Plot Twists Short Stories & Independence Family Emotions Novels

While we're shopping for college supplies, my younger brother, Reuben Whitaker, picks up a limited-edition gaming bedding set and grins at Mom. She doesn't even glance at the price before putting it in the cart. When it's my turn, I barely pick up a charcoal-gray bedding set when my older sister, Cheryl Whitaker, frowns. "Garrett, why do you always choose such gloomy colors? You need to be more upbeat like Reuben," she scolds. My childhood friend, Phoebe Thorpe, smiles as well. "No one at the dorm knows you anyway, so buying something new will be a waste," she says. Reuben glances at the sheets in my hands and quietly suggests, "Garrett, why don't you use my old set? You never cared about things like that anyway." Mom immediately nods in agreement. "Garrett, you don't need new sheets. Besides, putting two sons through college isn't easy." My grip slowly tightens around the set. I remember Reuben's old bedding. The corners are covered in pills, and the fabric is stained with soda he spills during his late-night gaming sessions. It has always been this way. I get the designer sneakers he no longer wants, the backpacks he's grown tired of, and the bedroom he doesn't like. If I don't complain or fight him for anything, my turn will eventually come. At least that's what I think. But even after 18 years, their only response is, "You never cared about things like that anyway." At the register, I watch Mom pay for Reuben's things one by one before casually tossing my charcoal-gray sheets back onto the shelf. It's then that my lips curl into a smile. As it turns out, no one has ever bothered to remember what I like. I pick up the charcoal-gray sheets again. This time, I won't put them back.

The day my mother, Dahlia Moone, gives birth to my younger brother, she goes into obstructed labor and suffers a catastrophic hemorrhage. My CEO father, Graham Kovane, orders every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room because his mistress, Selena Langford, says, "Her crying is giving me a headache." That day, both Mom and my unborn brother die. Not long after, I'm framed for a mistake I never made, driven out of the family, and left to survive on the streets. Living on the kindness of strangers, I fight my way up from nothing. Step by step, I rise until I become the head of Rockstone Tech, controlling a fortune worth billions. On the day of the annual evaluation for promoting interns to full-time employees, five candidate files are placed on my desk. My assistant, Ingrid Nelson, taps the file at the top of the stack, her voice full of admiration. "Ms. Campbell, Monica Kovane is exceptionally capable. Her performance has earned full marks from every department manager." I open Monica's profile, and my eyes stop on the family information section. Even in the worst of times, I will never forget those two names on the paper. After a long silence, I tell Ingrid to bring all five interns into my office. The employment contracts are handed out one by one. When only the last person remains, I look up and meet her confident gaze. She's almost certain the position is already hers. Calmly, I slide a termination letter across the desk. "Unfortunately, Ms. Kovane, you didn't pass."

Only ten days remain before I start my freshman year of college. Unable to wait any longer, I ask in our family group chat, "We agreed to take a graduation trip to Stonby together. When are we leaving?" An entire day passes without a single response. Then, at 6:00 pm, my younger sister sends a message. "Concert tickets are on sale! Who wants to pay for mine?" The group chat instantly comes alive, and my message disappears beneath the new replies. Mom and Dad immediately send her 10,000 dollars for the tickets. "Buy four tickets and bring your brother. The whole family can go together." My younger brother immediately objects. "Who says I want to go to a concert? I want a new phone instead! Besides, I already went to Stonby with her when she got into high school. Why do I always have to do whatever she wants?" I stare at his message in disbelief. I've spent more than a month of my summer eagerly waiting for our trip, but they've already gone to Stonby without me. "When did you go? Why didn't anyone tell me?" The moment I send the message, it disappears above Mom and Dad's replies to my brother. "Fine, we'll get you a new phone, but you're still going to the concert." "The whole family belongs together. No one gets left behind." Yet again, they forget that I'm part of the family, and my question goes completely ignored. I watch it move farther up the screen until it disappears from view, and suddenly, I laugh. If they don't want me in their lives, I'm done trying to force my way in. I buy a one-way ticket to Stonby and plan to head straight to college once the trip ends. For the next several years, I never make the journey home again.

After five years of being forcibly institutionalized in a mental hospital by my parents for “rehabilitation,” I awakened the “Slap System” skill. One slap, a million dollars deposited into my account. Another slap, my combat power skyrocketed. Just as I was thoroughly enjoying my slapping spree and preparing to leap over the asylum walls to break free, my parents suddenly arrived to take me home. The moment I stepped through the front door, I saw my adopted brother Atticus Hawthorne, eyes reddened, holding my fiancée, Cassandra Vaughn, in his arms. Meanwhile, my real brother Roman Montgomery was locked in a dog cage, bitten and torn by vicious hounds, covered in wounds, and breathing his last breath. The moment he saw me, a faint light flickered in his eyes. Using the last ounce of his strength, his lips trembled slightly. “Lysander... run…” Before the words could fully leave his mouth, his hand went limp and dropped. I smashed the dog cage open with everything I had, scooped up his still-warm body, and rushed outside like a madman. “Stop right there!” Cold-faced, my parents blocked the doorway. “Roman is pure evil. He tortured Atticus’s dog to death and drugged Cassandra. Suffering a little punishment like this is light for him! Why take him to a hospital over a tiny injury?” Atticus fell to his knees before me with a loud thud, tears streaming down his face. “Lysander, after five years, you still hate me this much... I’ll go die right now so I don’t stay in your sight…” Cassandra immediately shielded him behind her back, harshly berating me. “Lysander! The moment you return, you force Atticus to die! You should never have been released from the mental hospital!” I looked at their hypocritical, evil faces, then down at Roman’s closed eyes that would never open again, and slowly raised my hand. Bullying me? I could bear it. But torturing Roman to death... I was going to make them find out whether their bones were tougher, or my slaps were harder.

I had spent six months drifting across the ocean on a cargo ship, but I would send 20,000 dollars back home every month. So, I really only had one thing on my mind the day I finally set foot on solid ground again—my wife's pork rib soup. When I pushed open the front door, I found my seven-month-pregnant wife, Sophia Merkin, sitting on our worn-out sofa. At that moment, my six months' worth of exhaustion, frustration, and pent-up anger from the roiling life at sea surged to the surface. "I've been busting my ass out there and working more than 10 hours a day. Yet, I don't even get a hot meal at home when I'm finally home?" Sophia said nothing. Instead, she walked over to the refrigerator and yanked the door open. That was when I saw that the fridge only had half a jar of ketchup and a bag of expired pasta with bugs. Then, she asked me dully, "What do you want to eat? Take your pick."

My family was going on a beach trip for summer. My mother came up with the whole itinerary two weeks earlier. My father booked a room with a view of the sea. My brother picked the surfboards, while my sister went with the dresses for socials. I was helping them pack up the night before the trip when I saw the tickets on the coffee table. There were only four of them, and they were for my father, mother, brother, and sister. They didn't get one for me. My mother saw me, and she froze. "Oh, I forgot all about you." My brother didn't even look up. "She can just stay at home." My sister said quietly, "Maybe I shouldn't go, then?" My mother quickly took her side. "No. You've been looking forward to this." My father clapped my shoulder. "You can't go this time, but we'll bring you along for the next trip." I smiled bitterly at the tickets. They went to the beach the next day. I grabbed the 10 million from my lottery winnings and went to Aocity, a place more than a thousand miles away. Our choices marked the day we went our separate ways, forever.

For ten years, I woke at three every morning to knead dough for my breakfast stall, all so I could put my daughter through college. Hot oil splattered across my arms day after day, leaving scars on my forearms that would never fully fade. But today, just when I desperately needed the money to keep my stall open, I discovered that the $200,000 in my bank account was gone. It was not until I got the bank statement that I learned the truth. My daughter had reconnected with her biological mother back in middle school. All these years, she had been secretly transferring money to her. When I confronted her over the phone, I cried so hard I could barely breathe. "That money was our retirement savings!" But she only laughed impatiently. "Stop saying you raised me. You didn't even give birth to me. My biological mother is the one who gave me life. Consider the money you spent on me your way of showing her respect." The call ended with a cold beep. It felt like a blade had been driven straight through my heart. I rushed home like a madwoman to find my husband. I thought he would at least feel sorry for us losing our retirement savings. Instead, he sat calmly on the couch and took a sip of coffee. "Blood runs thicker than water. Stop being so selfish." That $200,000 was the money we needed to survive. And he was actually lecturing me about blood ties, when he was nothing more than her adoptive father too.

The day I was discharged from the hospital after giving birth, my mother-in-law, Patricia Whitmore, kept pointing at the baby in my arms and humiliating me the whole way home. "Genevieve, just look at that pathetic thing in your arms. I doubt he'll live very long." I shot back angrily, "Patricia, how could you say that? The doctor said the baby is perfectly healthy!" Patricia curled her lip into a sneer. "You're so ignorant. Here you are, yelling at me when I'm only telling you the truth out of the kindness of my heart." I didn't want to waste my energy arguing with her, so I turned away with the baby in my arms and stared out the window. It wasn't until we got home that my seven-year-old daughter told me something. She told me that she'd seen Patricia secretly switch my perfectly healthy son with the child of my husband's childhood sweetheart, Evelyn Reed. The same child who was suffering from a congenital heart defect. That was when I finally understood why Patricia had been humiliating us. She was acting that way because she thought she had already gotten what she wanted. Unfortunately, she never expected that Nina had already switched her little brother back while they weren't paying attention.

When my elder sister, Melanie Grant, is 15, I inadvertently cause the death of our parents. I want to eat cake, so Mom and Dad make a U-turn halfway. Tragically, a drunk driver behind the wheel of a heavy-duty truck takes their lives on the spot. I suffer a severe blow to the head, causing my mental capacity to regress to that of a seven-year-old. Alone, Melanie buries Mom and Dad. When the orphanage offers to take me in, she holds back her tears and shakes her head. "My little brother needs me." Everyone believes she simply cannot bear to lose all her family members at once, but they assume that sooner or later, she'll remember what I've done and send me to the orphanage. Over the next decade, she takes me with her everywhere, from school to work. She even adopts another brother to help take care of me. One day, our little brother, Noah Cooper, burns his hand while pouring me a cup of hot water. Melanie suddenly shoves me to the floor. "It's been ten years! Haven't you had enough?" she barks. "I gave up my education and a good job for you! Why do you keep hurting us? You should've just died! Without you, all of us would be happier!" I don't understand why Melanie is so angry. But what I do know is that I must listen to her.

I am the only person who refuses to abandon Sophia Quinlan when she gets kicked out of the Quinlan family. I work to expand her network, secure funding, and piece together a business empire of our own over these six years. Zachary Lund, her first love, returns from abroad on the very day she becomes the CEO of Quinlan Group. I spend six years busting my back for her, while Zachary spends those same six years keeping her company from halfway across the world. She begins to regret marrying me so early, so she secretly goes behind my back and promotes Zachary to be her personal secretary. Later on, a business rival Sophia has backed into a corner suddenly barges into the banquet carrying an improvised bomb. The crowd scatters in panic. Zachary doesn't even hesitate to leave her behind, breaking free of her grip and running for his own safety. I am the only one who stays behind to protect her from the blast, leaving my body completely shredded from the explosion. In the last moments of my life, I cough up blood and hold onto her hand as I ask the question I have kept inside for six years. "Have you ever, in the past six years—" Sophia pulls her hand away from mine before I can finish speaking. She runs toward Zachary, who is screaming over a scratch on his arm from the shrapnel. It turns out the answer is right in front of me the whole time, making the question pointless. I close my eyes for good this time, a smile of relief creeping onto my face. When I open my eyes, I find myself back on the luxury cruise ship on the day of my wedding with Sophia. I take off my boutonniere without a second thought, strip off my wedding suit, and plunge right into the sea to run away from the wedding. I notice a sea of people gathered just as I reach the shore, with loudspeakers blasting the wedding march. It is then that a woman clad in a wedding dress walks up to me and asks, "Will you marry me, Robert Lister?"

On the day my parents file for bankruptcy, my adopted brother and fake heir, Oliver Bilson, is also diagnosed with leukemia. To earn enough money to pay his medical bills, I brave the snow and winds and continue working even on New Year's Eve. When I hand over the food delivery to the scion, Charlie Jetton, he suddenly knocks the cake over. "Why weren't you more careful when making the delivery?" he demands. "Don't you know that Mr. Bilson spent a million dollars to specifically order this cake for Olly?" I'm about to make a retort when I hear three voices that I'm intimately familiar with coming from within the warm villa. "It's okay. It's the thought that counts, Mom and Dad." The voice belongs to none other than Oliver! Dad, who claims that our family has gone bankrupt and is saddled with a mountain of debt, proudly says, "You're so mature, Olly. I'm going to give you an island to reward you!" Mom, who has always been frugal, gently adds, "My one and only, precious son is so understanding. I'll give you my golf club in Masonila, so don't be angry, alright?" My phone chimes just as the cake lands next to my feet, informing me that I have received a bad review. Later, I cut ties with them and leave with my advisor, Richard Dyer. However, when Mom and Dad find out that I'm leaving, they fall to their knees and frantically beg me to stay as if they have completely lost their minds.

My parents, Leander and Valentina Rhodes, were cutthroat capitalists through and through, bringing the company’s toxic corporate culture right into our home. Eating a serving of pork ribs meant a performance deduction. Using the washing machine required paying a depreciation fee. Just to survive, I spent day and night coding and developing software. Finally, a photo-editing app I developed completely on my own went viral, earning my parents’ company $7 million. At the celebration dinner, my eldest sister, Sienna Rhodes, who managed HR, received a $70,000 bonus. My youngest sister, Delphine Rhodes, who worked in business development, walked away with a brand-new Porsche. Meanwhile, my paycheck showed nothing more than my unchanging $600 base salary. “Sienna hired two cleaners for the company. That’s called building talent pipeline infrastructure—she deserves a reward!” “Delphine took a client out for a steak dinner and secured the distribution deal. That’s expanding our territory—she deserves a massive bonus!” Finally, my parents shoved a supermarket gift card into my hand. “As for you, Evangeline, all you do is sit at your desk, tapping away on a keyboard in the air conditioning. There’s really nothing to reward.” “Still, Sienna and Delphine spoke up on your behalf, so take this gift card.” Ever since we were kids, Sienna was the family decision-maker; everything she said was taken seriously. Delphine was the baby of the family, showered with love—even when she made a mistake, it was always someone else’s fault. As for me, stuck in the middle, it felt like I was born to be forgotten. Even though I was supposed to be the star of this celebration dinner, no one remembered. No one cared. Watching the four of them laughing and enjoying their happy family moment, I silently put down the gift card. Then, I opened a text message from a rival tech giant offering me an $8 million annual salary package.

While on a car trip, our car is struck by falling rocks and breaks down on a remote mountain road. My sister, Renee Olsen, is terrified. We wait three hours before a passing vehicle finally comes. The driver rolls down the window. "I can only fit three people in my car. How many of you are there?" My mom, Penny Ziegler, lets out a relieved sigh and smiles. "Great, there are three of us." My dad, Leonard Olsen, immediately shifts slightly to the side, completely blocking me from view as I cower in the back seat. They get into the car with Renee and leave. Ten minutes later, Mom sends me a message. "Renee is in shock. We're bringing her to the hospital for a check-up first. You stay right there with the car and wait for us to pick you up." I glance at my leg that is bleeding from cuts caused by shattered glass and reply, "Okay." I wait from day into night until my phone battery dies, yet my parents never return. They never pick up my calls or reply to my messages. A team conducting geological surveys nearby discovers me, barely conscious. They arrange for a tow truck and rush me to the hospital, as I'm burning up with a fever. The doctor frowns when he sees my leg. "Why did you wait until now to come in? Young lady, your wound is infected. You need surgery to debride it. Where is your family? Get them here quickly to sign it." I slowly unclench my stiff fingers and take the surgical consent form. Calmly, I pick up the pen and sign my name. "I can sign it myself. They've already forgotten about me."

On Thanksgiving, after I got off work, my younger brother, Nate Anderson, left an update in our family group chat about having moved to a different address. I had to take five different public transport connections before I finally reached the location he had sent me. However, when I arrived, I found that I was in a deserted area. Nate sounded smug over the phone. “Got you! My prank was successful! The last bus has left. What’re you going to do now?” I was dumbfounded, but my parents were laughing. “Why did you believe such an obvious lie? Who did you inherit your dumbness from?” “We’re having our Thanksgiving dinner soon. You can walk home.” My girlfriend, Gwen Smith, was chuckling. She said mockingly, “Oliver, you should come back on your own, just like your parents said. “It’s not the first time you’re getting pranked like this. Don’t be a sore loser!” After that, she hung up on me. In the past, I would have called them and begged them to pick me up. However, this time, I was overwhelmed with exhaustion as I gazed at the distant city lights. Nate loved to play pranks on me, and my entire family enabled him to do so. Two years ago, he put peach fuzz into my drink, and I suffered an asthma attack because of it. Last year, he swapped my shampoo with a hair removal gel, and I failed an interview because of it. My entire family knew that I was terrified of the dark, but they conspired with him and lured me to a deserted area. They were betting on when I would call them and beg for their mercy at the dinner table. I did not cry or beg. In the dark, I walked in the opposite direction from where my home was. I was going to put an end to these pranks.

As an exploration geologist, I'm caught in a landslide during a mission, and one of my arms is crushed. Before we set out, our exploration team has accurately predicted the weather. There's no chance of heavy rain that day. It isn't until I overhear my wife, Diana Nelson, talking to a doctor friend that I learn the truth. "Diana, you knew Adam was going out on a mission that day, yet you spent a fortune on creating cloud seeding just to get him injured and eventually cost him an arm. You really went too far for Flynn." Diana frowns. "Who told him to care so much about that exploration project? The only way the project can go to Flynn is if Adam gets disabled. "Otherwise, Flynn will be sent to Nambara. You think I can bear to let him suffer in a place like that?" What she doesn't know is that the Nambaran assignment will go to either Flynn Cooper or me. Before leaving, I put my medical report, which states that I've lost my reproductive ability, into a box. The day Flynn makes a name for himself, the box will be delivered to Diana as a gift.

My cousin had been pretending to be mentally disabled and freeloading at my house for five years. He scared off two of my ex-girlfriends and drained my parents’ retirement savings. This time, he set his sights on my cunning girlfriend, who was a company president, and sneaked into the guest room. He ended up pinned to the floor by her. My mother rushed in and slapped me. “He cannot help the way he is, but what is your excuse? Couldn’t you just let it go?” My girlfriend remained perfectly calm. She pulled up three months of security footage and said in a flat tone, “You might want to save your outrage until you see what your precious boy’s been doing every night.”

On the day of the topping-out ceremony for the resettlement housing, my mother, Diana Knowles, insists on reporting me to the authorities for shoddy workmanship. It's all because my cousin, Marco Sanford, went to play at the construction site, stepped into the freshly set cement, and scraped his knee. "You think you're so great just because you built a couple of buildings?" Mom screams at me. "I can't just stand by and watch you put the whole town in danger just to make millions of dollars by pocketing the difference!" Marco clutches his bandage and explains quietly, "It's all my fault for climbing over the fence to play there, Aunt Diana. The construction workers even tried to stop me. It really has nothing to do with Kevin." The project supervisor, Pete Warner, and the town mayor, Hugo Larkin, also hurriedly produce the inspection report. "Mrs. Sanford, the cement, steel bars, and load-bearing cement are all up to standard. This project is a public housing project that the state government is monitoring very closely, and it's going to be a huge deal if we even stop work for a day." Mom, however, holds her head high and yells in a voice louder than a megaphone, saying, "If Kevin dares to let his relatives get hurt at the construction site, then who knows what else he'll dare to do to the rest of the people by giving them shoddy construction? "Stop flattering him! The fact that he became the project manager for this proves that I understand better than you what it means to be a reliable person!"

The day my brother, Aaron Payne, is abducted by human traffickers, an older woman in our town tells me that if I can come up with 80,000 dollars, I can get him back. Desperate to save him, I return to the home I haven't set foot in for two years and beg my wealthy parents for the money. But they fly into a rage. "We sent you two to the countryside to toughen you up, not to give you an excuse to scam us for money!" "Human traffickers? You really expect us to believe someone could kidnap a child and then just give him back? Stop making up stories." With nowhere else to turn, I hear that I can make money by selling a kidney. So that same day, I go under the knife. As soon as the anesthesia wears off, my parents call. "Steve just told us he lost 80,000 dollars, and then we found out you received the exact same amount in your bank account. We were too soft on you. We've raised a thief!" Without giving me a chance to explain, they hang up and transfer the money straight out of my account. Later, my adopted brother, Steve Payne, walks past me with his arms linked through my parents', grinning from ear to ear. "Mom, Dad, thanks for buying me an 80,000-dollar watch. I'm so lucky to be your son." Is he? Without a word, I slip a missing-person flyer under their windshield wiper. If they can help me find Aaron, I'll gladly let him have that luck instead.

Natalie Jett's first love needs a mobile blood bank. But she's going to drain all the blood from my comatose younger brother due to me not arriving in time. I drop to my knees and beg her desperately. "Micah is already showing signs of waking up. The doctor said he'll die if you keep taking his blood. Take mine instead and leave my brother alone! Please!" But Natalie remains unmoved. She looks coldly at me as I kneel before her on the ground. "This is your punishment for being late. It's only some blood. What's the big deal? "Andy is severely anemic. He's the one who could actually die. Is your brother's life really more important than Andy's?" Ignoring my pleas, she orders her private doctor to increase the rate of the blood draw. Bag after bag of blood is sent to Andy Stone's hospital room. Not long after, my brother's heart stops. He dies after all the blood is drained from his body. When I receive the news of my brother's death, Natalie is celebrating Andy's successful surgery, setting off fireworks across the city that last the entire night. This time, I finally give up all hope. I kneel before Natalie's mother in despair. "I have nothing left to hold on to. From now on, Natalie and I have nothing to do with each other."

I have always been the type to take people at their word. In fact, I've never been good at reading between the lines. Back in middle school, a girl deliberately slipped a cheat sheet into my hand. "Hold this for me. The teacher's coming," she whispers. She probably expects me to panic and stuff it into my pocket. Instead, I raise my hand. "This belongs to her. She just put it in my hand," I declare. Years later, after I start working, a new manager begins auditing the accounts. My colleague, Wendy Boyer, keeps stomping on my foot under the table. Lowering her voice, she whispers, "Just take the blame for now. You're still new, so he won't come down too hard on you." I nod, stand up, and look straight at our manager. "Wendy's the one who's been taking kickbacks. She said newcomers wouldn't be punished too harshly. You're new too, aren't you? Why don't you take the blame for her?" From that day on, no one in the office ever tried whispering anything to me again. That lasted until my biological parents finally found me and brought me home. They even threw a belated homecoming banquet to formally welcome me into the family. My supposed sister, Adeline Holmes, completely ignores the place card with my name on it and takes the seat between my parents. She loops her arm through Mom's and smiles at me. "I've sat here for the past 21 years. You don't mind if I sit here, do you?" she asks. Everyone waits for me to take the hint and quietly move to another seat. Instead, I look at her in all seriousness and ask, "Why would you think I'd mind? Is it because this is where the biological daughter is supposed to sit?" She presses her lips together and says nothing. So, I continue, "If that's the case, you've already had it for 21 years. Isn't it about time you gave it back to me?"