Melodramatic Short Stories & Independence Defy Fate Novels

My wife booked plane tickets for the whole family to travel over the Thanksgiving holiday. On the way to the airport, I suddenly noticed that everyone had a number floating above their head. The number above my wife's head was 60 years. Above my parents' heads and mine, it showed only six hours. As I wondered what the numbers meant, I looked through the car window and noticed the driver in the car beside us had only six seconds left. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... The moment the countdown reached zero, a speeding semi-truck slammed head-on into the car next to us. The car exploded into twisted metal, and debris flew everywhere right in front of my eyes. People around us screamed and cried for help, but I couldn't hear a thing. My whole body was trembling. Because six hours later, our flight was scheduled to take off.

I went to surprise my fiancé, Dante Rossi, in my wheelchair. But just as I reached his door, my phone rang. The caller was me, ten years in the future. "Don't go in. He's in there with another woman." "No way." She read back the text I had just typed and deleted. "If I could still dance, would you come home earlier?" My hand jerked. I hadn't sent those words to anyone. I lost my legs saving him, and I would never dance ballet again. The day of my amputation, Dante, a Boston mafia Don, knelt beside my hospital bed in tears and begged me to marry him. He swore that whenever I was in pain, he would be right there with me. He loves me. How could he change? But the woman on the phone started to cry. "Last night, I fell in the bathroom. When I called him, all he said was, 'Erin, how much longer are you going to make me feel guilty about your legs?'" I gripped the armrest. "And then what?" "I apologized. I begged him not to be mad." I stared at the empty fabric hanging where my legs used to be. I'm the one who fell. I'm the one who got hurt. So why am I the one saying sorry? Just then, Dante texted me, "Still busy. Be good and don't wait up." Through the glass wall of the shooting range, I watched him put his phone away. Then he leaned down and kissed the woman in his arms. She turned her head, and I forgot how to breathe. How can it be her?

A man by the name of Michael Burke shows up one day. He gathers four of us who had grown up in the orphanage and introduces himself as the secretary to John Ferguson, the richest man in town. According to him, John's real son had been mistakenly switched as a baby 20 years ago. Anyone who can prove that he's the long-lost son will get to inherit the Ferguson family's entire billion-dollar fortune. The first time around, Luke Carter, ever the manipulative schemer, tricks me into handing over the locket I've had since arriving at the orphanage. He uses it to prove his identity to the Fergusons, but they end up ripping him into pieces. "You're a fake!" Somehow, the four of us are reborn after that. This time, Simon Davis, whose friendship was superficial at best, gets a tattoo of my birthmark and uses that to claim that he's the Fergusons' long-lost son. They end up skinning him alive. "We know you're a fake!" Third time isn't the charm. Tom Egan, my archrival, takes out a loan and pays for plastic surgery to give himself a face that resembles Mrs. Ferguson's. However, the Fergusons throw him into a cage and let a ferocious dog maul him to death. In our fourth life, all three of them are too scared to usurp my identity. They immediately deliver me right to the Fergusons' doorstep. When everyone sees the DNA report that proves I'm the Fergusons' long-lost son, they think that their nightmare has finally ended. But on my very first night back home, the Fergusons push me off the balcony. "Anyone who tries to steal our son's identity deserves to die!" … My eyes open yet again. Michael is standing in front of us, smiling as he asks which one of us is the Fergusons' son. Everyone backs away in horror, insisting that it's not them. "But we've already looked into it. We know that the family's long-lost son grew up in this orphanage," Michael says, his voice strangely ominous.

I'm nine years old when I secretly contact my mom Lori Parker's family to get her out of the remote village. When my grandpa, Richard Parker, bursts into the cellar, he finds Mom chained by the neck, with a whip stained with dried, dark blood lying at her feet. Overwhelmed with rage, Grandpa beats my dad, Bruce Fraser, until he is almost dead, vomiting blood repeatedly. Dad is left paralyzed and bedridden for the rest of his life. Just before getting into the car, Mom cries and reaches out to me. "Amy, I'm taking you home!" My eyes sting as I clutch the hem of her clothes, but then memories of my past life come rushing back. Her family turns against her because she protects a bastard like me. She endures their contempt and humiliation and eventually dies of illness alone in a rented room. If she takes me with her, she will never forget this nightmare. I dig my nails into my palm and push her away. "Get lost! Dad only brought you into this family because he wanted a child. I never loved you!" The car door slams shut. I finally break down and run after it, tears streaming down my face. But I don't dare call out "Mom". I'm afraid that if she hears me, she'll turn back.