Cerita Pendek & Novel Tragic Love Cheating

It was my and my wife Camille’s ninth wedding anniversary. I had rushed home with a fertility specialist in tow, hoping to surprise her. However, when I pushed the front door open, the house was already full of laughter. I walked in, heart pounding, to find Camille holding a little boy by the hand. Her voice was soft and warm. "Today is Miles's first day of school celebration. I want nothing but the best for my baby." Camille heard me come in and turned around. She walked toward me, snatched a pot of hot soup off the table, and flung it straight at me. "How many times do I have to tell you? I'm married! I have a family! Stop trying to get me to have your kids, you freak!" I fought through the pain in my arm and grabbed her, desperate for an explanation. She wrenched free and slapped me hard across the face, then grabbed everything within reach and hurled it all at me. "If you don't get out of here, I'm calling the cops, you psycho!" Then she winked at me, took the boy by the hand, and walked over to the elderly couple nearby. "Mom, Dad, don't worry about him. He's nobody." I stood there, watching the happy family in front of me. I looked down and forced the ring off my finger, the one I had worn for nine years, and tossed the blood-streaked band at Camille. "Camille, deception always comes at a cost."

When I was being falsely accused of harassment, Sage was right there at a concert with Simon, a guy in the year below her. I begged her to testify for me, but Simon lost his mind and broke down. Feeling sorry for him, she shoved me aside and sneered, “Where did you filthy lunatic come from? I don’t even know you.” Left with no way to prove my innocence, I was beaten up by the crowd, twitching on the ground until I finally passed out. When I woke up, I threw away the matching couple's ring I had with Sage and dialed my mother's number. “Mom, about the arranged marriage with the Benedict family, I agree to it.”

On Valentine’s Day, my fiancé, Declan Whitmore, was rushed to the ER in the middle of the night with severe food poisoning after eating undercooked wild mushrooms. In his delirious haze, he blurted out, “Brielle, I’m so sorry... If I hadn’t been dead broke back then, I never would’ve ended up with Vivian.” I was Vivian Thornfield. And Brielle Ashcombe was the girl he had loved and lost—his unforgettable ex. He seemed to have forgotten that after the Whitmore family went bankrupt, Brielle abandoned him without a second thought and fled abroad. Over the past eight years, I was the one who paid off every cent of his debts and stayed loyally by his side. I calmly called off our engagement and tossed the ring straight into the trash. He sneered, “Can’t you be a little more open-minded? Brielle would never throw a petty tantrum like you.” I smiled faintly. “Fine. You’re trash anyway—you can go right back to her.”

After dinner with my college roommates at a restaurant in the Old Harbor district, the rain came down hard without warning. We huddled under the awning, pulling our coats tight, calling our boyfriends one by one.My friend Maya nudged my shoulder with a grin. "Your guy chased you so hard the entire school knew about it. He'll definitely be the first one here." "Right? Four years of college. Hot coffee delivered to your door on rainy days, your bike path shoveled clean in the snow, and whenever you didn't feel like getting up for class, he'd organize the professor's lecture notes and send them straight to your inbox." "That year you had your senior exhibition and came down with a high fever, he stayed with you in the studio for three days. Made you soup, fixed your models, stayed up so late his eyes were bloodshot. Evelyn, I honestly thought you'd found yourself a fairy-tale prince." They chattered on about my love life. Before long, their boyfriends all showed up with umbrellas. When they glanced my way, their expressions faltered. "How come Noah isn't here yet? Isn't your apartment just across the river?" I smiled and held up my phone. "He said something came up at the office." Maya asked her boyfriend to drop me off first. I sat in the back seat, spotted a familiar figure standing outside the pet grooming salon on the corner. He was cradling a silver-gray longhaired cat in his arms. The cat was wrapped in a soft little wool blanket. He was shielding even its ear tips, terrified of letting a single drop of rain touch it. It was Noah. The cat in his arms belonged to his childhood neighbor, Selena. This wasn't the first time Noah had left me stranded in the rain for that cat.Another message from Noah. "Babe, the rain's too heavy. Wait until it lets up and then call a car home. Don't be stubborn. You won't get wet that way." What he didn't know was that from the day Selena moved to this city last year, I had already been soaked through.

At the top of a high-altitude stunt platform at Highspan Adventure Park, Vanessa Blythe suddenly unclipped the primary safety line behind me. Before I could react, she shoved me from the edge. I crashed onto the emergency airbag below, and pain tore through my entire body. When the staff hauled me back up, her childhood friend Mason Lowell was holding up his phone, laughing until he could barely breathe. The screen replayed my humiliating fall again and again. "Vanessa, did you see his face?" The moment he laughed, Vanessa finally relaxed. Mason was autistic, but for some reason, watching me suffer always delighted him. So during the ten years Vanessa and I were together, scenes like this happened countless times. When I lost my job, Vanessa hung a banner and celebrated with him. When I was hospitalized after a crash, she stood outside my room with him and laughed. Every year on his birthday, she made me dress as a clown to entertain him. She knew that undoing a safety line at that height could kill me. But if it made Mason happy, Vanessa never hesitated to put me in danger. Blood from my split forehead blurred my vision. As I wiped it away, I suddenly wanted to walk away from the ten years I'd spent refusing to give up.

While taking photos at a scenic spot, I move around three or four times to find the best angle. I point the camera at my girlfriend, Ruby Sutton, and loudly repeat three times, "Look here!" But she seems not to hear me, staring at something in the distance instead. Then, my friend, Joel Ziegler, clumsily takes out his phone and calls out to her. "Look at the camera!" Ruby quickly poses and gives the camera a loving smile. A young couple sees the photo on Joel's phone and starts teasing them. "Wow, your girlfriend must really love you. You can see it in her eyes in the photo!" Joel's ears turn bright red, and Ruby clears her throat awkwardly. I look down at my camera and see that I only captured a third of her face. It looks like a photo taken by paparazzi. Since we were kids, they'd habitually ignored me, assuming I had no opinions of my own. When we were teenagers, they'd always excitedly choose where to go, taking it for granted that I would come along. Now that we're grown up, the two of them decide to study medicine, expecting me to agree and enrolling me in a medical program. Later, they become the "ER's top duo" at the hospital. Yet no matter how hard I work, I can only become a nurse. When I look up, the two of them are already walking side by side toward the next spot to take photos. They probably assume I will follow. Instead, I turn around and walk in the opposite direction. All this time, I have always been the one trailing behind them. But there comes a day when I no longer want to keep up.

After work, I bought three movie tickets, but it wasn't until two minutes before the movie started that my girlfriend and my childhood friend arrived. My girlfriend, Sally Clarkson, transferred me the money for it as usual, saying, "That's for Alex's ticket." I paused, feeling a little repulsed as I stared at the transfer notification on my phone screen. Sally would pay for Alex Zims' medical bills when he got sick and pick up the tab when I bought him food. Before I could ask her why she was always paying everything for Alex, Alex handed me a cup of coffee while handily whipping out his payment app QR code. "That's ten bucks, Jim." I was stumped and turned to Sally, but she was staring at her phone like she didn't hear a thing. And seeing that I was silent, Alex quietly withdrew his hand, and that was when Sally looked up at me again. Frowning, she snapped, "Just pay for it! Are you really going to go cheap on ten bucks?!" My brain zoned out for a second, but I soon laughed. In the end, it wasn't as if she didn't hear us—she just didn't care about me.

I'd just come off a night shift when the college kid Laura Marano had cheated with planted himself in front of me and begged. "Kyle, please. Let Laura have my baby. She said you're the only one she'll listen to. "I'm not asking for anything else. I never once told her to leave you. "This is my first child. You're a doctor. Doctors are supposed to have a healer's heart. Please, just give our baby a chance to live." While he pleaded, Laura rushed over, breathless. "The affair was on me," she said, guilt written across her face. "So whether this baby stays or goes, that call is yours to make." It was the same scene I'd lived through once before, back when I still believed in loving one person for a lifetime. I hadn't been able to stomach it back then: the girlfriend I'd loved for five years, cheating on me. I'd cut things off clean and never looked back. That decision was what opened my eyes to how the world really worked. The other man who'd stolen my place ended up living like a king, drowning in money. Meanwhile, I'd worked myself half to death in the operating room and still couldn't scrape together enough to treat my mother's illness. I'd come to agree with a bitter little saying: love, in the end, always turns out the same. So this time around, I told Laura something different. "Get rid of the baby. The wedding's still on."

I have a habit. Whenever I eat, watch a movie, or ride the bus, I will always save an empty seat next to me. I believe that Cindy Newman will one day show up in my city and surprise me. But we've been in a long-distance relationship for three years, and not once has she ever visited me. In the end, I have no choice but to handle all the wedding preparations on my own. I try on countless suits to find the one. I look everywhere for the perfect venue. The exhaustion ultimately catches up to me. With trembling fingers, I text Cindy, "I'm running a 102-degree fever. No meds at home." It takes her 30 minutes to reply to me, "So? What do you want me to do? Learn how to fly and deliver you meds? I'm busy going over a proposal. Just order it online and have it delivered to your place." My high fever is so intense that I can barely lift a finger. Amid the haziness, I pass out. When I wake up, I see my best friend, Eugene Grant, by my side. He sighs and feeds me warm water and a tablet. "She's just taking advantage of the fact you're too kind to say anything. If I were you, I would've blown up already." Two weeks later, Eugene also comes down with a high fever. I've planned to rush over and take care of him, but I see his latest post online. The photo shows only a woman's hand holding a spoon. The caption reads, "The weather is getting colder, and I've unfortunately come down with a cold. Thank goodness for a superwoman who travels over 500 miles to deliver me soup." I know what I'm seeing. It's Cindy's hand. On Cindy's wrist is the bracelet I've spent six months saving up to buy for her. At long last, it dawns on me that the empty seat remains empty not because she can't make it, but because she simply doesn't want to. In that case, I'll stop saving a seat for a person who will never come.

Back in my hometown, the women would brew wine at a young age for their future husbands. Since college, Jake Sanders and I had left our hometown for a brighter future in a city far away, and we finally returned in glory. I was finally able to open my vat of wine, which had been kept for 28 years. I knew that Jake was quite particular about hygiene, so I changed my wine to store-bought wine during the town celebration, even though I knew it was taboo. When I was about to share this secret with him, I heard his conversation with his buddies. "Are you sure you're going to drink Erica's wine? You'll have to marry her according to tradition if you do that. Won't Cassie be mad?" "Yeah. Cassie has already opened her vat of wine. If no one drinks from it, she can't marry." Jake laughed with indifference. "She won't be able to leave me. She's even willing to change that vat of wine for me. Besides, her wine has been left for 28 years. Who would want to drink that? Erica's wine is only 20-years-old, and I heard wine is sweetest at this stage. "Even though I've chosen Erica, I'll still make sure to treat Cassie well. I'll marry her if no one will." It felt like my heart had been cored out and a cold wind was gusting through it, but I decided to let this go because I was not an unwanted woman, and Jake was not the only man in this world. I replied to the text that was sent to me every year: [Will you marry me?] He replied right away: [Wait for me.]

A week before the wedding, Angela Spears receives an anonymous email in her inbox. As soon as she clicks on the link in the email, the jarring imagery that pops out before her makes it hard for her to breathe. The link leads to a porn website called "Animal World", and it is filled with videos of explicit sexual acts. All porn actors and actresses in the videos wear animal masks as they entwine their bodies in every way possible in front of a black backdrop. The videos are all disgustingly explicit, and Angela quickly closes the window. Yet, a fleeting memory lingers in her mind, and when the realization dawns on her, she freezes. The video trending under the livestream segment on the website features a man in a fox mask. His jawline, physique, and even the sound of his breathing are identical to those of her fiance, Daryl Carson.

One day, I stood in line outside the fondue place for six hours. My boyfriend, Daryl McCabe, called. "Brooke wants Cajun food. Come meet us." Brooke Jennings was my best friend, and Daryl's ex-girlfriend. This was the thirty-fifth time Daryl had blown up our plans for her. He'd been talking about this fondue place for a month, but we could never get in, there were always too many people waiting. So I'd taken the day off and stood in line for six hours just to get us a table. Every ten minutes, I'd texted Daryl an update on how close we were to being called. Five minutes ago, I'd sent him the last one. My number was 3601. They were already calling 3595. I gripped the ticket in my hand. "Daryl, I took the day off. I've been standing here six hours. We're only six people away..." "I know," he cut in, impatient, "but Brooke wants Cajun food. We can do fondue some other time." The line went quiet for two seconds. Then his voice again, pushing. "We're literally five or six doors down from where you're standing. Just come over." I'd given in thirty-four times before this. Suddenly, none of it felt worth it anymore. "No. I want fondue." I hung up and sent my boss a text. [Vincent, I accept the overseas assignment to Zwinterland.]

I have a poor sense of direction. I can go to the same place ten times and still not know how to get there. So, Aimee Thornton spends an entire week putting all the streets around school into a hand-drawn map for me. There are no directions on the map, only places named "The Convenience Store With the Yellow Dog at the Door" and "The Old Man Who Sells Terrible Tacos". She ruffles my hair and muses, "How is this one going to survive without me?" But everything changes when our friend, Dean Sullivan, comes home from abroad. During our trip, Aimee tells me to get out of the car and check if we've skidded. My feet have just touched the ground when the car speeds off. She texts me the next second. "There's a rest area about three miles ahead. Dean and I will wait for you there. Dean has a point. You'll never get over your poor sense of direction if I don't give you a push." I end up trekking through the torrential downpour for an hour, desperate and panicking. Aimee suddenly sends me a hand-drawn map with an arrow, and she's added a cute smiley face beside it. "Follow the map, and you'll be there in 20 minutes." Alas, I walk until my calves ache, only for the road to narrow and cut off in a dead end. I call Aimee, but Dean's lighthearted laughter greets me instead. "Hey, man, congratulations on taking the wrong way! "I made a bet with Aimee that you wouldn't notice the arrow she'd drawn on the map was deliberately pointing in the opposite direction. As it turns out, I know you better than she does. "And that means I'm the only one she gets to hang out with for the rest of the trip, since having you tag along will be too much trouble." I hear Aimee's indulgent laugh going off beside him. "A bet's a bet. Whatever you say goes, Dean." The price of codependency is too much for me—so much so that I'll be lost if Aimee decides to up and leave me. I wipe my tears dry. I want to find my way alone this time.

The day my boyfriend returned from his business trip overseas, I broke up with him. He looked at me with a faint smile. "You're breaking up with me just because I didn't buy you that handbag?" "Yes." I nodded without hesitation. Seven days earlier, my boyfriend, Elias Jones, had traveled to Francoria on a business trip with his team. When he came back, he had souvenirs for everyone. Even the security guard at the office received a crocodile leather belt. Everyone got a gift except me. The bag I had been talking about for the past two months and wanted for my birthday had slipped his mind completely. Then I opened Instagram and saw a photograph his newly hired secretary had posted, proudly showing off a designer handbag. [Feeling grateful for the best boss in the world! You're the absolute best!] Elias had replied beneath the post. [It was nothing.] I stared at the screen for a long time before quietly deleting the message I had been about to send him. Melissa: [Can't wait for you to come home.] Elias and I had known each other since we were seven years old. We fell in love at eighteen and had spent the last twenty years growing up side by side. There had been a time when I was always his first priority. Somewhere along the way, everyone else started coming before me. Just like now. We were in the middle of ending our relationship when his phone lit up with a Messenger invitation from Tracy, his new secretary, asking him to join her for lunch. He glanced at the notification, smiled, and waved the whole conversation away. "Come on. Stop being dramatic. "It's just a handbag. I'll buy you one next time. "Tracy's waiting for me for lunch. Just grab a cab home." He hurried out without looking back. I did not try to stop him. Instead, I opened my chat with a studio in Brighton City. They had already invited me to join them seven different times. I finally sent my reply to their last offer. Melissa: [I've decided to accept your offer. My flight arrives tomorrow night. See you in Brighton City.] After hitting send, I slipped my engagement ring off my finger and placed it inside the top drawer of his desk. Elias… From this moment on, our lives would go in their separate directions.

In the seventh year of Julia Fenner's marriage to Colonel Everett Warden, she carried her family papers to the housing office to buy a subsidized faculty apartment and was told the record in her hand was a forgery. How could that be possible? Certain the clerk had made a mistake, Julia politely asked her to check again. "My husband transferred my records after we married." The clerk checked the county and military-family registry again, her patience visibly thinning, and looked at Julia with something close to scorn. "There's no mistake. Everett Warden's lawful record lists two other people: his wife, Lydia Warden, and their son, Peter."

While celebrating my marking anniversary with the Alpha of the Grimm Pack, his friend asked in the Keri Pack dialect, "How was your time with your… assistant?" Galen was smiling as he helped me put on my cloak, giving me a kiss as he replied in the Keri Pack dialect as well, "It's just different. I mean, it's such a thrill… and Beth really makes me feel young again—you better not let that slip, or Mia would dump me if she knows." Galen's friends were all laughing loudly right then, switching back to Grimm Pack's dialect as they cheered for us. However, my knuckles were clenched and my lips were pale. After all, I understood everything they said, as I had learned and mastered the pack dialect. Though the pack wasn't aware of Galen's affair, I had noticed for a while now. I never made a scene, as I quietly severed our mate bond and consulted a lawyer for the division of marital assets. In two more days, I would return to my own pack with everything I owned.

At my best friend Naomi Dodson's Sip and See, my husband, Joe Walsh, gifts her a luxury villa. I think it's a mix-up, but he stays deadly calm. "Naomi's baby is mine. The villa is her reward." The world goes cold around me. Desperate, I push for answers. "When did this start?" He knit his brows, annoyed. "Does it matter? You're still Mrs. Walsh. You get the money, the freedom, and a kid without the birth pains. What's not to like?" What he doesn't know is that he has severe azoospermia. I am never the infertile one. He is.

My husband had never been interested in sex. Whenever we did sleep together, he always watched the clock. Tonight, halfway through, the custom ringtone he had set for his secretary went off. Her tearful voice came through the phone. "Mr. Doyle, a pipe burst in my apartment. There's water everywhere, and I'm scared..." Without a second thought, Vince Doyle pulled away and started getting dressed. Biting my lip, I reached out and grabbed his arm, hating how desperate I sounded. "It's late, and we haven't even finished…" "Lauren doesn't have anyone else to call. I'm her boss. I can't just leave her to deal with this alone." He didn't even look at me. He calmly pulled his arm free and buttoned his shirt. "I've done what I was supposed to do tonight. I'll make up to you next time." My breath caught. So sleeping with me was nothing more than another obligation he had to check off his list. Not long after he left, Lauren Barrett sent me a text. In the photo, she was curled up against Vince's shoulder. [I'm so sorry. I was just really scared. I'll make sure Vince finishes what he started next time. Looks like you'll have to pull out your little toy and finish the job yourself tonight.] I read the message without replying. Then I got up, took a shower, stripped the bed, and put the sheets in the wash. After changing into a clean pair of pajamas, I finally made up my mind. I was done with Vince.

As I sign the form to terminate my pregnancy, the doctor asks me for the third time, "You were willing to risk your health to keep this baby. What changed?" I press my hand to my belly. "A bottle of essential oil." Yesterday, the moment I open the car door, a sharp wave of rosemary hits me and sends my morning sickness spiraling. I reach for the window, but Adrian Lockwood grabs my hand. "Don't open it. Sloane loves this scent. She'll be upset if it fades." I freeze. "I'm pregnant. This isn't safe for the baby." He frowns, his voice full of impatience. "Stop being dramatic. You always use the baby as an excuse. It's just essential oil. What's it going to do?" Then he pulls the bottle from the glove compartment, places it right next to my air vent, and cranks the dial higher. "Just tough it out. We're almost home. Sloane can't fall asleep without it." The smell thickens until my eyes sting and my temples throb. I don't say another word. I quietly unbuckle my seatbelt and get out. Adrian never indulges my moods. He leans over, slams the passenger door shut, and drives off. I stare at the ultrasound, at the tiny shadow that already has a heartbeat, and close my eyes. If he doesn't care about me, I don't need him either.

The night before my mom, Josie Swift, remarries another man, she suddenly barges into my room. "Colin, I'm getting married tomorrow. I don't need you to be my ring bearer anymore." The makeup artist is carefully applying concealer to my left cheek, so I don't catch what she says at first. Mom frowns, her voice laced with frustration and disdain. "Don't bother. The scar on your face won't just disappear like that. The more you try to cover it, the more hideous it looks! "The guests attending my wedding tomorrow are important business associates of Gavin's. Are you trying to embarrass me on purpose? You know how hard it is for me to marry him with you tagging along. They are already gossiping about me behind my back. It's so humiliating." The makeup artist pauses, then awkwardly steps outside. I stare expressionlessly at my reflection in the mirror, saying nothing. My stepfather, Gavin Dunn, stands outside, his head bowed as he adjusts his son Chris Dunn's bow tie. He shows absolutely no reaction to what Mom has just said. Mom sighs and slips into her usual self-pitying tone. "You've been a good boy ever since you were little. You should know how hard it is for me. I need to look dignified and presentable. Tomorrow, Chris will be my ring bearer, and the three of us will take a family photo on stage. You stay backstage and don't cause trouble for me, okay?"