Plot Twists Short Stories & Childhood Sweethearts Face Slapping Novels

On the day college admissions exam scores came out, my childhood friend, Celine Fairmont, was waiting for me outside my apartment with Lucian Fairchild, the class heartthrob from a poor family. She grabbed me by the collar. "Evander, did you switch Lucian's score? How could you stoop so low?" Lucian's eyes were red, like he was struggling to hold back tears. He tugged Celine away, all while speaking in an innocent, pleading tone. "Evander, please, just give me a way out. I know I can't compare to a privileged heir like you. My life is over if I can't get into college!" Meanwhile, comments were flying across my vision. "That vicious rich kid deliberately messed up his own exam so he could switch scores with our boy. What a jerk!" "He's using this chance to separate our boy from the female lead so he can take his place. How disgusting!" "Thank goodness the female lead is firmly on our boy's side. That vicious side character is so dead." I ignored the comments and pulled up the college admissions exam score page on my phone. "So… you're saying I traded my 324 points for your 128?" I drawled mockingly.

On the day of the SAT exam, my girlfriend, Heidi Moore, makes the entire class stay with her and wait for her childhood friend, Jeffrey Price, who's running late. But it's less than an hour before the exam starts. If they keep waiting for Jeffrey, they will definitely miss the exam. In my previous lifetime, I played my part as the class president by advising everyone to take the exam first. But all I received was their scolding. "You're just jealous that Jeffrey and Heidi are extremely close friends! That's why you want to ditch Jeffrey so that he can miss the exam, huh?" I could only stand in the pouring rain while begging my classmates relentlessly. Only then did everyone leave for the exam venue reluctantly. In the end, we were able to arrive at the exam venue one minute before the exam started. But after the exam was over, I was pushed off a building by Jeffrey, which caused my death. However, Heidi and the rest of my classmates gave the police their fake testimonies. "Finley caused Jeffrey to miss the exam. That's why he killed himself out of guilt!" Jeffrey even used the opportunity to sell his sob story and become a popular influencer. Mom tried to seek justice for me, only to get cyberbullied by the Internet users, who were blind to the truth. Dazed and disoriented, she drove off a cliff, and her body was nowhere to be found since then. Only after I died did I realize that this was just a part of Jeffrey's scheme. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Heidi tells the entire class to wait for Jeffrey before departing to the exam venue together. In this lifetime, I won't stop my ungrateful classmates from ruining their own lives.

After carrying me to bed, my boyfriend, Julian Cross, suddenly pulled me into his arms. “Babe, your roommate is pretty hot. Can you give me her number?” I froze and turned to look at him. He casually pulled the blanket over me as if he hadn’t just said anything outrageous. “We’re going to get married eventually, but don’t you think spending the rest of our lives with just one person would get boring? “I don’t want to give up an entire field of flowers just for one.” I stared at him for a few seconds before pushing his hand away. Then I calmly nodded. The day I moved out, Julian blocked the doorway, his brows furrowed in irritation. “Nora, weren’t we clear? We can both see other people. So why are you throwing a fit?” I bent down and picked up my suitcase. “Forget it. I’m actually pretty old-fashioned.” Later, after he’d had his fill of playing around, he came crawling back to me. I glanced down at the wedding ring I’d just slipped onto my finger and smiled. “Sorry. I don’t go back to exes.” There are countless flowers in the world. If one isn’t right for me, I’ll simply choose another. Because I will always deserve the best.

I was always sick as a kid. My parents were desperate. They’d try anything. So they got me a bunch of "guardian angels." Next thing I know, I'm set up and tossed into a horror game. Turns out, Medusa is my godmother. The ghost girl? My childhood playmate. And the final boss, a vampire? He's my fiancé. The first time we met, I was in a blind panic. I tripped and fell right onto his chiseled chest. "Oh—I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking—" I gasped, looking up at him. The words tumbled out in a rush. "And you're really handsome—but I didn't mean to fall on you! I have a heart condition!" The boss let out a laugh. He wiped the blood from his hands and swept me up into his arms. "Don't you worry," he purred, his voice dangerously smooth. "As your fiancé, I promise... I'll fix you right up."

My 30th birthday. My childhood friend, Jax, told me to meet him at Chicago City Hall. “Wear the custom wedding dress. Bring your ID.” He promised me a surprise I’d never forget. But when I got there, he just casually lifted his cigar to his rich friends. “See? She actually wore the wedding dress. Pay up. The limited-edition Aston Martin is mine.” Then, he turned to me. “Clara. It was a joke. You didn’t take it seriously, did you?” I said nothing. He was so sure of himself. No matter what he did, I was his little shadow. The girl who couldn't live without him. I’d always come crawling back, crying, begging him to marry me. His face, the one I used to love, twisted into a sneer. “If you’re that desperate to get married, go grab some homeless guy off the street. See if anyone wants you. Don’t worry. I’ll party a few more years. Then maybe I’ll be generous and keep the fiancée spot open for you.” The crowd of men and women behind him erupted in laughter. They laughed at me. The parasite Jax couldn't shake. The idiot waiting for him to throw me a bone. But when I walked out on the arm of my new husband—a literal Mafia Don—and flashed a very real marriage certificate, Jax’s face went dead white.

A year ago, my father died in battle with a Rogue. As compensation, Silverania's Alpha King, Lacus Kingston, promises that I can choose my own husband. I don't need to wait for the Moon Goddess to send him my way. In this lifetime, I don't pick Perry Cardell again. Instead, I go for his half-brother, Alaric Kingston. Lacus is surprised. After all, everyone in Silverania knows that Perry and I grew up together—we're practically childhood sweethearts. After he saved me from vultures at the age of six, I followed him everywhere he went. My biggest wish since childhood has been to marry him. I smile bitterly and recall my past life. After Perry and I got married, he refused to be intimate with me. I thought it was because he had an indescribable condition. I helped him cover the truth and even comforted him, telling him it wasn't an issue. However, everything changed when he was gravely injured. As I healed him, I discovered my cousin's name—Shirley Lamos—tattooed on his chest. Only then did I realize he wasn't frigid—he just didn't love me. If that is the case, since I've been given a second chance at life, I'll give them my blessings. But later, when I stand before the Moon Goddess in my wedding gown and with Alaric by my side, Perry suddenly descends into hysteria.

There were two famous deadweights in Kingsgate's high society. One was me, Millie Tanner, the pampered little princess whose only talents were shopping and throwing parties. The other was my childhood friend, Iver Langford, the fragile young heir born with autism and congenital heart failure. However, my older brother was the most feared name in the underworld, and my second brother was the richest man in the country. Iver's older sister was the undefeated queen of the courtroom, and his second sister was a surgeon whose hands could bring back the dead. One day, the four of them were chatting over a game of poker. "Raising one hopeless case takes the same effort as two. Might as well pair them off." Just like that, Iver and I signed the marriage papers. Our married life consisted of maxing out my second brother's credit cards, raiding my older brother's dinner table, and waiting for his sisters to show up with care packages. That was the routine, until my older brother sent us to attend a banquet at the Crestport tycoon's estate in his place. At the banquet, the tycoon's daughter, Portia Beaumont, waved around a blurry photo taken from behind and insisted I was the other woman who had stolen her boyfriend. I kept my temper. "You have the wrong person. I'm married, and this is my husband." Portia lost it on the spot and swung at me. "Married and still out here throwing yourself at men?" Iver stepped in front of me on instinct and took the slap meant for me. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. She sneered, "Oh, is he slow? His wife's out cheating and he can't even tell, but he still jumps in to protect her? One's a tramp, and the other's an idiot. The perfect match!" She flicked her wrist, and several bodyguards lunged toward us. "Get them both." My heart ached as I looked at Iver, and I dialed my older brother's number. "Someone's picking on me." These people had no idea. Crossing the four terrors of Kingsgate and living to tell about it was one thing. Messing with the two of us was something else entirely.

The day before Simon Miles and I were set to get engaged, he told me his true love was his childhood sweetheart. He secretly booked plane tickets for himself and her to travel abroad. For eight years, I would spend one day each year at the Capital Hotel. That was where my engagement to Simon was supposed to happen. Everyone thought I could not move on from him. Eight years later, he returned to the country with his childhood sweetheart for his career. He had learned that a tycoon’s mother, Laurel Windsor, loved dining at the Capital Hotel, so he immediately bought her a gift to curry favor. The moment he handed Laurel the gift, he saw me standing beside her. He frowned and snapped. “It’s been eight years, Clara. Why are you still clinging to me? You knew I was coming back, so you rushed over, didn’t you? “Listen here. I’m back for business. If you ruin this deal for me, I’ll make you pay!” I was baffled. Oh, so he still did not know why I was here. Laurel was my mother-in-law, and it was her birthday today. Every year, I would dine with her at the Capital Hotel for her birthday.

I was the famously sickly daughter of a great general. A cold breeze could make me cough blood. Unfortunately, I also had echopraxia, which made me compulsively imitative. Whatever I saw, I copied, and nobody could stop me. When I was three, one of my father's mistresses staged a hanging to win his attention. I thought it looked interesting, looped a sash around my own neck, and copied her. By the time a maid found me, my eyes had already rolled back. The physician forced three bowls of restorative down me through the night before he got me back. When I was five, my half sister threw herself on the floor screaming for candy. I copied her and stayed unconscious for seven whole days. My father even issued one iron rule throughout the Ashford estate: No crying. No tantrums. No dying in front of me. Then, at sixteen, an imperial decree married me to Crown Prince Adrian.

There were two laughingstocks in the underworld. One was me, the stand-in bride kept under house arrest at the Santangelo estate. The other was my husband by arranged marriage, Leon Santangelo, a Don who'd lost both his power and the use of his legs. But no one knew my real father headed the Council, which controlled the world's arms trade. My brother led the Assassins' Alliance, and his name struck fear into everyone. Years ago, my father and brother casually mentioned that they needed someone to gather intelligence in Sicily. So I signed a marriage contract and married Leon. After the wedding, I lived in a villa I wasn't allowed to leave. I spent freely on my brother's unlimited black card, ate delicacies flown in by the Alliance, and let the Council spoil me rotten. Then Leon and I went to a banquet hosted by a rising faction. There, the new Don's daughter held up a photo and accused me of being a lowlife pretending to be her sister. I calmly explained, "You've got the wrong person. I'm Leon's wife. We have a marriage contract." She flew into a rage and raised her hand to slap me. "You're nothing but a stand-in, and you dare talk back to me?" Leon instinctively wheeled himself in front of me and took the slap. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. She sneered. "Oh, and he's a cripple too? Some fake conned him into a contract he can't even read, and he's still protecting her? "One's trash, one's a cripple. What a perfect match." She waved a hand, and several assassins lunged at us. "Beat them both." I looked at Leon, my heart aching, and dialed my brother on my satellite phone. "Supreme Leader, someone's picking on me." What they didn't know was that you might survive crossing the Alliance's supreme leader, but crossing the two of us so-called losers would cost you your life.

To make my wife Chloe Bennett's dream of owning a hot-spring lodge in the snowy mountains come true, I moved in with her family and borrowed a fortune to build it. Instead, it became a free private club for her childhood sweetheart Lucas Reed, who burned through more than $1.4 million in premium ingredients over three years. Then yesterday, the suppliers showed up at our door demanding payment, and I swallowed my pride and asked Lucas to settle his tab. He grabbed the red wine bottle off the table and smashed it against me. "You freeloading piece of trash. I bring my friends here to class up this dump, and you have the nerve to bill me?" Blood slid down my cheek. My wife rushed in and went straight to check his hand. "He doesn't know any better. Why waste your temper on him? What if you'd hurt your hand? I'd have been heartbroken." I wiped the blood off my face and left the lodge without a word. Just now, Lucas sent me a voice memo: "I'm throwing an extravagant banquet at your mountain lodge. Clear out all three floors of the main cabin and make sure my friends are impressed. Do that, and I'll let bygones be bygones." Holding the bankruptcy liquidation and receivership agreement I'd just picked up from the law firm, I smiled at my phone and replied, "Sure. Just be there on time."

I have the potential to win the championship of the math competition, and yet I hand in a blank answer sheet during the exam. In my previous lifetime, I was known as the math prodigy. But no matter which competition I participated in, my boyfriend's childhood friend, Alyssa Ford, would always score an extra 20 marks more than my score. I refused to believe that Alyssa could best me all the time, so I performed extraordinarily well in the math competition. Just as I thought I'd come out as the champion, Alyssa still scored 20 marks more than my current score. Thanks to her outstanding results, she stole the title that was supposed to be mine. Since I couldn't become the champion, I lost the prize money the school had promised to give me. Naturally, I broke down emotionally because I planned on using the money on my parents' life-saving surgery for their cancer. My parents ended up dying in the end. Unable to handle the blow, I took my life shortly afterward. Even when I breathed my last, I could never figure out why Alyssa could score 20 marks more than my scores no matter how hard I tried. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day before the math competition is to take place.

My boyfriend came from a wealthy family. We had been together for seven years, yet he had never given me a single gift. When he proposed, he even asked for the diamond ring back so he could return it for a refund. Later, when we were about to register our marriage, he complained that the paperwork fee was too expensive and said it wasn’t necessary. However, not long after that, he registered his marriage with his childhood sweetheart instead. He even booked the most luxurious hotel in the entire city, eager to throw a grand engagement party. The shock was too much for my grandmother, and she suffered a heart attack. I dropped to my knees and begged my boyfriend to return the salary I had entrusted to him over the years, as I needed the money to pay for my grandmother’s surgery. He simply wrapped his arm around his childhood sweetheart and pretended not to know me. He said he would never help a lazy beggar who only knew how to freeload. Then, he ordered the security guards to throw me out. Later, my grandmother died on New Year’s Eve, her final breaths drowned out by the sound of fireworks outside. While everyone else celebrated the holiday season, I handled my grandmother’s funeral alone. At the same time, I accepted a job offer from a major overseas company. When I returned home to get my passport, the man—who had just finished introducing his sweetheart to his parents and was clearly in a good mood—saw me and assumed I was still throwing a tantrum. For the first time, he spoke generously. “Alright. What could possibly have happened to your grandmother? At worst, I’ll make it up to you with a luxurious wedding.” What he didn’t know was that from the moment my grandmother took her last breath, I no longer wanted to marry him.

At the party celebrating Ryan making partner, his childhood friend, Jenna knew I was deathly allergic to peanuts, yet she deliberately put peanut syrup in my drink. I drank it, Within seconds, my throat began to tighten, constriction seizing my windpipe like a closing fist. Panic flared in my chest as a suffocating wave of heat rushed to my face. Desperate, I grabbed my emergency allergy spray from my purse. Instead, a harsh minty sting sprayed into my throat. She had swapped my medication with a mint spray. I turned pale and collapsed onto the hardwood floor, clawing at my neck, gasping for even a shred of oxygen. Jenna laughed so hard that tears welled in her eyes. "Wow, Isabella Moretti. Someone get this girl an Oscar for that performance. I’ve been a nurse at the top hospital in Chicago for five years, and I’ve never seen anyone throw a tantrum like this over a splash of syrup." I crawled toward Ryan on my hands and knees, biting my lower lip until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. "Ryan... please... call 911... I can't breathe..." Ryan looked down at me."Stop pretending, Isabella. Nobody drops dead from a little drink. Jenna is a medical professional. If you were actually in danger, she’d be the first to know." With that, he turned his back on me. I stopped begging. Using my final shred of strength, I triggered the phone's emergency SOS. A silent distress signal and my live GPS location immediately shot straight to my father.

Before my boyfriend, August Cadwell, marked me, we went to register our mate bond at the Pack Affairs Department. Without a word of explanation, he unexpectedly had someone throw me out of the office. Then he walked in with his childhood sweetheart. He didn’t even blink when he saw me sitting there on the ground, shaking with disbelief. "Hailey's pup needs to be part of the Aurelis pack. The best and quickest method is for her to register a mate bond with a werewolf from the Aurelis pack. As soon as we sever the mate bond, I'll form a mate bond with you." Everyone assumed the lovesick version of me would wait just one more month for him. After all, I'd already waited seven long years. But that night, I did something unexpected too. I accepted my parents' arranged mate bond and quietly left for the Lymerian pack, disappearing from his life entirely. Three years later, I returned to my original pack to visit my family. My mate, Ryder Weyland, was now the lycan chairman. Because of an urgent council meeting, he arranged for someone to collect me from the airport. I never imagined that “someone” would be August. The moment he spotted me, his eyes immediately landed on the sparkling bracelet on my wrist. "Isn't this a knockoff of the bracelet Ryder Weyland, the lycan chairman, spent two million dollars on for his mate? Didn't expect you to turn this vain after just a few years. "You've caused enough chaos, haven't you? It's time to return. Hailey's pup is now of school age. You can take on the responsibility of pick-ups and drop-offs." I gently ran my fingers over the bracelet on my wrist. Little did he know that this was the cheapest one Ryder had ever given me.

I hold the carefully chosen ring in my pocket, ready to pop the question right after my girlfriend Jenny Morse's family dinner. The moment I walk into the private dining room, Brett Walker—her childhood friend back from abroad—pinches his nose and dramatically waves the air. "Whoa, Jenny, is this your boyfriend? Why does he reek like cow dung? Was he a bull in a past life or what?" The room erupts into laughter, Jenny's relatives doubling over in amusement. I look over at Jenny, expecting her to stand up for me. Instead, her face flushes red as she shoves my hand away in disgust. "Hayden Poole, I told you not to come! You're making a complete fool out of me!" When she turns to Brett, her voice instantly softens. "I'm so sorry, Brett. His family runs a farm out in the countryside. He did shower before coming, though." My chest tightens. She never used to look down on my work. She used to hold me close and tell me how impressive I was for raising such high-grade cattle. Even her parents chime in with sly jabs, dropping hint after heavy hint that they'd rather see her with Brett. I touch the diamond ring in my pocket and abandon any thought of proposing today. What none of them realize is that my beef supply spans three states, and 80% of the fine-dining spots around here answer to me. Without my sign-off, her family's steakhouse will lose its supply by tomorrow morning.

The moment we witness the last surviving child in the safehouse getting pinned to the wall by a zombie before having his guts torn out, all the men in the team break down mentally. "Captain, didn't you claim that Selene kept rambling nonsense because she had gone crazy out of fright toward the zombies? Isn't that why you reassured us to keep watch while you and Madeline watched the sunrise on the summit? "Why is it that my newborn has already gotten devoured by a zombie as soon as I return to the safehouse?" Quinton Morwood goes deathly pale at the accusation. My heart feels as though it's gotten torn into pieces as I stare at the tragedy. In my previous life, when the zombies attacked the safehouse, Quinton, who was the captain of the defence team, had taken the entire team with him just so he could watch the sunrise with Madeline Moore at the mountain summit. I did everything I could to summon everyone back to the base. That was how everyone's lives were spared from the zombie attack. But Madeline was pissed that she did't get to watch the sunrise, so she left the safezone angrily on her own. That was how she got grabbed by a zombie and eaten by a horde. By the time Quinton and his squad killed the entire horde, he just hugged Madeline's femur to his chest without saying a single word. On the day I gave birth to my baby, Quinton hacked my limbs off before throwing me into the roaming hordes of zombies. I could only watch as the zombies tore my flesh off my bones before Quinton saved me again by healing me. The cycle kept going on and on until I witnessed the last piece of flesh being torn off my body. "You're the one who killed Madeline, you wretched woman! Since you like competing with her that much, I'll make sure you'll die a worse death than hers!" When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day the zombies are attacking the safezone.

The day we submitted our college applications, my childhood friend, Shane Felton, who could have gotten into a top-tier university, switched his choices without hesitation, opting for a sketchy, third-rate college instead. My classmates were stunned and urged me to talk him out of it, but I simply smiled and said, “I respect his decision and wish him all the best.” No one knew that I had been reborn. In the previous timeline, a transfer student from a poor family claimed she had been sent on a mission to save Shane and that she would be erased from existence if they did not attend the same university. Shane had obeyed her every word, as if he were under some kind of spell. Unable to stand by and watch him throw away his future, I had exposed her lies in front of everyone and changed his application back to the prestigious Edevane University just before the deadline. He went to Edevane with me, but the transfer student later jumped from a building at the third-rate college. She left behind a letter blaming me for her failed mission and eventual erasure. Shane hated me for it so much that he shoved me off the university rooftop, sending me plunging to my death. Having been given a second chance, I planned to watch him hit rock bottom.

My husband, Zeke Larson, rushed to the police station at night because his childhood sweetheart, Snow Lowell, had run over my father-in-law and killed him. Snow clutched Zeke’s jacket and trembled in fear. “Zeke, I’m so scared. I didn’t mean to kill anyone.” Zeke pulled her into his arms at once and glared at me like he wanted to kill me. “You were in the car too. Why didn’t you stop her?” I almost laughed. He was the one who insisted that Snow drive. He said she had just gotten her license and needed more practice, so he pushed her to take his car and give me a ride. “Forget it. He’s already dead. There’s no point arguing now. “We’ll just say your dad ran into the road without looking, and that’s how Snow hit him. “We can settle this privately. Snow has a performance in Vienne next month. She can’t have a stain on her record.” I froze for a moment. When he repeated himself, I finally realized that he thought the person who died was my father. I looked at Zeke and saw how natural it all seemed to him. I could not help but laugh. “This is not a private settlement I have the right to be part of.”

On my fifth birthday after getting together with Kimberly Rivers, I sit at a table filled with dishes that have gone cold, just like I have for the past few years. Much like she did last year, Kimberly promises to celebrate my birthday with me this year, but then she goes back on her word. This year, her excuse is that her childhood friend, Gregory Morales, has invited her and several of her best friends to appear in his glamor shoot. Hence, she stands me up once again and runs off to him without any hesitation. At 11:00 pm that night, Gregory uploads a photo onto his Instagram and sets it so that only I can see it. In the photo, four women in skimpy bikinis are partially kneeling around a man who stood with the unshakable confidence of truth itself. The attached caption read, "I want more than just your heart—I want your body too." I take a screenshot of the photo, then send it to the boyfriends of Kimberly's three best friends. Since they look down on me so much, they'd better hope that they won't need to come begging me on their knees in the future.