Historias cortas y novelas de Melodramatic Awakening

After an accident and miscarriage, Hansel Saddler and I are so devastated that we're both diagnosed with depression. For the next five years, I try my best to act like I'm normal as I care for him and try to cheer him up. This lasts until I overhear him speaking to the psychologist at the clinic's door. "Work's been getting busy lately, and pretending to be depressed makes it inconvenient to deal with that. Can you change my diagnosis to manic disorder?" The psychologist giggles. "You have been quite manic lately, darling. You've been making me feel really sore down there." "I can make you feel even more sore now." Then, I hear moans and groans. It turns out everything I've done over the past five years is nothing but a joke. I pull up my conversation with Colin Foster. "I agree to undergo secluded treatment deep in the mountains abroad."

"Forget it, I'll marry him!" The moment Margot Johanson said those words, she suddenly felt a sense of relief. She could hear her parents' voices full of smiles in her ears. "Gigi, we’re glad you’ve made up your mind. Your fiancé may be in a coma, but he’s quite handsome.  “Although he’s been out for years, what if he wakes up? After all, he’s the one set to inherit the family business..." Her parents, trying to persuade their own daughter to marry a comatose man, actually thought she was getting the better deal.  They seemed convinced that no one else in the world would be foolish enough to take on such a situation.  Margot smiled bitterly. "Don’t worry. Since I’ve made up my mind to marry, I won’t back out. I won’t let your precious Maisie take my place."

The armored bank truck I was assigned to was forced to stop when five people wearing black masks suddenly rushed out and started smashing the windows. I was about to hit the alarm when I realized one of them was my fiancée. Laughing, she raised a water gun and started spraying the bulletproof glass. "Hello, everyone! Our Valentine's Day bank robbery scene is about to begin! Once my boyfriend gets scared and hands over the keys, we'll tell him it was all a Valentine's Day surprise!" Her mother stood outside the window, knocking on the glass with a smile. "Callum, Yvonne wants to test whether you care more about her or money this Valentine's Day. Just play along. Get out and calm her down." At first, I planned to treat it as a private dispute. If I opened the door and dragged her away, the company would probably only dock part of my bonus. But just as my hand touched the door switch, a line of text suddenly appeared before my eyes. [Don't open the door. In your previous life, this was how she got you killed.] I froze. A flood of memories suddenly rushed into my mind. In my previous life, I broke the rules and opened the armored door just to calm her down. In the end, I lost my job and faced a huge lawsuit. She broke up with me because she thought I was too poor. I was torn apart online, branded the clown who couldn't stop simping for his girlfriend. In the end, I was driven to despair and committed suicide. Now, my fiancée was still laughing outside and banging on the glass. I pulled back the bolt on my tactical rifle. "We're under an armed attack by unknown suspects. Possible armored truck robbery. Everyone, load your weapons and prepare to use deadly force!"

The third time Queenie Stone meets Evan Sutherland's parents, she receives another message from her childhood friend, Joel Lodge. "I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland. Something came up. I have to go," she says. Evan reaches out and catches her wrist, frowning. "You have to leave right now? My parents have been preparing for this all day. At least stay and finish dinner." Queenie sets her phone down in front of him. In her chat with Joel are four simple words—"The fog's rolling in". "This is my code with Joel," she explains. "He has depression. Whenever he starts spiraling, he sends me this. We agreed that no matter what I'm doing, I'll drop everything and go to him when I see those words. No exceptions." She sounds so serious, as if Joel will drop dead if she doesn't leave that very second. "Can't you wait until after dinner?" Evan asks. "At most, you'll just need to stay for two more hours." "Evan, Joel doesn't send that code lightly. If he has, it means he's at his limit. If I'm late and something happens to him, I'll never forgive myself. I'm sorry." Queenie turns to Evan's parents. "Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, I need to head out. I'll come by another day to apologize properly." She leaves without another look back. The front door slams shut, making Evan's parents jump. "Did something happen?" his mother asks. "Queenie left in such a hurry." Evan stares at the untouched dishes on the table and forces a stiff smile. Over the last five years, Joel has sent Queenie that code over 700 times. She could be on a movie date with Evan, yet the moment Joel's message comes in, she'll walk out halfway through the film. On New Year's Eve, before the fireworks even go off, she'll ditch Evan to go to Joel. Even when Evan has a 104-degree fever and is lying in bed needing someone to care for him, she'll still rush over to Joel in the middle of the night.

My fiancé wants to marry me in a pizzeria. At the same time, he promises to give his true love the rest of his life on a luxurious cruise. Our wedding is only 48 hours away, but I don't want him anymore.

Graham Whitlock was leaving for the remote Northreach Research Station to work on a long-term research project. Before he left, he told me: “Audrey, the conditions out there are harsh, and the regulations don’t allow family members to come along. Our family needs you here, too. Please wait for me for three years. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” But three years became another three years. I waited for Graham for seven years. He still never came home. One phone call every five days. One video call a month. We saw each other only during the few precious days of leave he was allowed each year. Yet I never complained, not even once. I was afraid of getting in the way of his career. Then I became pregnant. Only then was my emergency family-visit request finally approved. After a grueling journey of thousands of miles, I arrived at the station and excitedly knocked on the door of his residence. A little girl answered. “Daddy, someone’s here! I don’t know her!” I thought I had the wrong room. But the next second, Graham’s indulgent voice came from inside. “Sweetheart, Daddy’s busy right now. I’ll have Mommy go see who it is.” His assistant, Mara Collins, came to answer the door. The moment she saw me, she froze, too shocked to speak. “Mrs. Whitlock, why are you here...?” I held a hand over my pregnant belly. After seven years of waiting, the heart I had kept suspended all this time finally died. It turned out Graham Whitlock hadn’t stopped caring about his family. He simply wasn’t caring about our family.

While I was with a client looking at watches at a luxury boutique, I spotted a Chanel bag sitting on the authentication counter. "You've got a great eye, sir. This bag retails for eleven thousand dollars, and the young lady who brought it in wants to let it go for under three thousand." As the sales associate opened the inner pocket, a hand-drawn dried-flower card slipped out. "May my girl never have another worry." I wasn't seeing things. It was the seventh-anniversary gift I'd given Veronica Hale, with a note in my own handwriting. The sales associate started chatting idly. "A young woman dropped it off the day before yesterday. It's already been authenticated. She said she needed cash fast to buy her younger boyfriend a car." Younger boyfriend? A car? The color drained from my face. I opened the video account of Dylan Kerr, the college intern at her company. In the video, he was holding a slender hand in the passenger seat, their fingers laced together. On the woman's wrist was a clover bracelet. The one I'd fastened there myself three years ago. Fighting back nausea, I swiped my card and bought the bag. "No need to pack the card. Just throw it out."

We couldn't agree on our holiday travel plans, so my boyfriend, Julian Wade, created a three-way group chat. "Let's roll the dice," he said. "Highest number wins. Fair and square." Chloe Dawson, my best friend, rolled a six. She wanted to go to Miami. I wanted to go to Aspen. But I only rolled one. I didn’t pick Aspen on a whim. It was the place my mom had always dreamed of visiting before she passed away. This year marked five years since she died, and I promised I would see the snowy peaks for her. Julian knew that. Just three months ago, he held my hands and promised he would take me there for the holidays. "Fair is fair," Julian texted, dropping a head-patting emoji. It was the twenty-seventh time this year I had rolled the lowest number. I lost when we picked a restaurant last week. I lost when we chose a movie the week before. Then yesterday happened. I used Julian’s tablet to look up some travel guides and noticed his messaging app was still logged in. A chat with his friend sat right at the top. [Sent you the loaded dice plugin. You can roll whatever you want now.] [Thanks. Chloe takes things too seriously, and this is the only way to handle her.] I stared at those two sentences for a long time, then quietly put the tablet back. So he knew what Aspen meant to me. And I wasn’t losing to bad luck. I was losing to his favoritism. I left the group chat, booked a one-way ticket to Aspen, and packed my bags. First day of the holiday. Seven in the morning. Flying solo.

The whole world knew Lionel Potter was crazy about his wife. He wrote songs just for her, baked desserts for her, and couldn't go three sentences without saying "my wife". But Iris Potter discovered that the same Lionel who loved her as if his life depended on it had cheated. She summoned the system and applied to leave the world. [Understood. The self-exit channel has been activated. In 15 days, you will leave this world. The exit method will be a staged death. The location will be the seaside where you once saved the male lead. Cause of death: suicide by drowning. [Please prepare accordingly for your death.] On the 15th day, Iris arranged everything and staged her departure to look like she had gone into the sea, leaving Lionel behind. Only then did Lionel wake up. He unraveled, nearly losing his mind, consumed by the need to find her.

My mother-in-law and I were trapped during an earthquake overseas. The rescue team knew that my husband had a private plane nearby and asked me to contact him, but I could only shake my head in rejection of the idea. In my last life, I tried my hardest to call him and get him to come save us. My mother-in-law and I were saved, but my husband’s true love got angry and went out to let off some steam. The incident ended with her being tortured to death. In front of his mother, my husband said that his lover deserved it. Yet, on the anniversary of her death, he killed me the way she had died. “I’ve always known that it was your scheme. You have to die as Shevonne did!” This time round, when my husband took his lover on a private plane to admire the cityscape at night, he found out everything that had happened and went mad.

In the five years of their marriage, Kimberly bore a son for Daniel, believing their life together would last. Then Siena returned to the country. Kimberly finally realized she was nothing but an outsider the whole time. Daniel repeatedly chose Siena over her, and even her son grew attached to Siena. Fortunately, their marriage was just a contract, and in seven days, she would be free to leave.

After Yvonne Preston's childhood sweetheart, Oliver Emerson, hits someone while drunk driving, she gets on her knees and begs me to take the fall for him. "Ollie's father saved my life. Can't you endure this for my sake? Once you get out, we'll get married." I nod with tears in my eyes, only to discover after entering prison that my two-month sentence has been turned into six years. I attempt to retract my statement, but all I get in return is a brutal beating. "We've been told to keep a close eye on you. Who the hell do you think you are? You should take a good look at yourself before you start thinking you have a chance with Ms. Preston!" I'm beaten until my eyes are red and swollen, and the last thing I see before I lose consciousness is Yvonne holding Oliver's hand on television as they announce their engagement. My heart turns to stone, and after six agonizing years that feel like an eternity, I'm finally released from prison. However, as I quietly board the train with my luggage, Yvonne's assistant, Juliette Parker, appears in front of me. "Ms. Preston wishes to see you, Mr. Clark," she says respectfully.

My girlfriend was known for being frugal and extremely stingy. When the chicken drumstick I loved went up by a dime, she decided they were too expensive and stopped buying them. When I got sick, she thought drinking warm water would be enough to make me better. Even the marriage certificate's nine-dollar processing fee was too much for her. She thought it was a waste of money. When the marriage certificate finally became free to acquire, I put on the only discounted suit she had been willing to buy for me and arrived at the city hall two hours early. I was eagerly waiting for her. Instead, from a distance, I saw her sitting by the lake with Henry, the male assistant she had hired six months earlier. A street photographer approached with a camera and asked if my girlfriend wanted some photos. Each photo cost a hundred dollars. I thought she would refuse on the spot, curse him for overcharging, and walk away. But she glanced at Henry beside her and said, "Henry, come to think of it, we've never taken a photo together. How about we take some?" Henry waved it off and said it was too expensive. The photographer quickly added that there would be a discount if they took more pictures. My girlfriend calmly retrieved her phone and transferred one grand to him. "No discount needed. Take a hundred photos of me and my junior. Put them in an album." I silently watched as my girlfriend and Henry posed intimately for a hundred photos. The time we'd agreed to meet finally arrived. My phone lit up. [I asked around. Although the marriage certificate itself is free now, we still need to take three ID photos. That's at least twenty dollars. That's enough to pay for one of our meals. Besides, getting the certificate is just a formality. We can still spend our whole lives together without it.] I quietly typed out a reply. [Okay. Let's not get married then.] I didn't want her anymore either.

Ruth Jensen is determined to cure Zeke Carlton of his jealous streak. Every time he gets jealous, she buys her assistant, Calvin Ward, a present—everything from jewelry to expensive cars to villas. Zeke goes from throwing hysterical fits to going completely numb. One day, Ruth buys Calvin gifts for the 99th time. She looks at Zeke, who's shaking all over, his face drained of color. She says disdainfully, "Zeke, I can't stand men who are jealous and possessive. If you never learn to be generous and graceful, then I'll just keep treating Calvin well." But this time, Zeke doesn't question her like he usually does, nor does he ask her for money. He's actually gone to the office to pick something up today. To his surprise, he walks right into Ruth throwing a birthday celebration for Calvin there. The place is crammed full of gifts she's gotten Calvin, piled so high there's barely room to walk. At the door, a few workers are hauling in boxes while gossiping. "Careful. These are all this season's new releases Ms. Jensen bought for Mr. Ward. If we break anything, we'll never be able to pay it back!" "How many times has it been this month? Every time Ms. Jensen does this, she buys him stuff worth millions of dollars…" Zeke feels like someone has sliced his heart open. Every time he asks Ruth for money to keep paying his grandmother's medical bills, she always complains. Yet she doesn't even bat an eye when she buys Calvin these insanely expensive luxury goods. Zeke turns to leave, but Ruth frowns and calls out to him. "Are you actually stalking me all the way to the office now? It's Cal's birthday today. Did you deliberately come here dressed like that just to be an eyesore?"

For three years, Julian Hart has been Larkmoor's idea of the perfect husband. 7:00 a.m. — He gets up to make breakfast. Vivienne Sterling eats only whole-wheat sandwiches, so he goes out early for the freshest ingredients. 9:00 a.m. — He ties her shoelaces and sees her off. 10:30 a.m. — He cleans their mansion, waters the plants, and straightens her study. 3:00 p.m. — He organizes her walk-in closet and jewelry and irons her clothes. ... 10:00 p.m. — The bath he's prepared is at precisely the right temperature when she arrives home on schedule. As Julian helps her out of her coat, he catches the faint smell of tobacco on it.

Everyone said I was the most generous man alive. When my CEO wife brought her brother-in-law and his son through the door, he stood there with bloodshot eyes. "Emmett's mother is gone. Could I borrow Colette for a few days to be his mom? He cries every night. It's breaking my heart." Without a word, I went to the bedroom and packed Colette Harmon's things for her. "We're family. You don't have to ask." At my son's birthday party, Emmett Pryce wanted to go to the amusement park and told everyone he did not want to share his new mom. My son immediately turned to the guests and apologized, saying, "Ms. Harmon has an urgent matter to attend to. We'll have to wrap up today's party here. Thank you all for coming." Everyone praised us, father and son, for being so gracious about it. Only I knew what had really happened. My son and I had been reborn. In our previous life, Colette had favored her widowed brother-in-law, Stefan Pryce, just the same. I had swallowed every last bit of it. When my patience finally ran out, I forced the divorce. Not long after, my son developed a heart condition and needed an artificial heart. The medical bills were staggering, so I had nowhere else to turn but Colette. However, she laughed in my face and threw me out into the blizzard. "You'll never be half the man Stefan is. Give it up." My son's heart stopped in my arms. Now that we had been reborn, I willingly let these things slide. All I wanted was for my son to live.

On the day of their wedding, Caleb Graham unexpectedly finds himself on a call with Danielle Sutton—six years into the future. His eyes gleam with undisguised longing as he asks, "Danielle, do you remember? Today is our wedding day." Suddenly, a child's voice rings out from the other end of the line. "Mommy." Caleb is instantly overwhelmed with joy. He can hardly believe how much their child has grown. Tears well up in his eyes, and his voice trembles with anticipation. "Danielle, we have a happy future together, don't we?" All he can think about is the beautiful life they enjoy together as a family of three. It seems that all his hard work is finally paying off. After all, he is the one who has discovered Danielle in the slums all those years ago, secured projects for her, and invested substantial resources in cultivating her into one of the most influential rising stars among Kingsford City's elite. Yet, in the very next second, a man's voice cuts sharply into his ears. "Ellie, who are you talking to?" Ellie? Caleb's smile vanishes in an instant. Despite spending so many years together, he has never once called Danielle by that nickname. The familiar voice, paired with that uniquely intimate nickname, points to only one person—Yale Lawson, Danielle's longtime best friend!

On the day I sold my house, my best friend asked me. “Aren’t you getting married soon? Why are you selling your new home?” I signed the transfer agreement and replied, “Because I’m breaking up with him.” We were supposed to buy a particular couch for our new home. Caleb Graham said he had not managed to snag it yet, so he asked me to wait a little longer. Then, I saw that very couch in Claire Silva’s Stories. She had specifically tagged Caleb. [It’s the one I’ve been waiting for so long! He still knows me so well!] In the comments section, Caleb simply replied, [Don’t mention it.] That was followed by a bunch of trivial chatter between the two of them. I stared at that Stories post for a long time. Then, I canceled the order for the matching pajamas. I scrolled back through my order history. I had ordered over a hundred packages. They were all for furnishing our new home. At first, Caleb would enthusiastically pick things out with me. Later on, he did not even bother to reply to my messages. It was because Claire, his first love, had gotten divorced. His attention toward me and our new home had shifted elsewhere. “If a buyer contacts us, I’ll let you know right away.” The real estate agent slid his business card across the table. I reached out to take it. Then, I cast one last glance at this place. ‘Caleb, I admit that I regret it,’ I thought. Seven years had passed, and I no longer wanted to build a home with him.

Kelly and I had been in a long-distance relationship for three years. After working overtime for a month to make time so I could see her, she could not be reached. I waited alone in that unfamiliar place for ten whole hours before I finally got a reply from her. My best friend, Hayden, called me and said gleefully, "Zachary, surprise! I've already explored Stranton for you. It's amazing. Kelly is a great tour guide!" He excitedly shared his experiences, as if he had not noticed the 30 missed calls I left on Kelly's phone. I listened quietly until he mentioned feeling cold. Kelly took the phone and said bluntly, "I'll take him back to the hotel first. Give us a minute." After she finished speaking, I asked, "Do you know how long I've been waiting?" Kelly paused, her tone turning cold. "He's your friend. Are you really going to make a fuss out of this?" The blatant rebuke completely extinguished my desire to reply. After hanging up, my ride back to Jazzville arrived. The driver glanced at me and could not help but say, "Young man, it's the middle of the night. This area is quite dangerous. What urgent matter kept you waiting until now?" Looking at my shoes, which had been soaked by the snow, I softly replied, "It was urgent at the time." Then, I smiled and continued, "But not anymore."

My girlfriend, Tasha, was a hopeless romantic, hooked on using a breakup to test how much I love her. The first time, she threatened to kill herself when I was in the middle of defending my thesis. She pushed me to turn down a six-figure job offer, so I’d spend the day at the beach with her. Later, Tasha told me, “I just wanted to know whether your job or I meant more to you.” The second time, she showed up at my father’s funeral, arm in arm with her guy best friend, Jesse. She demanded a public apology, all because I didn’t answer her call the day before. “I was only testing your emotional stability. Why are you so upset?” The third time came in the fifth year of us dating. She rented a massive screen downtown and broadcast a video of her kissing Jesse. Tasha made a post on her social media. “If he hikes to the top of Mount Rainier and proposes to me, I’ll forgive him.” Her friend group was already betting on the hours it would take me to reach the summit in tears. Too bad they were all wrong. I was done proving myself in Tasha’s so-called tests of love.