Melodramatic Short Stories & Hypocrisy Family Emotions Novels

The day I get accepted into Westbridge University at 18 years old, my oldest sister, Claire Whitmore, secretly hides my acceptance letter. Why? Because she's finally found Ethan Whitmore, my twin brother who was separated from our family years ago. Heartbroken over everything he's supposedly suffered, Claire decides I owe him compensation and demands that I give him my place at Westbridge University. Of course I refuse. Claire slaps me across the face. "You've had everything handed to you your whole life! Is it really so much to ask you to give your brother this one thing?" Even Grace Bennett, the woman I've loved for three years, chooses Ethan over me. "I can't stand petty, selfish men. So what if you're smarter than him? Ethan has more character than you ever will." I'm devastated. Then, Ethan frames me for something I didn't do, and Claire sends me away to an isolated town in the middle of nowhere. Three years later, Ethan gets engaged to Grace, and their extravagant engagement celebration becomes the talk of the city. Only then does Claire finally remember I exist. "It's been three years. Surely you've learned how to get along with Ethan by now." She looks pleased when I lower my head obediently before her. What she doesn't know is that those three years in the countryside have destroyed my health. And I only have three days left to live.

My older sister Jenny and I both gained weight easily, so our mother made the decision that we could eat nothing but the diet meals she made. I followed her rules as best I could. I did not even dare drink an extra drop of water. But when I stepped on the scale a month later, I weighed three hundred pounds. I rushed into Jenny's room and found her in a tight dress posing in front of the mirror. She smiled at me. "Shannon, does this dress look good on me?" Then, I saw the number on her scale. I could hardly believe it. She was down to ninety pounds. I suspected something was wrong with Mom's diet meals, so I watched everything she did, from buying groceries to cooking. As soon as my meal was ready, I carried it straight to my room so that no one could do anything with it. Another month passed, and my weight climbed to five hundred pounds. Stretch marks covered my body, and my blood pressure reached two hundred. I lost my job because of my weight, my boyfriend dumped me without warning, and my health problems tortured me. I fell into deep despair. I refused to eat Mom's meals anymore and demanded that they take me to the hospital for gastric sleeve surgery. By then, I weighed eight hundred pounds. I had severe hypertension, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and advanced heart failure. On the second day after the surgery, I died at home from a severe infection. When I opened my eyes again, I had regressed to the day Mom first started making our meals…

At my mom's funeral, my lecturer wife, Vivian Carter, decides to have a rendezvous with her student, Noah Myers, with ten packs of condoms in her bag. Once they are done with their passionate lovemaking, Noah uploads a photo to his social media feed. It features a red-faced Vivian lying on his bed. Meanwhile, the clothes of mourning that she's worn to the funeral are strewn all over the floor. The caption reads, "The only who's not loved is the actual homewrecker here. My relationship has finally borne fruit!" His feed goes wild with comments. Everyone mocks me for being a shameless simp for Vivian, and that I've been ruining Noah's relationship with her this whole time. My mentor, Avery Sanders, is sick with worry. But I, on the other hand, merely brew myself a cup of coffee. Then, I say lightly, "Since he likes uploading his intimate photos that much, I might as well upload photos of his and Vivian's bastard child as well as their paternity tests. Here's the caption—I, the legal husband, am now defending my pride as a married man. "Now, I'd like to see if Noah and Vivian are capable of bearing the consequences of pissing off my prestigious and wealthy family!"

I died on my birthday, but neither my parents nor my husband noticed. They were too busy pouring all their attention into planning my twin sister, Esme Shaw's, birthday party. While she was surrounded by people helping her pick out a gown, I was tied up and thrown into the basement. With what little strength I had left, I forced my broken fingers to press in the code—9395. It was a signal my husband, Edwin Grant, and I had once agreed on. It was a straightforward way to call for help in the event of danger. I never thought I would actually need it one day. But when I sent it, he didn't believe me. His reply was cold, "Claudia, just because I didn't take you shopping for a new dress, you've decided to put on a show? "You can still wear last year's gown. Stop making trouble. I'll see you at the party later." What he didn't know was that Esme had already shredded that gown into pieces. And what he couldn't imagine was that the moment after he hung up, I was already gone. So, when the celebration began, I never appeared. But when everyone saw the birthday gift I had prepared for Esme ahead of time, the entire room lost its mind.

I'm the fake heir, swapped at birth. The moment the truth comes out, everyone despises me. Only my childhood friend, Fallon Montrose, still treats me the way she always has. She even invites me to her birthday party. But that night, someone takes compromising photos of me. Fallon and my own biological sister, Joanna Cavanagh, both know the truth, yet neither says a word in my defense. It's all to get back at me on behalf of the real heir, Chase Elwood, who has quietly left home. The photos follow me to work. My coworkers freeze me out, my boss humiliates me, and I jump from the 18th floor. I don't expect to end up a crumpled wreck at the feet of Chase, the one who has been missing for three months. I expect even less that he turns out to be the only person who actually sheds tears for me at my funeral. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day of the party.

I had a knack for copying people. Back in elementary school, the principal's father called him "buddy", so that was how I addressed the principal for six straight years. On graduation day, the man practically threw a party when I finally walked out of his school. In middle school, a rich kid mocked me by chomping down on fresh raspberries right in my face. So I gobbled down a whole box and ended up in the ER from a severe allergic reaction. Since then, the rich kid would check the ingredient list before eating anything in front of me. By high school, the most popular girl in school accused me of bullying and threatened to overdose on sleeping pills. In response, I swallowed an entire bottle of pills and landed myself in the hospital for three days. The girl never tried to play the victim again. My friends became terrified that I'd pick up some terrible habits. Whenever we went to the movies, they preferred to keep it PG by watching Peppa Pig. It would be their worst nightmare if I were to hurt myself. One day, I was told that my biological parents had tracked me down. As soon as I was brought home, I stared at the girl who had taken my place. Right on cue, the girl clutched her chest and teared up. "Do you hate me? It's okay. I won't get in your way." She turned around and tried to throw herself off the stair railing. My parents caught her before she could jump and scolded me, "London has depression! Even the slightest bit of hurt can make her suicidal! Are you doing this deliberately?" I said nothing. My focus was on opening the window and stepping out of the window on the fourth floor.

Nine years after my hands were burned beyond restoration, I woke in the middle of the night with pain shooting through my fingers. I lay there, barely able to move, when I heard my mother talking on the phone in the living room. "Hey, you've had a hard time too. You've been taking care of him all these years. He was such a gifted pianist, and now look at what he's become…" My mother let out a quiet laugh. "A hard time? You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day." There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then she continued, "I was the one who hid his passport. And I was the one who started the fire." The voice on the other end went silent. "I only meant to make him miss his flight. I never thought the fire would get out of control. I never meant for him to end up like this." After a pause, I heard my aunt's faint voice. "But his hands…" My mother was silent for two seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was colder than before. "Maybe it's better this way. With his hands ruined, he can't play the piano. He can't go abroad. He can't leave me here all by myself. "All these years, he's had to rely on me for everything, even eating and getting dressed. Don't you think he'll be grateful to me for taking care of him?" I lay completely still in bed, my ten twisted fingers throbbing as if the flames were licking at them all over again. So that was the truth. I had not been trapped in this house for nine years because life had dealt me a cruel hand. My own mother had burned my future to the ground with her own hands. Lying there in the darkness, I kept thinking about all the possibilities. What if I had not rushed back when that phone call came the night before my flight? What if the fire had never taken my hands? What would my life have looked like? Then I opened my eyes again. I had returned to the day I received my visa.

After spending another year preparing to retake the SAT, I tried to register, only for the system to tell me I couldn't. According to its records, I'd already enrolled at Briarwood University and had been attending college for a full year. But on the day the exam results came out last year, Mom had clearly told me, "Conor, you only scored 1280. You're more than a hundred points short of getting into Briarwood." That same day, Cassidy Vaughn patted me on the shoulder and encouraged me, "Conor, take another year and try again. I'll be waiting for you at Briarwood." My hands shook as I opened Briarwood University's official social media page. The pinned post read: "Meet Conor Hale, Outstanding Freshman Representative of the Class of '25..." But I was Conor Hale! In the photo, the "Conor Hale" standing there was smiling proudly. My own mother stood on his left, while Cassidy had her arm linked through his on the right. So I'd gotten into college all along. My own mother and my childhood sweetheart had joined forces to steal my future.

To get rid of our pup and date with his assistant on Valentine's Day, my mate Marcus forced our injured pup to go rock climbing and poisoned him. When I rushed my dying pup to the hospital, I unexpectedly saw my mate accompanying his assistant for a prenatal checkup. Our terrified pup lay convulsing from the poison, but Marcus didn’t even care about him. "He's just an Omega. If he was a proper wolf, he'd heal instantly!" I clutched the $100 million Moonlight Blessing herb in my pocket. I accidentally found it in the forest this morning. I was planning to tell him the good news today. But now? It was time to break this five-year mate bond.

From the time I was ten until I turned eighteen, my parents made me write 299 IOUs. Every time I needed money, I had to borrow it and pay it back as an adult. Then I got into a car accident. I needed money for surgery but was still short by 3,000. With no other options, I went to my parents for help. But they just gave me cold smiles. “Clara, you’re eighteen now. We have no obligation to give you money anymore. If you need it, write another IOU.” While holding back tears, I wrote my 300th IOU. After my surgery, I saw my adopted sister’s social media post. In the pictures, she was celebrating her 18th birthday on a cruise. She was the center of attention, like a princess. My parents had given her a luxury apartment in the city and a Maserati as birthday gifts. Even my childhood friend was looking at her with love in his eyes. She said they were the ones she loved and thanked them for giving her the best of everything. I looked down at the crumpled IOU in my hand and suddenly laughed. Once I paid off my debt, I would no longer need such a family.

My parents’ adoptive daughter took three kids hiking with her, and they ended up dead. They wanted me to take the blame for her. My father forced me to kneel before the families of the victims and crushed my calf with his hiking pole. “These were the legs she used to take your kids hiking. I’ll make sure she never gets to hike again.” My mother legally disowned me. “Jenny will be breaking hiking records one day. I won’t let anyone bring up her shameful sister when that happens! She’s sacrificed so much for you all these years, and it’s time you paid her back.” My boyfriend promised me, “Jenny has nothing. She would not survive if she had to endure all this, but at least you have me. I’ll be here for you no matter what happens. They’re just angry, but they won’t send you to jail. You can come home once everything settles down.” To defend the reputation of my adoptive sister, he and my parents worked together to falsify evidence and send me to jail. “It’s to protect you,” they promised, “so the families don’t take revenge on you.” They did not know I had already given up on them.

My daughter-in-law cheated on my son behind his back, and I caught her. When I confronted her, she turned the tables on me, accusing me instead. I told my son everything exactly as it happened, but she broke down crying and accused me of bullying her. "Ever since I married into the Simmons family, you've never been happy with me," she sobbed. "If I’d known you’d slander me like this, I would’ve been better off dead!" She attempted to hurt herself to prove her innocence, but my son stopped her. "Mom, how could you accuse my wife like that? You're my own mother, but this is too much!" he shouted. Furious, he moved out with her. Later, I fell gravely ill and begged my son to come see me one last time. When he finally arrived, he brought her with him. To my horror, they removed my oxygen tube. As I struggled to breathe, I heard her smug voice whisper in my ear: "Old hag, if it weren't for you accusing me of cheating, Herman and I wouldn’t have gotten your inheritance so quickly!" She laughed coldly. "Oh, and next time you accuse someone, make sure you have evidence. Did you really think your word alone could ruin me?" I died choking on my final breath. Afterward, they lived happily, spending my money without a care in the world. But then, I woke up. It was the day I caught her cheating again. This time, I went straight to work. I replaced the lubricant at home with industrial-strength glue. She wanted proof? Fine. I’d give her proof.

Through ten lifetimes, I've died miserably because people kept forgetting I existed. So in this life, I decide not to struggle anymore and just wait for death. When I was kidnapped at five years old, I lay down on the spot and held my breath, covering myself with white powder. The kidnappers thought they had killed me and were so frightened that they surrendered on the spot. When the police found me, I was lying on a cart near the morgue entrance. I waved to the morgue staff and said, "Could you push a little faster? I've got another life to get to." At seventeen, I'm found by my biological parents. On the way back to my wealthy family, I refuse to sit in the backseat of the car and instead get into the trunk. My mother, Sally Jensen, looks through the gap beneath the open trunk lid, crying her heart out. "This child must have suffered a lot. How can he just lie in that kind of place?" I close my eyes and say in a flat voice, "It doesn't matter. This life is going to end anyway. I like this narrow place. It's just the right place to wait for death." My dad, Edward Cortez, slams the steering wheel and exclaims, "Nonsense, Kenneth Cortez! Now that you've returned to the Cortez household. Whatever happens, we'll protect you! So, how can you possibly die?" However, as soon as I get home and go up to the second floor, the boy who took my place, Kevin Cortez, fakes losing his balance just so he can seize the chance to push me down the stairs.

My mom and dad died heroically in a fire rescue, trying to protect an orphan. Afterward, my brother brought the orphan, Audrey, home. To make her smile, he'd throw away photos of me and our parents. He even kicked me out in front of everyone. For Audrey's coming-of-age celebration, he took her to Cranburn—the place I'd always dreamed of going. In his eyes, I had nowhere else to go. He believed that once I realized I was wrong, I'd come back on my own. But what he didn't know was—I had joined an overseas rescue team. This might be the last time we ever see each other.

After giving my son, Cameron Spencer, one of my corneas, he had a memory distortion and confused me for his father's childhood sweetheart, Joanna Lister. Such dreadful news caused me to be in so much pain that I refused to wake up. However, during the time that I was semiconscious, I heard my son and my husband's conversation. "Dad, does this mean Joanna will keep me company in the future?" "Yes, it does. You've put on a great act, son!" My attending surgeon couldn't stand their heartlessness and said, "Mr. Spencer, your son’s eyes are fine, but you lied to Mrs. Spencer in order for her to donate her cornea for Ms. Lister. If Mrs. Spencer finds out, I'm afraid..." "There's nothing to be afraid of. She loves Cameron and me so much and she's an orphan as well. There's nowhere she could go after leaving us. Joanna's all alone in this city and she's almost gone blind. We can't waste any more time!" I lay on the bed as my hopeless tears soaked the pillow. All they cared about was Joanna. But what they didn't know was that I was dying due to the operation.

Ever since Mom loses the baby, Dad has been spending his time keeping his late classmate's wife company. So I take scissors to our family photos, cutting him out of every single one. When Mom receives a call from my school, she overhears me telling a classmate that my dad is dead and asking if I can borrow theirs instead. Mom freezes for a moment before admitting, "Yeah, he died young." When family sports day rolls around, Mom catches me slipping a ten-dollar bill to the school guard, begging him to pretend to be my dad for the day. Instead of stopping me, she quietly hands the guard 200 dollars, making sure he attends the parent-teacher conference with me. Whenever an event requires a father figure, Mom simply lets me rent one. Eventually, it dawns on Dad that he hasn't heard anything from us in a long time. He clears his entire schedule for the afternoon to pick me up from school, but my teacher stops him at the school gate. Dad heads back home in confusion. The second he steps through the front door, he overhears me speaking to the maintenance guy. "My dad's dead," I tell him. "Do you want to be my new dad?"

When my best friend died, his wife, Mia Lewis, was eight months pregnant. Mia said she didn't want her baby growing up without a father. I owed my best friend my life. He saved me, literally pulled me from death's door. So I stepped up, marrying Mia and raising their son as my own. Mia loved her career, so I quit mine. Traded my job for diapers and school runs. For seven whole years, I cooked, cleaned, folded laundry, and handled the housework. Rain or shine, sickness or health, I was there—every single day. Mia, though? She stayed cold, distant. Her warmth only surfaced in the bedroom—and even then, it was a flicker, never a flame. Just soft sighs and breathy murmurs, like she was playing a role she couldn't wait to finish. Afterward, she would quietly check the condom, as if she couldn't trust me. Then came New Year's Eve. A snap. A tear. A broken condom. Her fury struck like a thunderclap. She locked me out on the balcony, left me standing in the freezing rain, soaked to the bone as the wind howled like a wounded beast. Teeth chattering, I shivered as I watched the door like a dog, waiting to be let in. Then I saw him. Our boy, Ethan Bailey. Six years old. My son, at least in name. He came running with an umbrella in his hand. For a second, my heart leapt. 'Maybe, just maybe…' But he didn't even look at me. Just walked past in silence and handed the umbrella to the nanny heading out. Right then and there, something inside me cracked. I knew it was time to go.

I've been married to Elliot Graves, the mafia drug lord in NYC, for the past eight years. But today—on our wedding anniversary—I received a photo of him with my best friend, Lila, celebrating as if they were the ones married. And in her arms was my son, Owen. I stared at the image, then typed out two words in reply. “How perfect.” Half a hour later, Elliot stormed through the front door. His voice thundered through the hallway. “Why do you always have to be so bitchy to Lila?” Owen, my own little boy, shoved at my leg and glared. “Bad Momma,” he said. “I wish Miss Lila was my real mommy.” I didn’t flinch. I simply walked over to the drawer, pulled out the crisp stack of papers I’d long prepared, and dropped them on the table with a quiet finality. “Alright,” I said, my voice calm. “It’s all my fault. Now, can I go?”

"Ms. Clarke, you have successfully purchased a Final Memories recording package. We have arranged hidden cameras to record you anytime and anywhere. From this moment on, no matter where you go or what you do, everything will be secretly filmed until the day you pass away." The staff member handed the contract to Lila Clarke and asked her to confirm everything one last time. Without hesitation, she signed her name. The reason she ordered Final Memories was because she had been diagnosed with cancer. She had no more than one month left to live.

I was checking out at the grocery store when my payment was declined for insufficient funds. My paycheck, which had landed in my account that morning, was gone. I called Marcus Dean to ask him about it. That was when I noticed he'd texted me three minutes earlier. Marcus: [Hey, babe. Ryan's 4,000 dollars short on the down payment for his car. I went ahead and used the money in your account to cover it.] I stared at the message, frozen in place. After expenses, Marcus and I usually managed to save about 700 dollars a month between the two of us. But now, five years into our marriage, our savings account was back to zero. Again. During our first year of marriage, his brother Ryan started college. Marcus covered all four years of his tuition and wired his mother, Rachel Cole, another 7,000 dollars on top of that. The second year, he wanted to renovate his parents' house. The renovations cost 11,400 dollars. We didn't have enough saved, so I even had to borrow 1,400 dollars from my own parents. During the third and fourth years, Marcus always found some excuse to hand over whatever we managed to save each month, about 700 dollars, to his family. This past New Year's, we'd agreed that we were finally ready for a baby. He promised he'd start saving more. But now my paycheck, the one that had just come in, was gone. Five years of marriage, and he'd handed every dollar we'd saved to his brother. And there I was, stuck at the checkout counter over a 6.10-dollar grocery bill, unable to move forward or turn back. Then another text came in. Marcus: [Babe, Ryan's still short on the car money. Think you could ask one of your coworkers to lend you some?] I didn't answer. I went home and handed him a set of divorce papers. Marcus stared at me in shock. "Why?" I shrugged. "No reason. We're getting a divorce."