Feel-Good Story Short Stories & Independence Campus Novels

My dorm mate, Chloe Dawson, had a sweet voice, but she wasn't very pretty. She loved online dating and had four online boyfriends at the same time. She looked at me with a smug smile. "Ivy, no guy ever wants you. How about I give you one of my boyfriends? He wants to meet me today anyway." I was about to refuse when strange words suddenly appeared in front of me. [Heroine, don't give the villainess the male lead's contact info! Sure, you used her photos to get his attention online, but he's not that shallow. He loves you for who you are!] [The villainess is just a poor student on financial aid. How could someone like her ever take the heroine's place and date the male lead?] [Exactly! Heroine, don't do anything stupid! The male lead is Nathan Ashworth, CEO of the Ashworth Group! You can't just hand a great guy like him over to someone else!]

I'm reviewing a math practice test the night before the college entrance exam when I spot a chunk of red text that shouldn't be there. "At 10:00 pm, your sister's classmate, Britney Lowe, will come to your house asking to stay the night. She'll say she had a fight with her parents and has nowhere else to go." "At 2:00 am, she'll sneak into your room, then call the police at dawn and accuse you of assaulting her." "The police will arrest you, and you'll be sentenced to three years in prison. Your younger sister, Lizzie Brown, will become the target of school gossip, and unable to face the online bullying, she'll jump to her death." I frown as I read it, assuming it's some kind of prank. But right on schedule, the doorbell rings. There's Britney, standing in the doorway, her eyes red from crying. Lizzie freezes. "Britney? What are you doing here?" "Lizzie, I fought with my parents and don't really have anywhere to go. Can I stay at your place tonight?" I stand in the living room, watching it unfold. A chill runs down my back. The prediction in my workbook is actually coming true. I quickly look down at the workbook lying open on the table. The last line of red text is still there. "Once the police take you away, your spot at Bayfield College will go to Britney's boyfriend." I stride over to the door and turn her away without hesitation. "Sorry, Britney, but we'll be staying at a hotel tonight."

My sister, Cindy Gardner, and I are fraternal twins. She gets to be the elder sister because she comes out one minute before me, making me the younger brother. Luckily, there's little difference between us when it comes to intelligence. Throughout our school years, one of us always ranks first, and the other comes in second. But after three years of competing in high school, with me coming in second every time, I calmly agree to keep her secret about dating a delinquent named Rodney Sloan. Then the guaranteed-admission spots to Belton University, the country's top university, become available. Our homeroom teacher calls Cindy and me into her office. "There are two guaranteed-admission spots. They're awarded based on grades, and the two of you are next in line. "Fill out this form." I nod and quickly fill out the entire form. Just as I'm about to hand it over to her, Cindy, who is standing quietly beside us, suddenly moves. She snatches my form, tears it to pieces, and tosses the scraps into the air. "If you want me to take the guaranteed spot, there's one condition—Rodney has to get in with me." I laugh in disbelief. What a complete idiot. Mom and Dad are going to tear her apart for this.

On the day of the college entrance exam, Jorja Smith, my son's homeroom teacher, calls to inform me that my son, Heath Hanson is absent. Heath doesn't return my calls or texts back. I look all over for him, only to come home and find him on the couch, eating fruits. When I ask Heath why, he sneers, "I just don't feel like going. You signed me up for six tutoring classes. My weekends are always full, and everything I do has to go according to your plan. I've had enough." I force myself to stay calm. "Finish the exam first. We'll talk things through after that." Heath throws the torn-up admission ticket in my face. "It's gone. I can't take the exam even if I want to." I black out as my old illness flares up, and I collapse. Heath glances at me, goes back inside his room, and slams the door shut. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day of Heath's college entrance exam. Jorja calls again, and I tell her, "Ms. Smith, he won't be taking the exam."

I'm not naturally academically gifted. No matter how hard I push myself—staying up until three in the morning only to drag myself out of bed at six—I can barely keep my grades somewhere in the middle of the class. For most of my school life, no one pays much attention to me. That changes three months before the college entrance exam. One day, my homeroom teacher, Victoria Bennett, calls class president Ethan Sterling and me into her office without warning. She looks at me sternly, asking, "Did you cheat off Ethan during this month's exam?" I shake my head. "No." Victoria turns to Ethan. "What do you have to say?" Ethan quietly chuckles. "I was focused on my own test, so I didn't really notice what he was doing." He pauses, then adds, "Although… I did get the feeling that someone kept turning around to look at me." I stare at him in disbelief. "Me? Looking at you? I never even looked your way!" Victoria's expression hardens, and her voice rises. "You're still going to argue with me? "You ranked 23rd in the class on the last exam, and now, all of a sudden, you're in the top ten?" Before I can respond, she picks up my exam paper and casually draws a thick line through my score. "Since you cheated, I'm giving you a failing grade on this exam." She looks at me coldly. "And you'll write a 3,000-word self-criticism." My heart sinks. "Otherwise, you can forget about staying in school."

On the third day after receiving our college acceptance letters, the most popular student in school, Natalie Simmons, proposes something in our class group chat. "We're all adults now, and we've already been accepted into college. We should do something exciting before the semester begins. Let's put on a show and stage a fake bank heist. It'll be fun." In my last life, I make 23 phone calls in a row and confiscate every prop they plan to use. No one gets hurt. But Natalie becomes the target of criticism from parents and teachers. She sinks into depression and eventually jumps into a lake. The entire class blames me and hates me. At our graduation dinner, they force a whole bottle of liquor down my throat. Then, they say they're taking me to the riverside to sober up. When I wake up, I'm in the river. Water fills my lungs, freezing cold. The news report summed up my life in five words. "Drunk Man Falls Into River." When I open my eyes again, my phone is vibrating. The very first message in the group chat is Natalie's proposal. This time, I don't say anything. I take screenshots and save copies.

"On results day, I'll have a way to turn back time and take us all back to the exam room!" Lily Parker, the prettiest girl in our class, stood at the front of the room, threw up an arm, and shouted it at the top of her voice. "Sign up with me! Just $999. If it's a scam, I'll pay you back ten times over! "You'll even get a polished answer key for the college entrance exams. Guaranteed not to get flagged for cheating!" The classroom erupted. In the corner, I didn't even look up. I'd found the same method three days earlier. And I'd decided against it. For one simple reason: time inside that exam room was completely broken. Thirty seconds for English. Twelve hours for math. And between papers, three days and nights of hunger and thirst you couldn't survive twice.

I have crippling social anxiety, so online dating is the only kind of dating I can handle. The day I was reunited with my wealthy biological family, Flynn Davidson, the son they'd raised in my place, tearfully offered to give his engagement back to me. I quickly waved him off. "No, no. I'm good. I have a girlfriend." The moment the words left my mouth, several lines of text suddenly appeared in front of me. [I'm dying. The villain is turning down the engagement now, but just wait until he sees the heroine. He'll regret it immediately.] [The heroine only has eyes for the fake heir. This guy keeps shoving his chat history in her face and refuses to leave her alone.] [In the end, he drives the hero into such severe depression that he slits his wrists. The heroine hates him so much that she breaks his arms and legs and locks him in a psychiatric hospital.] What a joke. With my social anxiety, how could I possibly harass some woman I'd never even met? Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door. Flynn hurried over, his eyes red. "Sloan, this is my brother, Cullen Davidson. The man you were originally supposed to marry." I turned around and found myself staring at a familiar face. Sloan Patrick. My girlfriend of six years. The girlfriend I'd only ever dated online.

On the third night after Seraphina Vale—the academy's most envied beauty—took her own life, a blood ledger appeared out of nowhere in the abandoned chapel of St. Ophelia's Academy. Rumor had it that if you left a blood print on it, the ledger would grant your deepest wish. At first, nobody bought such a ridiculous story. Until Vivian Cross—all two hundred and twenty pounds of her—shakily made her choice: beauty. She dropped the weight overnight. Her features turned so delicate people couldn't look away. Just like that, she became the academy's new obsession. After that, no one called the blood ledger bad luck anymore. Dorian Blackwood chose his future, and the Black Council's recommendation came through immediately. Someone else chose wealth, and their family's debts were wiped clean overnight. Everyone's dreams came true. My best friend Nora Ellsworth started to waver too. She wanted to sign the blood ledger, to bring her brother back from bloodwither. But I stopped her. I wouldn't let her leave a blood print—not for anything. The people around us closed in right away. "You don't have anyone sick and dying, so of course you can stand there and act like you're above it all!" "If Nora's brother dies, you're the murderer!" Even Nora looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, demanding to know why I was so cruel—why I'd cut off her brother's only chance. But I wasn't being cruel. The blood ledger was Seraphina's. I couldn't believe that Seraphina's grudge, even in death, would turn into free mercy. In her death, no one was innocent.