Tragic Love Short Stories & Lovesick Fool Marriage Novels

Every time I go out with my wife of three years, Jillian Luke, and my best friend, Shawn Lynch, the two of them get mistaken for a couple. At the mall, a sales clerk hands them a complimentary gift for couples. At a restaurant, the server asks if they'd like to join a couples' event. On trips, strangers tell them what a good match they are, then shove a phone into my hands and ask me to take their picture. At first, I do feel awkward about it. Jillian never explains. Every time, Shawn is the one who smooths things over with a smile. "Maybe the two of us just look a little like a couple. Don't overthink it." He says it so lightly that I tell myself, again and again, not to take it to heart. This goes on until Thanksgiving dinner, where Jillian says she'll officially take me to meet her parents. I've spent three whole months preparing. But the moment we walk in the door, Jillian's mom, Carol Simpson, grabs hold of Shawn, smiling from ear to ear. "Look at these two, everyone. They look so much like a married couple." The relatives join in on the teasing. "Just how many times have Jillian and Shawn kissed? They look more alike every day." The whole room is laughing. I stand where I am and look at Jillian. All she does is reach out and straighten Shawn's slightly crooked tie. She doesn't object, and she doesn't deny it. At that moment, I finally understand that it's not that she can't be bothered to explain. It's that in her heart, the one she truly wants to marry has never been me.

In the third year of Lynette Colt's secret marriage with Justin Oaks, she asks him to announce their relationship for the hundredth time. "I'm pregnant, Justin. Can you—" There isn't a trace of emotion in Justin's tone. "Lynn, I told you many times before that the divorce agreement is left on the nightstand. You can divorce me anytime, so stop coming up with excuses just to probe me." All the excuses Lynette has used in the past always result in the same outcome. This realization makes her heart sink to the pits of her stomach. She knows far too well that Justin is very certain she can't bear to end their ten-year relationship, much less leave his side permanently. Over the years, Lynette agreed to marry him in secret out of love. It's also the same love that makes her tolerate Justin's unilateral decision to enter into a sham marriage of convenience with Christina Jenkins for business purposes. Justin has already foreseen that Lynette will definitely suck it up and yield to his wishes unconditionally, just like how she did in the previous 99 times. But what he doesn't know is that she has gotten pregnant for real. This relationship has drained her to the point that she no longer has any energy to continue loving him. So, Lynette closes her eyes and nods. "Alright, then."

In our third year of marriage, Jillian Holt changed the name she had saved my number under. It wasn't "Dear" anymore. It was "7:00 pm to 7:30 pm". She said she set aside only half an hour a day for personal matters. If I messaged her a minute early, she wouldn't reply. If the text was even a minute late, she wouldn't reply either. Once, I had a fever of 102.2°F and was hooked up to an IV at the hospital. I called her seven times. At 7:00 pm, she called me back right on time. "You have 29 minutes left. Get to the point." I asked hoarsely if she could come pick me up. She glanced at her schedule. "29 minutes isn't enough for a round trip. Get a cab yourself." I had always thought she was just too busy with work, so I never dared waste a second of that half hour each night. I would write down what I wanted to say ahead of time and keep my complaints brief. Then, one night at 1:00 am, a clap of thunder woke me up. No one was beside me. In the living room, Jillian was leaning against the couch, revising a proposal for her project manager, Jesse Cohen. On the screen, Jesse chuckled. "Ms. Holt, it's already 1:00 am. Am I taking up too much of your time?" Jillian let out a soft laugh. "When have I ever kept track of the time when you needed me?" Standing behind the door, I suddenly remembered knocking on her study door three hours earlier. I was doubled over with stomach pain. She had said, "You've used up your time for today." I returned to my room and turned off the alarm I had set on my phone for 6:59 pm every day. At 7:00 pm the next day, Jillian didn't get a message from me for the first time.

This was the eighteenth time I received photos of Autumn cheating on me. With practiced ease, I bought them all and had them wiped. On the night of our engagement, I stepped forward to stop her as she prepared to leave. “Can you stay tonight?” She frowned. “I don’t like men who are too clingy.” The next day, a video of her playing dress-up in a wedding gown with another man spread like wildfire across the city. In this gamble called love, I had lost everything. Just then, my childhood friend called, her voice bright with laughter. “Mr. Dunn, isn’t it about time you came back and married me?”

Jensen Shaw said, "My only wish is for you to disappear from my life forever." After five loveless years of marriage, Lauren Sullivan became the person her husband hated most. Then she really did disappear. Everyone said Lauren brought it on herself. When she died, no one even came to claim her body. But as one buried truth after another came to light, Jensen discovered... At the best time of her life, she once loved him with a pure, open heart. And when aftershocks shook the ruins around them, she risked her life to save him.

Intimate photos of Sienna Taylor topped the city's trending searches again. Out of habit, I take screenshots of them and send her a link to a luxury apartment overlooking the river that I've been eyeing. "Buy two of these. One for me, and one for our kid." She replies almost immediately with a simple "Okay" and a screenshot of a massive bank transfer. She never hesitates to throw money at a problem. After ten years of marriage, I've finally stopped keeping tabs on my wife's affairs. These days, I only keep tabs on my bank balance. But this time, Sienna is serious about a young man named Gavin Reed. When I find out they've been caught kissing by the harbour, I ask for a million dollars. When she holds a press conference and calls him her best friend, I ask for another million. And when I hear that they're celebrating their move into a new home together, I ask for yet another million. Her affair with Gavin has become the talk of the city, and she's so caught up in it that she's forgotten all about the man she once had to woo with 100 love letters before he'd agree to marry her. I don't cry or make a scene. Every time she hurts me for his sake, I just burn one of those letters. When the 100th and final letter turns to ash, I'll leave her for good.

Seven years ago, a fire breaks out, and Adeline Kerrick's father risks his life to drag Elias Penrose out of the flames. Knowing he won't survive, he entrusts Elias with the one person he can't bear to leave behind—his daughter. Elias promises to love Adeline with everything he has, and that even if she ever changes her mind, he'll give her nine chances. Seven years later, they're married, but Adeline still won't let Elias touch her. He puts it down to her being young, innocent, and naive, and he cherishes her all the more for it. When her cramps flare up, he holds her all night and keeps his palm on her stomach to warm it. When she craves cinnamon rolls from a specialty bakery, he drives three hours to another city without a second thought. Before the sun comes up, they're sitting on the dining table, still steaming. Even when she takes one bite and pushes them aside, he isn't upset. He spoils her like she's the most precious thing in his care, because he believes she deserves the best the world has to offer. As for anything physical, every time Elias looks at that sweet, sheltered face, he tells himself he can wait a little longer. Then he goes on a business trip and texts Adeline, telling her there's soup waiting in the fridge and that she shouldn't forget to eat it. Instead, he gets a voice message from a man he doesn't know. "Your wife is my contracted pet."

From the time I was 22 until I turned 30, Brianna Everly and I had a wedding every year. The only thing we never had was a marriage certificate. She said she was afraid of marriage, terrified that we'd end up like her parents. So I gave her eight years to prepare herself—until our eighth wedding, when Brianna showed up in the wrong wedding dress. It looked just like the wedding dress she'd always worn for our ceremonies, except for one detail. The name embroidered along the neckline wasn't mine. It was my best friend, Leon Stratford's. I was about to confront Brianna when my brother, Dominic Sterling, grabbed my arm. "Harrison, it's been eight years. What's the point of digging into it now? Just pretend you never saw anything." I stared at him in disbelief. "Dominic, you knew all along?" He stiffened and glanced at all the family and friends gathered at the wedding. "I'm not the only one who knows. Everyone does too." I stood there stunned, unable to find my voice for a long moment. "Why? Why did Brianna hold a wedding with me every year for the past eight years?" Dominic explained with pity in his eyes, "Having a wedding every year was Leon's idea. Except for the wedding when they actually got legally married, every wedding after that was one Leon had, and you had one too." It turned out the marriage certificate I'd spent eight years waiting for had been given to someone else long ago. Worse, I was the last person to find out.

For three years, Julian Hart has been Larkmoor's idea of the perfect husband. 7:00 a.m. — He gets up to make breakfast. Vivienne Sterling eats only whole-wheat sandwiches, so he goes out early for the freshest ingredients. 9:00 a.m. — He ties her shoelaces and sees her off. 10:30 a.m. — He cleans their mansion, waters the plants, and straightens her study. 3:00 p.m. — He organizes her walk-in closet and jewelry and irons her clothes. ... 10:00 p.m. — The bath he's prepared is at precisely the right temperature when she arrives home on schedule. As Julian helps her out of her coat, he catches the faint smell of tobacco on it.

Kaleb Monroe had always lived recklessly, doing whatever he pleased. As the only child in three generations of the Monroe family, he was born prematurely and nearly died. His parents had him later in life and treasured him above all else. Growing up with that kind of privilege had taught him that the world was supposed to revolve around him. So, when he was nineteen, he rescued Khloe Allen from drowning and fell in love with her at first sight. He used every means at his disposal to force her into marrying him. Only after the wedding did Kaleb learn that Khloe had a first love she couldn't let go of. It came as no surprise, then, that he began targeting Diego Dougherty.

For the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, the system in my mind warned me. [Warning! The lovesick part of your brain is highly active! If you refuse to leave John Miller, you’ll die an hour later!] I looked at my husband. He was scolding me for the sake of his secretary, who was his first love. I once burned down all of my award-winning drawings just because he disliked them. I calmly gave the system in my brain an order. “Since the cause of the malfunction is the lovesick portion of my brain, I hereby grant you the highest authority to remove it. Do the surgery now!” An hour later, John stopped me at the door of the ward. His eyes were bloodshot. “Grace Stone, what are you trying to pull?” I raised my head and watched him coldly and calmly. “Mister, you blocked the light. Based on an analysis, this constitutes an illegal detention. Do you need my help calling the cops?”

My wife, Jolene Stephens, and I both cheated. The difference was that she chose to betray me while I had been made to cheat. She got me blackout drunk the same night her affair with Leon Homes came to light. Then, she stripped me naked and left me in a hotel room with a stranger. She posed my unconscious body in degrading positions and took photos to create evidence of my "affair." Both our cheating photos were exposed consecutively, and the public outrage against her little lover was offset. A huge wave of nausea rolled over me, making me dry-heave over the sink. My body was covered in red marks. The thought of what the stranger had done to me drove me to fits of terror. My wife watched as I scrubbed my skin until it split and bled before saying quietly, "I didn't have a choice. Leon's from a conservative family. It would destroy him if word got out that he was a homewrecker." The internet tore me apart overnight. My grandfather, Bruce Tillman, the only kin I had left, suffered a heart attack after seeing the news and was rushed into the emergency room. I had to protect her just to protect myself. So, I repeated the lie she needed me to tell under a wall of flashing cameras and microphones. "Neither of us cheated. Ms. Stephens and I had already separated long ago."

"Mr. Reed, your request for euthanasia has been approved. The procedure is scheduled for next month. Please sign here to confirm." The staff member handed Ryan Reed a thick stack of papers. His fingers trembled over the page. After a few seconds, he slowly signed, his name scrawled as if it had taken all his strength.

Hannah Neate hated having her picture taken more than anything. When her company held a press conference, she forbade any reporter from bringing a camera inside. I had been married to her for three years, but we never had a single wedding photo. She had an effortlessly frigid personality and would not waste her time getting her photo taken. She believed that it was a poor use of energy and time. One day, I saw a photo of her and a man in a photo booth at the mall. It was displayed as a couple’s photo template at the center of the wall. They were nestled close together. The man’s gaze was doting, and she was smiling sweetly. I tore the photo down and threw it onto her desk. She merely glanced at it and said lightly, “Dwade was just being playful. He insisted on dragging me there. Why are you upset? It’s just a photo.” I laughed exasperatedly. I had spent three years trying to get a photo with her, but another man got one in just three minutes, like it was nothing but a game to him. I took off my wedding ring and placed it on top of that photo. Since that was the case, I might as well disappear from her life for good.