Tragic Love Short Stories & Bias Campus Novels

After my half sister, Serena Hawke, transferred to Ashmere University, she bet me she could steal Damian Cross from me within a month. I dismissed her. From that day on, Damian became a permanent second-place finisher. The first time Serena beat him, he frowned and said, "One point. I only lost by one point." After that, he calculated their scores every day. Over meals, he muttered, "How did she solve it?" Before bed, he stared at the rankings and said, "I'll beat her next time." He praised her clear reasoning, quick reactions, and even her handwriting. In the laboratory, he chose the seat beside her and responded only to her during group discussions. When I asked him to see a movie with me, he waved me off. "Serena sent me a new problem. I need to work it out." His phone was full of screenshots of her notes. Her class schedule hung beside his bed. Even in his sleep, he murmured about surpassing her. I watched the attention that had once belonged entirely to me shift toward my sister, inch by inch. Then my birthday came. Damian never showed up. I called thirty-seven times. He rejected every call. When he finally answered, he lowered his voice. "Rena asked me to watch the game with her. Wait a little longer." He hung up, and Serena immediately sent me her location: the third-floor lounge at the arena. When I opened the door, her arms were wrapped around his neck. The thread I had held taut inside my chest for half a year finally snapped. All that remained was a deep, aching exhaustion that seeped into my bones. Damian reached toward me in panic. "Rowan..." I stepped back. Anyone who could be taken from me was no longer someone I wanted.

I have zero sense of direction. I could visit a place ten times and still get lost. So Paxton Levis spent an entire week hand-drawing every street around our school onto a set of maps. There was no north, south, east, or west on them. Only labels like "the convenience store with the yellow dog out front" and "the old man who sells terrible hot dogs." He'd ruffle my hair and say, "What would you do without me?" That was how it went, until my best friend Patricia Sandler came back from studying abroad. On our graduation trip together, Paxton told me to get out of the car and check whether something was wrong with it. I'd barely gotten both feet on the ground before the car pulled away without me. A message came through from him. Paxton: [There's a rest stop three kilometers up the road. Patricia and I will wait for you there. Patricia is right. If nobody ever pushes you, you're never going to learn your way around.] I walked for an hour through a downpour, working myself into a panic, before Paxton sent me a hand-drawn map. It had arrows on it, and a cute little smiley face doodled in the corner. [Just follow this. Twenty minutes, tops.] But my legs ached with every step, and the route kept drifting further off course, until I ended up in a dead end. I called Paxton. Patricia's bright laugh came through instead. "Congratulations, sweetie, you took a wrong turn! "Paxton and I made a bet on whether you'd figure out he flipped the arrows on purpose. I said you wouldn't. Guess I know you better than he does. "So for the rest of the trip, it's just going to be Paxton and me. Dragging you along is honestly way too much trouble." Paxton's voice came through next to hers, doting and amused. "A bet's a bet. I'll listen to whatever you want." Depending on someone else comes at too high a price. High enough that when he finally walked away, I didn't even know which direction was which anymore. I wiped my eyes. This time, I want to find my own way.

On graduation photo day, my boyfriend, Ethan Jones, takes more than 200 photos of Chloe Lloyd, the prettiest girl in our class. As president of the photography club, he knows better than anyone how to find the most flattering angles. Chloe stands beneath a tree and smiles at him. "Are you sure this isn't too much trouble?" Ethan looks down and flips through the photos on his camera. "Not at all. You look good no matter how I photograph you," he says gently. When my turn comes, I clutch the hem of my skirt and walk over. Ethan casually presses the shutter twice. "Done." I stare at him. "That's it?" He frowns at me. "You never look good in pictures anyway. Don't hold everyone else up." I look at the two photos on his camera. My eyes are closed in one, and half my face is hidden in the tree's shadow in the other. I ask him to take a few more, but instead, he puts up a post on the campus forum. "Photographer wanted. 20 dollars to snap a few graduation photos of my girlfriend." Half an hour later, I receive a private message from an unfamiliar profile. I send over my location, then say quietly, "Just so you know, I'm not photogenic." The reply comes almost immediately. "Your photographer didn't know how to work with you." After the shoot, he sends me the unedited photos. I'm stunned when I see the photos. I never knew I could look this good on camera. Even crazier, the photographer who took the job for 20 dollars seems to know what he's doing better than the president of the photography club.

When I was 18 years old, I did something that I would regret the most in my life, just to make Adrian Dickson change his mind and come back to me. I reported his secret love affair with a poor student, Cassandra Addams, to his wealthy parents. The next day, the poor student was made to slap herself in the auditorium in front of the entire school, calling herself a bitch, and then, she dropped out of school. I thought that Adrian would be sad about it and even resent me for it, but he didn't react as I thought he would. He still went to school with me every day, ate with me at recess, and showered me with different gifts and flowers from time to time. He even agreed to marry me and made me his fiancee. But on the day of the wedding, my parents are suddenly kidnapped, and the huge screen meant to play a video of all the sweet, tender moments between me and him begins playing a video of Mom and Dad being thrown into a snake pit, howling in pain. I cry until I nearly faint as I watch the tragic scene in the video and plead with Adrian to save Mom and Dad. However, in front of all the wedding guests, he grabs me by my hair and forces me to my knees. "Sure. Get down on your knees and slap yourself a hundred times while calling yourself a bitch, and I'll consider saving them. How about that?" At that moment, all the blood in my body runs cold. As it turns out, he's been harboring a grudge against me the entire time.

When we are taking our graduation class photo, I cautiously hook my finger around my boyfriend Nathaniel Carter's. He immediately shoves me aside. "You should stand in the back row. The spot in the middle is for the prettiest girls. That's what makes the picture look good. You'll look out of place there. Let Liv take your spot." My face goes pale. Before I can say anything, my best friend, Olivia Morgan, smiles and tries to reassure me. "Eve, Nathaniel's just looking out for you. You're shy, and you'd probably feel uncomfortable standing in the middle anyway. The back row suits you better." Everyone else has already taken their places, and the photographer is beginning to grow impatient. Not wanting to hold everyone up, I quietly move to the corner without saying a word. I've gotten so used to giving in that even my hurt has learned to stay silent. Later, our class representative sends the graduation photo to the group chat. In the picture, the tall guy standing in front of me blocks nearly the entire lower half of my face. Olivia, meanwhile, is standing exactly where I was, her fingers intertwined with Nathaniel's. He tilts his head toward her, his expression soft as he looks at her with complete attention. His gaze has never lingered on me for more than three seconds. We've been secretly dating for three years, and Nathaniel is always the one insisting that we keep our distance in public. "If I'm always looking at you, others will figure it out. Besides, what's so interesting about looking at you?" I've always swallowed the hurt those words leave behind, convincing myself he's right. I buy us a pair of matching rings, hoping we can finally make our relationship public. Nathaniel tosses his ring back into the drawer and tells me, "You're shy. If we go public and people start talking about you, you won't be able to handle it. I'm only keeping us a secret to protect you." But the next day, I see that same ring on Olivia's finger. Not far away, the two of them stand shoulder to shoulder, posing for picture after picture as if they have nothing to hide. Their matching rings catch the sunlight, flashing brightly enough to make my eyes sting. Fine. We don't have to go public. We never will.

It was the day before SAT. I made a video for my time capsule. If all went well, I'd be watching the video 10 years later, and all did go well. A bit too well, really. The moment I opened the video call app, I was connected to the future me. The one living a decade in the future. "Did I get into Harland U? Got a PhD? Is Johnny still my best friend? He has a very short temper. No one else can stand him. I bet you've gotten your PhD and married Zoe." The future was a bright, hopeful place in my mind. Unfortunately, the future me flew into a rage the moment Zoe's mouth left my tongue. "That bitch is giving you pens filled with vanishing ink so Johnny gets to be the state's top scorer instead of you! You're not getting into Harland! You're forced to repeat the year! "That bitch is going to act sorry and down and promise to get into an LDR with you only to go steady with Johnny right away! The whole campus knows about them! They're the perfect couple! "You're an idiot, Seamus! Your girl's going to cheat on you, and you'll thank the guy who railed her for fucking taking care of her!"

I'm Julian Johnson, and I love cake. My mommy, Charlotte Davis, brings me a small cake every day after work. My daddy, Peter Johnson, buys a full set of ovens and baking tools. For my sake, he then patiently learns how to bake cakes. I use to think I'm the luckiest kid in the world. That is, until the day my parents get divorced, and the man who comes to pick up Mommy turns out to be the bakery owner, Larry Patterson. Daddy suddenly whips around and glares at me with bloodshot eyes. "This is all your fault! If it weren't for you and your constant cake cravings, your mother never would've had an affair!" He stretches out his burn-scarred hands and shrieks hysterically, "My hands have never been free of wounds, all because I kept making cakes for you. But how do you two repay me? You're both convinced that whatever comes from outside tastes better!" Daddy strikes me hard with the baking tray. I bite my lip tightly, not daring to cry out. That night, Daddy brings home a little boy, Dustin Decker. Despite the pain racking my body, I drop to my knees and plead for Daddy to forgive me. "Daddy, I'm sorry. Please don't abandon me. I promise I'll never eat cake again!" Daddy slaps me several times in fury. Then, still not satisfied, he throws me into the large oven. "Don't call me that! I'm not your father! If you love cake so much, then stay in there and think about what you've done! You and your tramp of a mother both deserve to die!" After Daddy slams the door and leaves, Dustin skips cheerfully over to the oven and smugly presses the switch. "From now on, your daddy is mine!" The oven starts up. The temperature climbs around me, and yet I smile. Maybe this is for the best. At least Daddy can finally be happy now.

After we'd had a fight, my childhood sweetheart, Adrian Hale, deliberately agreed to take a sophomore named Sienna Reed to Beach House Week on Cape Cod. He was certain I'd do what I always did: get jealous, start a fight, then swallow my pride and beg him to come home. But when he returned to Kingsley University with Sienna a week later, he found me unexpectedly easy to deal with. He gave Sienna my lead creator slot in the National Robotics Challenge. I didn't quit. I organized her test data and rewrote her presentation for her. He backed Sienna in the student council election and picked apart my work during the public debate. I didn't argue. I admitted I could have prepared better and calmly watched her take my seat. Then he tried to hand Professor Moretti's recommendation to her too. I still didn't lose my temper. I even delivered a neatly organized application checklist to Sienna myself. Smug with victory, she told him, "See? You can't keep spoiling a woman like Claire. Give her the cold shoulder, knock her down a peg, and she'll learn to behave." Adrian agreed. He told her she understood people better than anyone. Afterward, he came to see me alone. He promised he'd secure me a direct-entry PhD position at Kingsley and, in an astonishing show of generosity, said he'd propose in front of everyone at graduation. But Adrian had forgotten one small detail. While he was busy entertaining Sienna at Beach House Week, he'd personally approved my transfer to Zurich. I packed the commemorative pin, old records, and love letters he'd given me into a box and sent them back. The Hale family ring he'd planned to propose with would never touch my finger. I was headed for a much bigger world, and I wasn't coming back.

Before graduation, my boyfriend, Ethan Johnson and I planned a cross-country road trip. My roommate, Juliet Miller, kindly offered to organize our itinerary. On departure day, her luggage sat in the front seat. Her phone was connected to the car console. The only bed bore a tag ‘Juliet’s Spot.’ Ethan patted my head with a casual smile. “Juliet gets carsick in the back. Be good and sleep on the roof tent.” Driving through the desert that night, they left me at a gas station to guard our gear while they shot stargazing videos. I waited until dawn. Then Juliet posted a photo in our group chat. She wore my jacket in the passenger seat. Ethan’s arm rested behind her chair. My parents bought that RV. Now it was two hundred miles away. I didn’t chase them. As three was going to be a crowd, I stepped out.

When our teacher caught my desk mate, Avery Collins, and me stealing mock exam papers just before the college entrance exam, he shouted, "The college entrance exam is right around the corner! What was the point of stealing the mock exam papers? Tell me, who was the mastermind?" In my previous life, I took the blame without hesitation. My father nearly beat me to death for it. Avery and I attended the same university, got married after graduation, and raised a daughter, spending thirty years together. I believed I had the perfect life. Then, on the day of my daughter, Emma's wedding, I was thrown out of the venue. Emma told me, "You have no right to be here. Caleb Morgan is my real father." Avery looked at me coldly. "After you got drunk, you already signed the divorce papers. The company, the house, and all the assets belong to me now. You're leaving with nothing. From this day forward, we're strangers." Lost in a daze, I wandered into the street and was crushed beneath a speeding truck. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day everything began. This time, I told the teacher directly, "Avery was the one behind it. I gave her the papers, but I never looked at them. My score belongs to me."

My best friend, Wendy Xander, was always getting things mixed up. We'd make plans to go out on Saturday, but after I'd already arrived, she'd call to tell me she'd meant Sunday. We'd agree to meet at a restaurant, only for her to give me the wrong name and leave me searching for the place for hours. I'd cried over her mistakes more times than I could count. At first, my boyfriend, Jason Jasper, would always get mad at her. But somewhere along the way, he started taking her side, telling me to just let it go. With college starting soon, Wendy suggested we take a trip together. But when I got off the plane, I realized something was terribly wrong. I'd flown to Hollan. Wendy and Jason had flown to Hollandia. Wendy kept apologizing over the phone. "I'm so sorry, Yara! It's all Jason's fault! He kept distracting me, and I got everything mixed up!" "Who's the one who can't even get her words straight?" Jason's voice came from beside her, sounding exasperated but affectionate. "Yara, why don't you just enjoy yourself in Hollan? "You know Wendy's always getting things mixed up. Tell you what, charge everything to my card. Consider it my way of making it up to you." I stood outside an airport in a completely unfamiliar country, listening to the two of them laughing and teasing each other on the other end of the line. Suddenly, I was just tired of it all. I was done playing along with their little game, where I was always the one paying for their mistakes.

Seventy-two hours before the graduate school recommendation list was posted, someone stole Wesley North's research data. He stared at the empty folder on his screen, his fingertips going cold. Eight months of work—more than two hundred pages of charts and twelve rounds of empirical analysis—gone. Wesley checked the security footage. The files had been copied by Natalie Rowan, his childhood friend of eighteen years, and handed to Derek Sloan, the classmate everyone believed was struggling to get by. In that moment, Wesley didn't think about his own future. He thought about his grandmother. Her doctors had declared her critical eight times, and she was hanging on just to hear whether he'd made the list.

The night before our graduation, I find out that my girlfriend of four years, Naomi Walker, has been financially supporting a low-income student named Luca Brown. Every month, the money she saves from her living expenses goes straight to Luca. I confront her with my phone in hand. She falls silent before finally admitting, "Yes, I feel sorry for him. So what?" Four years together, and it all means less to her than her sympathy for him. I'm not ready to let things end like that. I push aside my sadness and stand beside her for our graduation photo. Then her roommate, Ava Jackson, comes rushing over. "Naomi! Luca heard you're getting engaged to Caspian after graduating, and he took a whole bottle of sleeping pills in the dorm!"

On the day I receive my acceptance letter from my dream university, Jaxson Ludlam rents out an entire bar to celebrate with me. During a tipsy round of honest confessions, someone asks him what's the most outrageous thing he has ever done in high school. Leaning back on the couch, Jaxson looks toward Ingrid Rice, who has been sitting silently in the corner all this while. With a soft chuckle, he says, "Well, I guess it's probably taking the blame for someone and getting a detention right before the SAT." The entire room gasps in shock. Even I am stunned. A month before the SAT, Ingrid is caught using the school's computer lab without permission and very nearly got expelled. Jaxson steps forward and claims that he forces her to unlock the lab, taking all the blame himself. I always believe he did it simply because of his sense of responsibility as the class president. Under everyone's curious gaze, Ingrid blushes, and tears brim in her eyes. Jaxson gets up and walks over to shield her from everyone's attention before turning back to me with a reassuring smile. "Mira." Lowering his voice so only I can hear, he gently coaxes me. "If this goes into Ingrid's record, it'll ruin the rest of her life. You're always so understanding. Let's just treat it as doing a good deed for a friend, okay?" Looking at the way he takes it all for granted, I suddenly find the noise in the bar unbearably nauseating. I stand up and slip my acceptance letter back into my bag. "I understand." Meeting his startled eyes, I say, one word at a time, "Let's break up."

Perry Hughes' desk was stuffed with love letters again. He sent me $40, as usual. "Tsk. Take care of these for me?" I nodded. That night, I was about to throw the love letters away. Then I noticed that the letter at the very bottom was signed by the girl Perry had a crush on.

It wasn't until my first month of college that I found out the entire pack had been calling me a leech behind my back. The nickname came from Sienna Blackwood—Lucas's partner. To every wolf in Silvermoon, I was just some weakling squatting on pack land. They saw me use Lucas's pass, saw the tiny cabin at the edge of his territory, and filled in the blanks themselves. I went to find Lucas, thinking he'd defend me like he used to when we were pups. But he just waved a hand, didn't even look up from whatever he was doing, and said, "It's just a nickname, Elena. Sienna's joking around. You're being too sensitive." Then he added, "Besides, you're always around me. You use my pass, you live a stone's throw away—to everyone else, yeah, it kind of looks like that." In that moment, something inside me just... broke. Eighteen years of being by his side, and all he saw was a wolf leeching off her Alpha. I didn't cry. I didn't get mad. I just opened my logbook, calm as anything, and submitted my withdrawal from the pack. They had no idea who I really was. They had no idea I wasn't some leech clinging to anyone for survival. Seven days left until I walked out of Silvermoon for good.

I was Windsor’s most untouchable heiress. The chairman of the university board was my grandfather. The student council president was my fiancé. The basketball team captain and the top student in our major were my childhood friends. Everyone said that if I wanted something at Windsor, I could have it. After taking a year off from college because of illness, I returned to campus. The moment I stepped through the gates, lines of comments suddenly appeared in front of me. [The spoiled heiress is back! She still doesn't know that all three male leads have fallen for the new transfer student.] [Jessica may be poor, but she's stubborn and kind. Watching her refuse financial help and insist on working part-time is heartbreaking.] [Natalie bullies Jessica because of her family's wealth. In the end, the male leads will all hate her. Even her fiancé will break off their engagement in front of everyone.] [I love watching spoiled rich girls lose everything!] When the three young men who once had eyes only for me insulted me at the opening ceremony just to defend a poor student, I simply smiled. Then I decided to stay away from them from that day forward. After all, a true heiress never needs to lose her mind over a man just to prove her worth.

On the day of our graduation trip to Suttonvale, my boyfriend, Jarrett Duke, vanishes into thin air. As I pace around the airport in a panic, my roommate sends a cryptic text. "Big surprise coming your way today. Patience." I breathe a sigh of relief, instantly assuming Jarrett is running late because he's setting up a proposal. After all, he promised to put me in a wedding dress the moment we graduated. Then the class rep, Louie Fisher, drops a Venmo link in the group chat and tags everyone. "Huge thanks to everyone coming out for Jarrett and Sienna's engagement party! Three years together, and they're finally making it official!" The pool gets filled in seconds, and congratulations flood the chat. Finally, someone notices. "Holy shit, Louie! Did you forget to kick Olivia out of the group?" The chat drops dead silent. Seconds later, everyone starts tagging me. "Olivia, please don't show up and ruin this! They've kept their love secret for three whole years. It hasn't been easy for them!" "Seriously. You're so possessive Sienna couldn't even show her face without risking a fight!" Even our advisor chimes in to lecture me. "Do me a favor, Olivia. Don't make a scene. Let them have their moment." Their relentless words leave me suffocating, too drained even to fight back. It turns out the fairy-tale romance from high school to the altar is a lie. Every single thing about my last four years is a lie.

My stepsister, Helena, came in second in the herbalism competition at the werewolf academy. She lost to me. After the award ceremony, my brother Silas and boyfriend Raphael ignored me and went straight to her. I approached them, hoping to say something, but Silas pushed me away. He looked disappointed. "Martha, you've already won so many awards. Why do you have to compete with your own sister for this one? "Do you have any idea how all her hard work has gone to waste now?" I stood there, feeling completely lost. "It's okay. This competition isn't worth that much anyway." Raphael gently ruffled Helena's hair. "You'll always be number one to us." I felt a sharp ache in my chest. 'What about me? What did all my hard work mean to them?' They led Helena around me. "Helena's upset right now. We're taking her out to clear her head. You can go back on your own." Clutching my medal, I returned to my dorm alone, only to find that Helena had uploaded a photo of the three of them on Instagram. She stood between Silas and Raphael with a bouquet. Her face radiated happiness. Both of them had left the same comment beneath her post. [We'll always be your biggest supporters.] I closed the app with a bitter smile and opened the admission letter I'd received from the Royal Werewolf Academy a week ago. I'd originally planned to stay in this pack for their sake, but I'd changed my mind now. "Ms. Decker, I'll report for enrollment next week."

On Valentine's Day, by the time I hurry into the seafood restaurant, my boyfriend, Cody Sharp, and my best friend, Irene Thorne, are already halfway through their meal. I reach for a chair, only to realize there isn't an extra one. Cody glances up at me and says flatly, "Staff said they only have tables for two left. A table for three means a four-hour wait. Just find a table for one. It's all the same." Irene offers an apologetic look. "Besides, Serena, aren't you allergic to seafood? Maybe grab a bite somewhere else?" I freeze. We have eaten at this exact spot 30 times. I am allergic to seafood, but since they love it, this is always the place. Just to keep them company, I take allergy medication before every single visit. So they knew all along. They just didn't care. At the table, they laugh as they plan to come back a few more times before heading overseas next month. Thanks to their top grades, both earned fully funded spots in the study abroad program. My grades are average, but because I wanted to stay with them, I was ready to pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket to go along. Now, the heavy seafood stench in the room suddenly turns sickeningly sharp. I turn around, walk out, and step into the barbecue joint next door. Pulling out my phone, I cancel my self-funded study abroad application. That feels good. From now on, I get to eat whatever I actually want.