Cerita Pendek & Novel Independence Melodramatic

To win Samuel Zane’s heart, I lost everything. My family was ruined, and I was forced onto an operating table so he could take my heart and save his adopted sister, Xenia Zane, whose organs were failing. At the critical moment, William Zane disguised himself as a doctor and rescued me. We left the country and started a new life overseas. I used all my points to change my target from Samuel to William. “Host, I need to remind you that if you fail again after changing your target, you will be reincarnated as an animal and never become human again.” I looked at William as he knelt before me with a ring in his hand. I said firmly, “I do.” But when I gave birth to our daughter, I saw two figures standing outside my hospital room. William handed our daughter to Samuel and said, “Samuel, you’re rushing this. We need to wait until her organs are fully developed before we can take them.” Samuel’s expression remained cold. “Thanks to your plan, we were able to grow a healthy, young heart for Xenia. Don’t worry. We can just use an organ maturation agent.” “But…” “William, don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that woman.” “Of course not!” I heard him deny it immediately. “I endured everything for Xenia.” The moment he finished speaking, the system’s robotic voice rang in my mind. “Host, your mission has failed. In one month, you will be reincarnated as an animal.”

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?"

Five years after having a son with a feared mob boss, she wept until her eyes turned red by my hospital bed. Taking advantage of her business trip, I went to see my personal doctor to beg him to keep my terminal illness a secret. Instead, I overheard a conversation outside the door between her, our son, and her right-hand man: "You don't get it. He's just like Oscar when he was younger. Being with him feels like falling in love with Oscar all over again." "Yeah! He's way gentler than Dad. I like Daddy Theo way better!" It turned out that her "business trip" was straight into my personal doctor's bed. If that's the life she wants, she can keep it. I don't want this mother and son anymore.

Zach Shaw and I had been in a long-distance relationship for four years when his study partner, Amy Lewis, appeared in the frame during our video call. Amy pursed her lips together and said, "Megan, Zach still hasn't finished today's homework yet." I froze. I had just wanted to say we would only talk for ten minutes when Amy cut in again. "By the way, I filtered out the celebrity gossip you sent him today. He gets distracted as soon as he sees it, and he's only half as effective then." She tilted her head and then said in an innocent tone. "You won't blame me for meddling, will you?" Zach looked down and flipped through his book without saying anything. I was once again stunned. I thought of the sunset photos, the street food stalls, and the pictures of new dresses I had sent him, the ones he had never answered. She had cleared them all away. A heavy weight settled in my chest. Zach finally raised his hand. "Amy helps me sort my messages. It's a good thing." Amy leaned closer to the screen and lowered her voice. "I heard you only scored 1,200 on the SAT, but Zach scored 1,400..." She paused, as if she was figuring out her words. "He always says he wants to go to grad school in the same city as you, but your scores are so far apart. He has to lower his standards for you." Then, she stepped back to Zach's side and patted his shoulder. "Work hard. I'm here with you." Zach looked up and nodded at her. His expression was soft and natural, as if they had already gotten used to standing next to each other. My throat tightened, and I felt my chest slowly becoming tighter and tighter. "Get some rest, then," I said as I forced myself to keep my pride and ended the call. My phone screen still showed the last message I had sent him. [It's raining today. Remember to wear something warm.] There was no reply. Just like the past four years. So, he had not been absent at all. I was the absent one.

My twin sister Selena was the most troublesome grad student my fiancé, Professor Adrian Hall, had ever taken on. Skipping class, showing up late, doctoring observation curves. Every time she walked into his lab, the two of them seemed ready to set the whole college on fire. I told Adrian to stop using that tribunal tone with her. But he explained, "Eve, if she keeps drifting like this, sooner or later she'll ruin herself." When he looked at Selena, his gray-blue eyes were as cold as a lake on a winter night. "Have every raw record on my oak desk before eight tomorrow morning. One page short, and you don't set foot in the observation tower for the rest of the month." I felt embarrassed for Selena, and grateful that I'd fallen for the right man. Adrian Hall was the youngest tenured professor at St. George's College. Tall and lean, always in a dark gray cashmere coat, shirt buttoned to the very top. He could dismantle an entire model in the calmest voice, and still hold an umbrella over me on a rainy night, so gentle it made me believe I was the one exception outside his academic world. Until the day we were preparing the wedding invitations. I borrowed his tablet, and my finger accidentally slipped into a document buried under layers of folders. Inside were five hundred and twenty memos. [Punishment No. 519: Selena talked back to me again. I kept her in my office and fucked her until three in the morning;by the end she didn't have the strength left to even look up at me.] [Punishment No. 520: She got jealous. She insisted I leave something behind inside Eve's wedding dress — to prove that the white gown meant to symbolize purity could be dirtied by her too.] With trembling hands, I scrolled to the video at the very bottom. On the screen, the aloof and untouchable Professor Hall was down on one knee on his office carpet, kissing the rose tattoo on Selena's ankle. "Selena, stop torturing me. Whatever you want, I'll give it to you, alright?"

In seven years together, the words Theo said to me most weren't "I love you." They were "Be reasonable." In our first year of dating, his neighbor Sophia took a liking to my wolf fang necklace and wanted to borrow it for a few days. Theo said, "Joey, be reasonable. She's young, let her wear it." In the third year, Sophia borrowed my brand-new car. Theo said, "She'll get over the novelty in a few days. Cut her some slack." In the seventh year, the day he finally became Alpha, Theo gave me a moonstone ring blessed by the Moon Goddess. Sophia clung to his arm, her voice sweet and wheedling. "Theo, that's a moonstone ring. I've never gotten to wear one before." Then she glared at me, her smile dripping with malice. "Joey, I want the ring." Theo leaned in and murmured, "Joey, be reasonable. It's just a ring." I took it off without hesitation and handed it to Sophia. Just then, a text came through on my phone. "The position is yours whenever you're ready. Just tell me when you're coming to London, and I'll pick you up."

While packing Ethan's flight bag, I found a custom solo wings pin. The engraving on the back read: For Lark, to celebrate your first solo. Beneath the box sat the receipt for Skyler's flight school tuition, paid in full by Ethan, along with a photograph. In the photo, she was sitting in the pilot's seat. Ethan's gloved hand rested over hers on the control yoke. Seven years ago, I had sat in that same seat. Back then, I was one step away from my first solo flight, but Ethan talked me out of it again and again, always claiming it was "for my own good." He said flying was dangerous, that someone had to stay home and take care of things. I put down my logbook, pressed the wrinkles out of every one of his captain's uniforms, and spent seven years living by his flight schedule. Only now did I finally understand. It wasn't that he didn't want to take anyone flying. He just didn't want to take me. What made it even more absurd was that the night Skyler first flew through the clouds, I was alone in a hospital, losing our baby. I called him over a dozen times. At three in the morning, he finally called back, his voice flat and indifferent. "I just took Lark through the clouds. Next time something comes up, give me a heads-up." I put the wings pin back exactly where I found it, then pulled the crumpled ultrasound printout from the bottom of the drawer and tucked it inside the logbook that had been gathering dust for seven years. This time, I wasn't going to wait for him to look back. He convinced me to leave the pilot's seat, then turned around and put another woman in the sky. So I would leave him and take back the sky that had always been mine.

The day we took our engagement photos, the photographer said my smile looked a lot like my brother Wesley's. Stefani Lundberg, my fiancée, immediately had Wesley change into the same white tuxedo. "Perfect chance to get a few keepsake shots." When it was time to pick the photos, everyone crowded around Wesley's. Mom said he was born to wear a white tux. Dad said he looked more distinguished than me, the actual groom. Stefani studied the screen for a long moment, then pointed at a photo of Wesley looking back over his shoulder. "Let's put this one at the wedding reception. It looks great." I asked where my photo was supposed to go. Only then did she seem to remember I was there. "You and Wesley look so much alike. The guests won't even notice the difference. "Besides, he's never getting married. It's not every day he gets to wear a custom tux." I let out a quiet laugh. From the time we were kids, life had always been harder for Wesley. That meant I was the one who had to give in. If he wanted something, I was expected to hand it over. If he couldn't have it, neither could I. Even my wedding had to become the dream he never got. I slipped the only photo of Stefani and me out of the album. I was standing beside her, trying hard to smile. Now it felt like I was looking at strangers. Spring hadn't failed to come. I'd just spent too long standing in someone else's shadow, waiting for it. This time, I was done waiting.

Clarice and Kyle both followed the same travel vlogger. I didn’t think anything of the situation since the three of us had been friends since high school. The strange thing was that they had a private group chat that didn’t include me. I only found out because Kyle accidentally sent a message in our group chat. “I got us a table reservation at that restaurant for Sunday. Don’t be late.” It took less than a second before the text was deleted. I asked, “What restaurant? Let’s go together.” Kyle typed back, “Oops. Wrong chat. I’m having dinner with a colleague.” Clarice stayed silent throughout. It took some time, but I started connecting the dots. Whenever the three of us had something planned, one of them would cancel at the last minute. Previously, Clarice said she’d get the tickets for the music festival, but somehow, she could only secure two. Those went to her and Kyle. During our last camping trip, Kyle said that he only managed to borrow two sets of gear. When I offered to rent my own, Kyle brushed me off, saying that it was just too much of a hassle and that there was always a next time. That same weekend, Kyle and Clarice posted photos from that exact campsite, twenty minutes apart. For six months, I convinced myself that I was just unlucky. Looking back now, I realized that I had been singled out. So I left the group chat. No explanations. No accusations. I muted notifications from travel apps, ticketing apps, and restaurant bookings. Then, I booked a solo trip to Lake Tahoe, a ticket with no refund and no amendment allowed.

After his eighteenth failed attempt to divorce me, Jesse Pellam suddenly stopped bringing it up. Before that, every single attempt had ended in complete humiliation and chaos. I had harmed myself, threatened to jump from a building, and plastered the company lobby with intimate photos of him and his female assistant, Gianna Seyfert. At a press conference, I had even publicly stripped Gianna, leaving her with PTSD. Jesse had every reason to despise me; however, he never mentioned divorcing me again. He came home on time every day and gave me full access to his phone. He checked in with me every hour to update me on his whereabouts. Even during his business trips, we stayed connected through video calls around the clock. But I still could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. Every day, I pressed him for an answer, asking why he no longer wanted a divorce. “Haven’t I done enough?” he asked. Yes, he was better than ever, almost too good to be true. It was not until he caught me following him again that he finally admitted the truth. With exhaustion evident in his eyes, he said, “I received a phone call from my future self, ten years from now. He told me that if I divorced you, I would regret it.”

At the party celebrating my mating anniversary with Damian, he lost a game to his friends. His penalty was to kiss the person he loved most, right then and there. My mate claimed childhood trauma made any physical intimacy unbearable. Yet he kissed his first love, Amber, without a moment's hesitation. They stayed locked in that kiss for a full three minutes, completely lost in each other. Just when everyone expected me to make a scene and storm out, I calmly pulled out the bond-dissolution papers and laid them in front of Damian. "Sign." Damian stared at the bond-dissolution papers, then suddenly laughed. "Grace Bennett, it was just a game. Are you really going to end our bond over this?" I slid the bond-dissolution papers closer to him. "Yes. I am."

I'm a family law attorney. My specialty is winning divorce cases for other people. I never imagined that one day, I'd be drafting my own divorce papers. For six years of marriage, Adrian read to me for ten minutes every night. He said it was our little marriage ritual. That was until I came home early from a business trip and heard his voice coming from my female neighbor’s apartment next door. "Vivi, which chapter do you want to hear tonight?" I stood outside her door, still holding the birthday cake I'd bought for him. I turned around, went home, opened my laptop, and went through our marital asset inventory from top to bottom. Later, Adrian knelt outside my law firm, his voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable. He said, "Serena, I was just helping her fall asleep. I never touched her." I set the voice recorder in front of him, and out came words he'd said himself. "She'll never leave me. She's too rational, which actually makes her the easiest to manipulate." I smiled. "Adrian, do you think the judge will find me easy to manipulate too?"

On the day of the court hearing, the judge went through the routine questioning: “You’ve only been married for three years. Has the marriage truly broken down irretrievably?” I bit my lip with a bitter smile, slipped off my wedding ring, and placed it on the table. “In our three years of marriage, we’ve lived apart for every single day. “Your Honor, do you really think there’s any love left between us?” Throughout our five years of dating, I was the one pinned at the top of her chat list. I was her emergency contact. I was even the sole beneficiary of her insurance policy. I thought I had found the right person—the love of my life. But on our wedding day, she took a phone call, and her face turned deathly pale. When I asked what was wrong, she claimed her mother was gravely ill. Dropping everything, she bought a ticket and flew back to her hometown that very day. For the next three years, she sent me daily photos of her meals, yet her mother was never in a single picture. My heart ached for her, so I offered to quit my job and move there to help care for her mother. But she declined gently, saying she couldn’t bear to let me suffer. It wasn’t until a month ago that I stumbled upon a viral vlog channel of a cancer patient. There she was—Amelia Rose Whitmore—appearing right in Austin Carter’s videos, accompanied by a heartwarming caption: “She’s there when I wake up. “She’s there for every meal. “She’s the one whose hand I hold so tightly.” What about me then? For 1,095 days and nights, I had no one but myself. She lied to me. The judge struck the gavel and asked one final question: “Have you truly made up your mind?” I gave a firm, heavy nod. When the official divorce decree was handed down, I stared at the paper as tears finally came streaming down my face. Goodbye, Amelia. I’m setting you free. And I’m setting myself free, too.

I've been sponsoring Bree Webb, a young woman who comes from a low-income background. She's being ostracized at school and begs to move into my home. In my last life, I feel sorry for her and let her in. She repays me by accusing my younger brother, Eric Whitmore, of assault. Because of her, his reputation is in tatters, and he's branded as a rapist. Bree squeezes my family dry, demanding compensation at every turn. Eric then sinks into depression and eventually jumps off a building. She walks away with everyone's sympathy and even has the nerve to taunt me to my face. "Leah, thank you so much. Without you, I never could've gone from nothing to this overnight." Now I'm reborn, and Bree shows up again with the same tearful eyes. "Leah, my roommates are bullying me. I lie awake night after night. The doctor says I'm already showing signs of severe depression." I look at that pitiful face of hers and smile. "Sure. But we're doing this by my rules."

At my husband's book launch, the young woman beside me leaned in close. "Are you a fan of Professor Gyver too? I don't think I've seen you here before." Julian and I had kept our marriage private, so I shook my head. "I was just passing by. It sounded lively in here, so I came in to look." She noticed the white cane by my feet, and understood at once. Onstage, the host asked Julian where the book had come from. He looked toward my side of the room, and his voice went soft. "I promised the person I love that we'd watch a sunrise together. It never happened, for various reasons. So I wrote the regret into the book." When it ended, applause filled the hall. The girl beside me went bounding up and threw herself into his arms. "Professor! The book's out. When are you taking me to see that sunrise you promised?" My smile froze on my face. The sunrise was mine. It had always been Julian's promise to me. Julian ruffled her hair, helpless, let his eyes sweep past me from across the room, then took her hand and left. He didn't know I could see again. That was the only reason I'd come. To tell him that the sunrise we'd waited so long for was finally ours to watch. He'd always said the auditorium was too crowded, that he couldn't find me. So I'd wait alone until every light went out, then leave with my cane. He could find me. That was never the problem. He just wanted a different girl beside him when the lights were on him. I dropped the plane tickets I'd bought for him into the trash. The sunrise doesn't wait. Neither do I.

I've bought Mom a premium membership card at Juniper Group, which includes an all-inclusive medical screening every year. This year, her back has been giving her trouble, so she comes to Heston a bit earlier than usual. But when we walk up to the front desk at Juniper Hospital, the receptionist tells us that the coverage has already been redeemed. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but this card was swiped three months ago at our pet center," she explains. "Your coverage is completely maxed out." Mom stares at her, frozen for a few seconds as if she has misheard. Then, she quietly says, "That's fine. I'll just pay out of pocket." It costs 398 dollars for the basic package, and it doesn't even include a bone density scan. When I get home that evening, she has made pasta for dinner. The hospital receipt sits on the table. I ask her how the checkup went, and she shrugs it off. "It went well. There just seems to be a glitch in their system." Later, I find out that the person who used the card is my boyfriend, Brandon Kaiser. He's taken it to Juniper Pet Center to cover a top-of-the-line vet exam for Goldie, the cat belonging to his childhood sweetheart, Alana Sutton. When I confront him and ask why he didn't bother to tell me, he just leans against the kitchen island, sipping a club soda. He doesn't even look up. "Your mom wasn't even in town yet," he mutters. "The cat needed urgent care, so I just used it." "That card belonged to my mom," I say. He gives a careless shrug. "Big deal. I'll just buy you a replacement later, alright? Just then, Mom walks out of the kitchen with a plate of crisp, freshly sliced apples and sets them down right next to my hand. She's heard every single word of our conversation. Yet, she doesn't say a word. She just turns right back around and heads into the kitchen to finish the dishes. As I look down at that plate of apples, a wave of clarity washes over me. I don't want him to replace the card anymore.

In the final minute before the university application deadline, my boyfriend’s girl best friend, Makayla Jaycox, claimed she had an inside scoop from an admissions consultant. She said several elite universities had unexpected openings in their least popular majors due to insufficient applicants. So, they would likely accept students with low scores. Many students were swayed and actually planned to change their majors, hoping to get into those universities. In my past life, I stopped her instigation by threatening to report her. In the end, everyone submitted their original choices, and everyone was admitted to their chosen universities. But the very next day, news broke out that someone had indeed gotten into an elite university with a low score. A classmate who only got into a community college saw the news, went mad, and pushed me off a building. “It’s all your fault for stopping me from getting into a top school! You completely ruined my life!” I fell to my death and died in resentment. When the police came into our class to carry out an investigation, Makayla rallied the whole class to defend the killer. “My intel was correct, but she just had to go and crush everyone’s dreams of getting into a top university.” “Exactly! If it weren’t for her, I could’ve gotten into Harlad University! That trash deserved to die!” “She did it on purpose. She just couldn’t stand the thought of anyone doing better than her.” The entire class signed a petition for leniency, and the killer was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was sent to a psychiatric facility instead of prison. Makayla took advantage of this by visiting him daily at the hospital and livestreaming it to build her kind and caring persona. She made a fortune out of it. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Makayla urged everyone to change their universities and majors. Watching everyone cheer and dance in excitement, she smiled and said, “Go for it! Switch it up. Who knows? Shoot for the moon, and you might just land among the stars.”

It's our fifth wedding anniversary. I've booked a table at a riverside restaurant and set my pregnancy test report right in the center of the table. 9:00 pm comes and goes with no sign of my husband, Yosef Sinclair. Just as I reach for my phone, the cake delivery person texts to ask for my location. I send it over, then call Yosef. A ringtone chimes right behind me. I turn around and see Yosef walking in, looking sharp in his suit. I'm about to nag him for being late until I see him holding a cake box and answering his phone. "I'm working. I'll—" Before he finishes speaking, he visibly pauses, then asks in a low voice, "You ordered this? Meeting friends? Just don't stay out too late." He sets the cake down right on top of my test report and turns on his heel. All that I'm left with is the sight of his retreating figure. A moment later, his voice floats back in from outside. "Nobody. Come on. Let's just finish this last order, and I'll treat you to a nice dinner today!" I look out the window. Yosef is getting into a car with Clara Lawson, the bakery owner. She slips into the passenger seat like she's done it a thousand times. A minute later, my phone vibrates. I tap it open with my numb fingers. It's a new Instagram post from Clara, showing a pink rose bouquet with a sliver of a black suit in the background. The caption reads, "A guy who buys me flowers, works overtime with me, and takes me out for dinner? He's a keeper!" I like the post, put my phone down, and quietly tell the waiter to bring out the food. I've spent three months trying to snag a table at this place. No way am I letting good food go to waste. Besides, I'm leaving this city in three days and putting an end to this broken marriage.

My daughter was a compulsive liar. At three, she told her preschool teacher, "Mom sticks me with needles." When I rolled up her sleeve, there really were marks. At four and a half, she fell down the stairs by herself, then sobbed that I had pushed her. Everyone in the building looked at me like I was a monster. At five, county child-welfare investigators sat in my living room. She pointed at me and said, "She isn't my real mother. She kidnapped me." My career died on one sentence from a five-year-old. Standing on the ledge outside my window, I wondered why I had ever adopted her. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the night everything began. I was about to feed the adoption decree into the shredder. In my previous life, I burned it, because I was afraid she'd find out she was adopted. This time, I locked every adoption document inside a safe. Then I waited for her next move.

Lucas Harlow and I have been together for seven years, and we plan to get married next year. When I accompany him to his hometown to meet his parents, we happen to arrive just in time for his cousin Spencer Harlow's wedding. Following a local tradition, the older relatives cheerfully urge Lucas to sleep in the newlyweds' bed the night before the ceremony for good luck. Lucas' mother, Beatrice Collins, takes my hand and explains with a smile, "Katherine, I hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable. It's an old custom around here. "Before the wedding, a man who's still a virgin blesses the couple's bed by sleeping in it. It's supposed to bring the newlyweds good luck and a happy marriage." I lower my head in embarrassment, for Lucas and I are saving ourselves for our wedding night. No matter how difficult the wait has been for him over the past seven years, he's always respected that boundary and insisted on doing right by me. When I finally look up, my cheeks still burning, I see that Lucas has gone pale. Flustered and visibly uncomfortable, he frantically waves everyone off and adamantly refuses to go anywhere near the bed. "I can't do it. You're going to have to find someone else…" As I watch my boyfriend avoid everyone's gaze, my heart drops.