." Sleeps with a white noise machine. She will only ride in a custom, climate-controlled car. That's not all. She filled our family's Manhattan law firm with Himalayan salt lamps and energy crystals. The espresso in the conference room? Replaced with gluten-free, organic dandelion root tea. "The energy here is so murky," she'd say. "We need to cleanse the world with love and light!" My guilt-ridden parents gave her everything she wanted. Even my fiancé told me, "Ava, you stole twenty years of her Upper East Side life. Can't you cut her some slack?" The day of the final hearing for our firm's biggest case, the entire court had to wait for her to finish her "emotional cleansing meditation." The judge was furious. I stood up. Delivered a flawless closing argument. I won our client $500 million and secured the future of the firm. But at the party, she had a drunken breakdown, fell into the pool, and drowned. My parents and my fiancé blamed me for everything. "You always have to win, don't you? It was a simple, open-and-shut case. You couldn't even let her have that?" They had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. They destroyed my law license and my reputation. They even had me injected with a fatal overdose of sedatives. I died full of hate. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back. Back to the day she was crying on her Instagram Live, begging for the case. This time, I walked straight into our rival's law firm. This "sure-win" case? I'm going to make you lose everything.

For ten years, my professor husband, Daniel Whitmore, and I loved each other deeply, treating each other with respect and care. Our only regret was that he had azoospermia, so we were never able to have a child. Then, on our tenth wedding anniversary, the housekeeper, Megan Wright, suddenly claimed she was pregnant with Daniel's child. I thought she was joking. Two days later, she threw a paternity test result in my face. The test proved that the child she was carrying was Daniel's. Megan sued us. On the day of the hearing, she cried in front of the courthouse, telling the media how Daniel had molested her. She said we were a pair of perverts who treated her like a breeding machine and kept her confined in our home. Daniel and I couldn't defend ourselves at all. The netizens labeled us demon employers and nailed us to a pillar of shame. Daniel lost his job at the university, and his students were ashamed of him. I was fired from my company that same day. In the end, Daniel couldn't withstand the pressure of public opinion and committed suicide in prison. I became a rat on the streets, hunted down and beaten by netizens. Driven insane, I wandered into traffic and died miserably in the middle of the road. Even at death, I couldn't understand how Megan had become pregnant with the child of my husband, who had azoospermia. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the day before Megan claimed she was pregnant with Daniel's child.

My brother-in-law, Benjamin Fallow, got trapped in a deep pit, so I grabbed some ropes and risked my life to climb down and pull him out. Just after I tied the rope around his waist, the line went slack and we both came crashing down. When I looked up, I couldn't believe my eyes. My wife, Celeste Fallow, had cut the rope. Meanwhile, her childhood friend, Vincent Jameson, grinned and egged her on. "Do it." Black-clad bodyguards started shoveling sand into the hole, trying to bury us alive. I grabbed the walkie-talkie and screamed up at her, "Celeste, your brother and I are still down here!" She sneered back. "Three years ago, during the quake, you left Vincent's brother trapped under the rubble for five days while you saved others. Now it's time to pay what you owe." Vincent shed crocodile tears and crowed, "Celeste, thanks to you, my brother's revenge is finally complete." With the sand already up to our ankles, I shouted at the top of my lungs, "Celeste Fallow, your brother is really down here with me!"