Hypocrisy Marriage 단편 소설 & 소설

It's been three years since I got married, and life's just been getting better and better. My company is flourishing, and my wife is a successful career woman. However, I have a friend from my college days who has already sabotaged a few families among our friend group. He can't bear to see others doing better than him. One day, during a gathering with friends, he slung his arm over my shoulder and said earnestly, "Alan, look at you. After you got married, you lost all freedom. You now live like a simp. Can you still call yourself a man? I've booked a private room somewhere fun tonight, and no one's allowed to leave! Let's have a blast and party all night!" I swallowed my discomfort and went along with them, only to find out what he meant by "having a blast" was hiring some professional ladies. And he even dragged me along to try my luck at gambling.

The day Ethan Pierce’s stepsister, who suffered from depression, threatened suicide for the ninety-ninth time, he abandoned me at the altar for the ninety-ninth time. "As a psychiatrist, I have a responsibility to my patient." And just like that, the system declared that I had failed my mission. My punishment was severe depression. Every last trace of my will to live was taken from me. From that day on, all I wanted was to die as quickly as possible so I could return to my original world. By the time Ethan finally realized that I truly wanted to die, he was desperate. He used everything he had learned in his entire career to try to cure me. To awaken even the slightest bit of love I had once felt for him. To force me to stay in this world. But I didn’t want him anymore. I hadn’t for a long time.

I was lounging at home, scrolling through social media, when a livestream title suddenly caught my eye—"The Other Woman Crash Course." Curious, I entered to see a woman talking animatedly, "My sugar daddy gives me 200,000 every month. I just need to keep him satisfied!" Viewers were doubtful and asked, "I don't believe you. Tell us how you two met." She smiled. "That's alright. You don't get to meet someone like that every day. I met him after doing a bone marrow transplant with his girlfriend three years ago. That's how I met this golden bachelor." I frowned. I had a bone marrow transplant three years ago too. Suddenly, the door opened, and she covered her phone in panic. A man's deep voice came through the microphone, "Baby? What're you doing? You're acting weird." My fingers froze the moment I heard that voice. He sounded so much like my fiance, Leo Harvey. I called him. The very next second, the custom ringtone I had set for Leo's phone rang clearly through the livestream.

Damian Graves and I had been together for ten years, and he was perfect in every way. He was handsome, successful, and driven, except for one thing. He never missed a chance to cut me down. I placed second in the competition instead of first, and he said I "wasn't smart enough." I finally earned my first paycheck from writing, and he dismissed it as "completely worthless." Later, standing in the bridal shop, Damian looked me up and down in my wedding dress and told me my figure was not good enough, that I did not look anything like a bride should. Something in me snapped. For the first time in ten years, I screamed at him. "If I'm not good enough for you, why are you even marrying me?"

The day I caught my husband, McCoy, cheating, my postpartum depression took a turn for the worse. It was the 99th time I’d tried to swallow a bottle of pills. Our baby wailed hysterically in his stroller. My best friend, Raleigh, grabbed and desperately forced the pills out of my mouth. McCoy scooped me into his arms and rushed me to the ER, guilt written all over his face when he said, “Just make it through one more day, Moira. For each day you survive, write down one wish. “When you get better, I’ll make every one of them come true.” By the time I’d reached 1,000 wishes, the doctors were pleased enough with my progress to discharge me. Overjoyed, I went ahead home to surprise my family, only to find the wall where our wedding portrait had been hung replaced with photographs I’d never seen before. Raleigh posed with McCoy and our child in the photos. Some of the photographs were taken during a vacation. At the bottom was one last empty frame with a location printed: Disneyland. I opened TikTok from my alt account and searched for Raleigh’s handle. Her latest video was from Disneyland. “One last trip with my favorite people. Maybe in our next life, the three of us can finally be a family.” The comments were overflowing with sympathy from mutual friends and my coworkers. McCoy’s comment at the bottom stood out. “Thank you, Raleigh. You gave me somewhere to breathe during these past three years. “If there’s another life, I hope you’ll be my wife.” With trembling fingers, I tapped on her profile and found over 1,000 videos just like it. For three years—more than 1,000 days—she had not been absent from their lives. I quietly pulled out the wish list and crossed out my last wish to be with McCoy forever, replacing another. “I hope you get everything you wished for.” There was no need for another life. Raleigh could just take my place and be a more fitting wife and mother. This time, I would be the one to leave.

On the day I finally paid off the mortgage on our marital home, my boyfriend, Jesse Culver, keeps ignored my calls even though we were supposed to go register our marriage today. Instead, I received a message from my ex-husband, Dave Grossman. "What does it feel like to be betrayed for the second time?" I was stunned when a video pops up. Inside a private room, Jesse was taking wedding photos with another woman, happily leaning against her. My dad, Chris Lillard, who had wished me a smooth marriage registration that very morning, was smiling adoringly at them. My friends and classmates were cheering them on, too. "Kiss! Kiss!" The bride-to-be in the video was my former best friend, Nicki Jones. When I was eight months pregnant, she slept with Dave. After I miscarried, I divorced him immediately and cut all contact with her. Dave kept messaging me. "Looks like your best friend really is irresistible." "Jesse called me a bastard back then and wanted to beat me to death. But now, he's deceived you for her too." Being betrayed for the second time hurts so badly that I can barely breathe. Five years ago, it pushed me into depression. Jesse was the one who pulled me out of it. However, five years later, he joined forces with my family and friends to betrayed me for the same woman. The next second, Dave sent me an address. He texts, "Want to go take a look? It's up to you."

Our daughter, Luna Woods, developed a high fever. Her body was burning hot. I immediately dialed 911 for help. The dispatcher on the other end kept repeating his questions. He spoke slowly, as if deliberately stalling for time. By the time I finally heard the ambulance siren, Luna was already turning cold in my arms. In less than a year, my wife and I separated. We were consumed by endless grief and blamed for each other. Afterward, I merely existed for the sake of it. I was a hollow shell of a man. Then, one day, I received a wedding invitation from my ex-wife. The moment I played the audio invitation, a chill ran down my spine. The groom’s voice was identical to that of the slow, dawdling dispatcher from that year! I rushed out, utterly distraught, only to be hit by a roaring train. When I opened my eyes again, I heard Luna crying in the next room. Her forehead was burning hot. My wife hurriedly handed me the phone. “Quick, call 911! I’ll get a wet towel.” My hands trembled as I took the phone. When it was answered, I heard a familiar male voice through the receiver. “911, what’s your emergency?”

For over thirty years, my wife Janet faked being broke—for her flimsy ex. When our son Asher landed in the hospital, I begged and borrowed from everyone I knew. Still came up fifty bucks short. Janet? Said she was tapped out. So my mom sold off her own meds to cover the bill—never told me. She died without treatment. I handled my mom's funeral alone. When I went to pick up Asher from the hospital, I found a stash of Janet's old shopping receipts. Custom suits. Million-dollar watches. A damn private jet. I grabbed them and stormed off to confront her. Asher cut me off. "Dad, Mr. Sackett's sick. Mom's just helping him out. Why are you freaking out?" I stared at the kid who only lived because my mom died. It felt like something cracked inside me. Janet barely looked up. "Connor's educated. He deserves the finer things. Unlike you—crying over fifty bucks like some househusband. See? I didn't give you the money, and Asher's fine." Fine. If that's how they see it, I'm done with this family.

When Clara Jones learns that her son has leukemia, her world crumbles. After several failed donor matches, she still can't reach her husband, who's away on a business trip. In the end, her best friend, Monica Spencer, rushes to the hospital and turns out to be a compatible match. Carrying a basket of nourishing supplements, Clara visits Monica. When she arrives at her hospital room, she sees Monica wrapped tightly in a man's arms. That man is none other than Clara's husband, Luther Tanner, whom she had remarried three years ago. "Why would you offer to donate your bone marrow without telling me? That needle was so long. Do you have any idea how worried I was? You've been avoiding me for the past three years. Have you forgotten how to look after yourself?" Monica reciprocates the hug affectionately and chokes out, "I'm Sean's biological mother, after all. Now that he's sick, I had to come back." Frozen outside the door, Clara feels as though she's been thrown into a frigid pool. Those words root her to the spot. How can Sean Tanner not be her biological son? How's that even possible? Back then, she endured three days and nights of obstructed labor just to bring him into the world. She suffered massive blood loss after giving birth, and nearly all the blood in her body had to be replaced. But the second Sean lay in her arms, she felt she had no regrets left in this lifetime. So, how on earth can he be Monica's?

After I refused to donate my kidney to Queenie Dunn's first love, Zayn Chance, she used my parents as leverage over me and forced me to sign the kidney donation agreement. "You can still survive without a kidney, but Zayn's case is different. He will die without your kidney." After the kidney transplant surgery was carried out successfully, Queenie purposefully brought Zayn on a trip around the globe in order to punish me for being selfish. On the fifth year after I died from kidney failure, Queenie finally had her fun. She decides to focus on her family again. But no matter how much she tries, she can never find me. Furious, Queenie calls my parents. "Tell Steven to get his ass home right now, or else I'll divorce him right away!" But the one answering the call is my son, Sean Sutton, who has just returned from his kindergarten. He sounds very meek and scared over the phone. In fact, he sounds like he was about to cry. "My dad has already passed away a long time ago, miss…"

On the day of my wedding with Hannah Hawkes, her first love, Lucas Tate, sends his critical notice to her. He mentions that he wants to wear a wedding tuxedo one last time at a wedding before his death. In order to fulfill Lucas' wish, Hannah locks me up in a lounge and gets ready to attend the wedding with him. Her impatient voice echoes outside the door. "Why are you so cold-blooded? Lucas is about to die, you know! What's the harm in letting him have his way?" Some time after that, Freya Jensen, the young woman who lives next door, gets up to the rooftop and begs me to marry her. With red-rimmed eyes, Hannah asks pleadingly, "Are you going to give up on our seven-year relationship because of her?" I merely slap her hand away. "Am I supposed to watch Freya die? It's just a marriage registration. Stop being cold-blooded, will you?"

My wife and I had kept our marriage secret for three years. Then she became a fraud-busting influencer with ten million followers, and I was the first person she exposed. On her livestream, she sobbed that I was a freeloader who beat her, bled her dry, and even forced her to entertain men over drinks for money. The internet buried me in abuse. Delivery orders I never placed and funeral wreaths piled up outside my door. Her top donor announced he was going to break my legs to get justice for her. On camera, my wife was a fragile victim. Off camera, she was texting me threats. If I did not sign the thirty-million-dollar penthouse downtown over to her, she would burn my name to the ground. She thought that owning public opinion meant owning me. What she did not know was that her top donor, the man showering her with gifts every night, was one of my security guards. And when she brought New York's richest man onto her stream, intending to expose my supposed crimes, something else happened. The richest man in New York turned toward where I was standing and called me boss.

On the night of the Festival of Lights, Mother secretly took me out to wander the streets. Then, out of nowhere, a man and a woman stepped into our path. The man stared at my mother, his eyes turning red. "Emmeline?" The woman's gaze locked on me. She grabbed the man's sleeve, suddenly frantic. "Cedric, look! Those eyes, that face... She's our daughter, Rosalind!" She rushed toward me with her arms open wide. "Rosalind, I'm your mother!" I was so scared that I scrambled behind my mother. Mother pulled me behind her without a word. Her face gave nothing away. The man approached, looking guilty and full of himself at the same time. "Emmeline, it must have been hard on you all these years, raising my daughter with Seraphina so well. Now that I've returned to the capital, I'll make it up to you. I still remember the promise we made, our betrothal. "But Seraphina is already my lawful wife, so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for being a concubine." I was stunned. My father was the reigning Emperor. My mother was the Empress. What in the world was this man talking about?

Maynard Hansen planned a luxury birthday cruise for Darlene Thompson, but the cruise ship capsized when a violent storm swept in without warning. Without hesitation, Maynard gave the last seat on the lifeboat to Darlene. As I struggled in the water, my son, Waldo Hansen—whom I carried for nine months and gave birth to—cried out, "Don't let Mom up! She'll push Ms. Thompson off." Clutching nothing but a broken plank, I somehow made it to shore. By the time I collapsed on the sand, I was frozen, exhausted, and done. I had never felt so alone. Shortly after, I found myself clutching a diagnosis of severe depression in my hand. I was ready to bring this wretched life to a quiet end. But when my husband and son realized I truly didn't want to live anymore, they collapsed into tears. They wrapped their arms around me as they sobbed, "Please don't leave us. We really can't live without you."

The day before we were supposed to get married, I found out my fiancé, Bradley Bigham, was cheating on me with my best friend, Carla Fralin. So I shoved him into a tub of disinfectant and scrubbed him down three times. Then I posted Carla's intimate photos online, and they spread like wildfire. What I never expected was that my mother, Roxie Boyce, would get so worked up that she ended up completely paralyzed, pushing our already struggling family to the brink of financial ruin. Just as I was ready to drag them all down with me, Bradley's archrival, Connor Magder, saved me. "You're going to ruin your own life over a scumbag and a tramp? Don't be afraid. I'll be by your side from now on." I thought I'd finally been saved. In our third year of marriage, I was holding a pregnancy test, ready to surprise him. That was when I happened to see him on a video call with my ex-fiancé. Connor's eyes were full of complicated emotions. "I'll definitely be at your wedding. As long as Carla is happy with you, these years I've spent with Ariana will have been worth it." I froze where I stood, the blood in my veins running cold. When Connor looked up and saw me, his eyes filled with wariness. He assumed I'd raise hell like I had three years ago, until things spiraled completely out of control. Instead, I stepped in front of the computer's camera and said calmly, "Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. I wish you a lifetime of happiness together."

My lawyer husband, Chester Stratton, and our five-year-old son were kidnapped. By the time I arrived, the bomb had already detonated, and they were reduced to ashes before my eyes. My older sister, a prosecutor, had tried to help me track down the culprit, yet even she was captured and tortured to death. Everyone said my ruthless methods had earned me too many enemies, that they had suffered because of me. They said I should have been the one to die. Even the Criminal Investigation Division stripped me of my position. For three years, I secretly hunted for the mastermind. Until one day, my investigation led me to a restaurant. There, I saw my husband, my son, and my sister—the three people who had supposedly died three years ago. They were all sitting together, celebrating a little girl's birthday. Friends and relatives surrounded them, smiling as though nothing had ever happened. Fury surged through me, and I was about to storm over and demand answers when my best friend grabbed me from behind, refusing to let go. "Audrey, I know you can't accept this, but they're husband and wife now. If you make a scene, how are you any different from a homewrecker? Phoebe got pregnant with Chester's child three years ago. Everyone knew how ruthless you could be. Faking their deaths was the only way they could escape you." Beside her, my mother fixed me with a warning look. "It's good that you found out. For the past three years, Phoebe and Chester have been forced to move from place to place with their two children. It broke my heart to watch them live like that. Now, their family of four is finally happy. If you just walk away, everyone will forgive you." The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I looked at the people before me and laughed until tears streamed down my face. So Chester and my sister had never died. While I had spent the past three years drowning in grief, they had been living peaceful, happy lives. And everyone had known the truth. Everyone had conspired to keep it from me.

My girlfriend, Kiara Sommer, gets one of her legs crippled in order to save me. Her adopted younger brother, Cain Fullton, suffers from heart failure after shielding us from harm. Since then, his heart becomes extremely weak, and he has to rely on the expensive imported medication just to survive. In order to gather enough money for their surgical bills, I take on a body-casting job in the black market. Not only are my limbs encased in scalding hot silicon, but I also have to endure it whenever a few female perverts cop a feel of me. I can't even move an inch when I'm doing my job. After all, I'll have to compensate for the damages if I ruin the mold. I can only grit my teeth and endure the agony, only to get slapped a few times in the face afterward. "You already have the guts to take on a job like this, and yet you're frightened of getting groped?" As I withstand the humiliation and the burning pain, I return to the hospital with the money in hopes of buying more medicine for Cain. When I walk past a VIP lounge, I hear familiar laughter erupting from within. "Kia, this is the 998th test, right? Once Shane passes 999 tests, are you really going to marry him?" Kiara frowns slightly at the question, though she soon replies coolly, "Yeah. The tests stem from my family's rules, and you're ordered to serve as the supervisor. But still, don't go overboard, yeah? Shane is the only one meant to be my husband." So, Kiara lies to me and torments me to this point just so she can marry me? As I stare at my broken and bruised reflection in the mirror, I feel my lips curling into a smile all of a sudden. With trembling hands, I dig out the old phone that I haven't used for the past two years. My eyes slowly redden as well. Then, I draft a text message. "I regret everything now, Winona. Please take me home."

At six months pregnant, I joined a moms’ group chat to learn parenting tips from other mothers, and one of them couldn’t resist showing off. "I’m so jealous of you guys, getting to cuddle your babies all day. Not like me—I'm handing mine off to a free nanny right after giving birth!" 'Free nanny? Since when are nannies free?' I tapped on her profile picture—and the sight of that hand draped over her shoulder made cold sweat run down my back.

Right before senior finals, Louise Ackman, the most sought-after heiress in Harland City's elite circles, got dumped out of nowhere by the school heartthrob, Paul Brennan. Chewing on a plain bread roll, I sidled up to her while she sat there, too heartbroken to study. "I look just like Paul. How about I ask you out instead?" She was quiet for a moment. Then she fastened the couples' bracelet she'd meant to give Paul around my wrist. With a clear conscience, I milked her for money, asking for a million dollars every month. She never argued. She just wired me two million. After we married, I gave her four nights a week, punctual to the minute and attentive to her every need. Everyone said Louise had found true love. Until the day my assistant pulled me aside and whispered, "You know that new executive assistant working for Ms. Ackman? Word is he was the school heartthrob back in the day. "Sir, Ms. Ackman seems to really like him. She even gave him your favorite private lounge..."

My husband had just ducked into the bathroom when his phone started ringing. I glanced at the screen and saw it was his brother calling. A frown creased my brow, but I answered anyway. "George, why haven't you sent the $10,000 to Mom and Dad this month?" Ross Serrano said. "Mom just asked me about it." I hung up without a word, but a rush of fury surged through me. My husband stood at the bathroom door, his hands still dripping wet. I forced a bitter smile. "You make $8,000 a month, right? $3,000 goes to the mortgage, $2,000 to me, and you pocket $1,000 for yourself. You told me you sent $2,000 to your parents, so how did that magically turn into $10,000?" His lips quivered, his face draining of color. My heart sank, and my hands trembled uncontrollably. We'd been married for five years, and I'd never once laid eyes on his bank card. What other secrets was he keeping from me?