Cerita Pendek & Novel Male POV Awakening

On my birthday, Genevieve Rothwell posted a photo with her male executive assistant, Ethan Kline. They were wearing matching rings. [Partners at work. Partners in life.] I commented: [You two make a great couple.] Genevieve called me right away, yelling that I was sick in the head and couldn't take a joke. Before she'd even hung up, she was gently comforting Ethan, who was tearfully blaming himself. Before, I'd have stormed over there and thrown a hysterical fit, making a fool of myself in front of everyone. But this time, I felt nothing. I couldn't have cared less.

Renee Fuller, my wife, suddenly stops talking about divorce after her 18th failed attempt. She has failed every attempt before this, after all. I catch them at a hotel and cover the company lobby with photos of her in bed with Edward Chester, her male assistant. I beat Edward up so badly at the press conference that he suffers a concussion and develops PTSD. Renee has every reason to hate me, but even so, she drops the subject of divorce completely. She is home every day right on schedule and hands over her phone. She updates me on her whereabouts every hour and even keeps a 24-hour video call running when she travels for work. I still can't put my mind at ease, though. I keep pestering her day after day, demanding to know why she no longer wants to divorce me. Renee asks me, "Haven't I done enough?" It is enough—almost too good to be true. Renee finally tells me the truth after catching me following her again, her eyes filled with exhaustion. "I received a call from myself ten years in the future, and she says I'd regret getting a divorce." I am stunned. "You actually believed that?" Renee says, "She said you burned Edward alive."

I was easy to fool. I believed almost everything that people said. During the worst year of my life, a girl in the grade above me tricked me out of my entire living allowance. Juno Halloran split hers with me and helped me get by. She was the only person who had never lied to me. "It's not that you're dumb. Other people are just rotten," she told me. "Stop trusting them. Trust me instead." Then, 1 hour before I was supposed to walk into my grad school entrance exam, she texted me. [I was in a car accident. I'm at the hospital. Get here now.] I rushed to the hospital and found her and her best friend, Brent Ostrow, sitting in the convenience store downstairs, eating nachos. Brent laughed so hard he slapped his thigh. "See? I told you he'd fall for it. One text and he ditches his exam to come running." Juno held a chip to his mouth. "Fine, a bet is a bet. I'll take you to Starfall Park today." I stared at them in disbelief. Juno pulled out a napkin and wiped the sweat from my face. "You're about to graduate, and the world is a nasty place. Consider this lesson number one." My voice shook. "Today's my grad school exam!" Brent rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, Cooper's about to cry. We'd better get him back before he flunks and blames us for it." When she saw my eyes reddening, Juno panicked too. She sped the entire way there and got me to the exam hall with only 1 minute to spare. I had barely breathed a sigh of relief when the proctor stopped me. "Excuse me, your admission ticket is fake. I need you to leave." I looked down at the paper in my hand. At some point, someone had switched out my admission ticket. In its place was a huge drawing of a pig's head with a message scrawled beside it. [Dumbass Cooper, I'm holding on to your ticket! Surprise!] Beneath that was another line. [Don't trip in the same spot twice. That's lesson number two.] It was Brent's handwriting. It was Juno's idea. I still could not tell truth from lies, but I could tell the difference between genuine care and fake concern. From that day forward, I never trusted anyone so easily again.

My girlfriend was known for being frugal and extremely stingy. When the chicken drumstick I loved went up by a dime, she decided they were too expensive and stopped buying them. When I got sick, she thought drinking warm water would be enough to make me better. Even the marriage certificate's nine-dollar processing fee was too much for her. She thought it was a waste of money. When the marriage certificate finally became free to acquire, I put on the only discounted suit she had been willing to buy for me and arrived at the city hall two hours early. I was eagerly waiting for her. Instead, from a distance, I saw her sitting by the lake with Henry, the male assistant she had hired six months earlier. A street photographer approached with a camera and asked if my girlfriend wanted some photos. Each photo cost a hundred dollars. I thought she would refuse on the spot, curse him for overcharging, and walk away. But she glanced at Henry beside her and said, "Henry, come to think of it, we've never taken a photo together. How about we take some?" Henry waved it off and said it was too expensive. The photographer quickly added that there would be a discount if they took more pictures. My girlfriend calmly retrieved her phone and transferred one grand to him. "No discount needed. Take a hundred photos of me and my junior. Put them in an album." I silently watched as my girlfriend and Henry posed intimately for a hundred photos. The time we'd agreed to meet finally arrived. My phone lit up. [I asked around. Although the marriage certificate itself is free now, we still need to take three ID photos. That's at least twenty dollars. That's enough to pay for one of our meals. Besides, getting the certificate is just a formality. We can still spend our whole lives together without it.] I quietly typed out a reply. [Okay. Let's not get married then.] I didn't want her anymore either.

I have always known since I was young that I am not the Luther family's biological son. I accidentally break my younger brother Henry Luther's limited-edition figure while cleaning the room, and Dad punishes me by making me kneel in the rain all night. Dad actually defends Henry when he accidentally blinds me in one eye with a high-powered laser pointer, saying, "Henry didn't do it on purpose. He just got rowdy while playing around, Julian." Henry flashes me a triumphant smile once I go permanently blind in my right eye. "That's what you get for living in our house when you're nothing but an outsider!" I am nothing but an outsider to them. I have done everything I can to please them for the past 18 years, but I have never managed to become part of their family. I accidentally discover a shocking truth one day—the paternity test clearly proves that I am Dad's biological son, whereas Henry is the adopted one. In that instant, my breath catches in my throat.

Marissa Caldwell marries me to save the man she truly loves, Damian Davenhurst. For five years, she never once treats me like her husband. To her friends, I'm nothing more than a fool who comes running whenever she calls and disappears whenever she tells me to leave. "Cyrus Halden, you're basically her lapdog. She calls, you come running. She tells you to leave, and you leave." Whenever they laugh at me like that, Marissa simply smiles and says nothing. Once, when I'm burning up with a fever that won't break, she leaves the country with Damian just to escape her mother's constant nagging. Another time, I drink until I'm vomiting blood from a stomach ulcer during a business dinner while Marissa is upstairs in a presidential suite with him. I endure it all, convincing myself that if I love her enough, one day she'll finally see me as her husband. Then Damian and I are kidnapped on the same day. When she's forced to choose between us, she doesn't hesitate. She abandons me. That is when I finally wake up from my delusion. After five years of loving a woman who has never loved me back, I decide I'm done. I will leave her for good. But the moment she realizes I'm serious, Marissa regrets everything. She grabs my hand, her voice breaking as she begs, "Cyrus, please don't leave me. I'll go crazy without you." I slowly pull my hand from hers. "I can't do this anymore."

The side character, Derek Holloway, poured his heart and soul into every single year of high school. When the moment came to earn a place in the honors program, his childhood best friend, Vivian Sterling, handed the golden ticket straight to Blake Mercer, the male lead. Vivian's voice sounded flat, completely unbothered. "I've really thought this through. If we're in the same class, we'll just distract each other from studying. "Besides, Blake's family is struggling financially. He needs this opportunity way more than you do. Just step aside for him, okay?" I watched Derek step aside for Blake. One hundred and one times. I watched him go home and suffer a brutal beating from both his parents for losing that honors spot. One hundred and one times. I watched him lose his mind while the girl he'd loved since childhood paraded around town with another guy. One hundred and one times. I watched his grades plummet into the gutter, destroying any shot at admission to an Ivy League school. One hundred and one times. I watched him get framed for cheating on SAT, which drove him to jump from the thirty-sixth floor. One hundred and one times. Then I took complete control of his body. Vivian had no idea who she was dealing with. I came from an era torn apart by war and gunfire. I didn't give a damn about petty teenage romance. Anything worth taking, anything worth fighting for, I would fight for and claim every last one.

Throughout our four years of college, Charlotte Montgomery booked train tickets for me and my buddy, Forrest Croft, whenever we headed back to school or went home for break. She always claimed that getting tickets was a race against the clock, and somehow, the three of us never managed to sit together. Every time the tickets were issued, Forrest would tear into her in our group chat. "Charlotte, can you be any more useless? You managed to book three tickets in three different train cars. Next time, you'd better stand right next to him, even if you have to stand the whole way. Otherwise, you'll answer to me." Charlotte always fired back immediately. "Who the hell do you think you are? I could crouch at his feet, and it still wouldn't be any of your business." I believed them. Even when I spent six hours sitting alone in an uncomfortable seat, or came down with a fever in the middle of the night and called Charlotte more than a dozen times without getting an answer, I assumed she'd fallen asleep in another train car. It wasn't until our graduation trip, when someone asked to switch seats with me. I dragged my suitcase over, only to find Forrest with my jacket draped over his shoulders, his head resting on Charlotte's shoulder as they shared a pair of earbuds. When Charlotte saw me, she simply pulled out one earbud and sat up straight. "Let's get one thing straight. We've always been careful not to give people the wrong idea. I only kept it from you because I was afraid you'd feel uneasy if you knew we'd be sitting next to each other for six hours." Forrest patted the seat beside him. "I'm your buddy. Isn't it better to have me keep an eye on your girlfriend, rather than some random guy sitting next to her?" Just then, a smiling train attendant came over and handed them a matching set of luggage tags. "According to our system, you two have sat next to each other on all 16 round trips throughout your four years at college. We'd like to give you this souvenir to commemorate that." Only after she'd finished speaking did she notice me. She glanced down at the booking details again. "This is your friend who booked tickets with you, too, right? How come he's the one sitting alone every time, even though all three of you book your tickets together?" The entire train car fell silent. I looked at Charlotte's pale face, realizing something. They had never once been separated from each other. For four years, I'd been left out every single time.

“Milana, did you secretly marry Miles Garrett while abroad? Does Ernest know about this?" Milana Orr was just touching up her lipstick and staring at her striking reflection in the mirror. Then, she remarked in an utterly unconcerned voice, "Oh, leave it already. I’ve got the call on speakerphone." Her best friend, Clarice Rivers, dropped her voice to a sharp whisper, "Is Ernest with you?" Milana smiled, then turned around to glance at Ernest, who was seated on the couch and waiting for her to finish getting ready. She smiled coyly, "Yeah, he’s sitting right behind me, but it's fine. It's not like he can hear us anyway." After a brief silence, Clarice spoke again, in a slightly sharper tone this time, "He lost his hearing and became disabled because he tried to save you when you tried to end it all by jumping into the river." "That’s exactly why I went and got married overseas instead." A complex look surfaced in Milana's voice as she cut Clarice off. "But I'm going to stay right here in the country, and we’re going to have a grand wedding together in a week. "That's my way of repaying him for taking care of me over the last five years. "As for the actual marriage license... Well, let’s just forget about that for now." Meanwhile, Ernest was clutching the edges of the magazine so tightly the paper crumpled.

My parents always said the world had no sympathy for the weak. So from the moment my younger brother and I could walk, they put us through what they called the 'Strong Child Program.' At five years old, we had to run five kilometers every day. If we could not finish, we were not allowed to eat. At seven, my brother broke his arm. My parents refused to let the doctors use anesthesia, saying enduring pain was a lesson every strong person had to learn. At nine, I burned with a 104℉ fever. Instead of taking me to the hospital, they wiped my body with ice water and forced me to endure it because 'sick children grow stronger immunity.' Then, on the first day of summer vacation, my father announced this year's special training: We were going to learn to swim in the Roaring Spine River. No life jackets. No safety gear. "You only learn after choking on water a few times," my father said. But my brother choked over a hundred times and still could not swim. I desperately swam toward him, trying to pull him back to shore, but somehow the distance between us only kept growing. I called my father, screaming for help, begging him to call emergency services. But after listening to me, he only snorted coldly. "Who learns swimming without swallowing some water? "Your brother isn't made of paper. "Stop yelling and focus on learning to swim." But by then, my brother had already been swept away by the current…

On the day of our engagement, my girlfriend, Alessia Pratt, was nowhere to be found. My mom, Lizzie Spencer, looked more and more displeased. I finally stepped out to call Alessia. As I passed a private dining room, I caught a glimpse of her through the door, which hadn't been fully closed. She was having dinner with her first love, Amos Farrell, and his family. Amos's hand slid onto her waist, and he leaned in until his head was against her ear. They looked incredibly intimate. Mom had come out looking for me, and she saw it too. She gave a cold snort. "You treat her like a treasure. You treated her like a treasure and were even willing to give her a share of our family's fortune, worth tens of millions of dollars. And what do you get for it?" I sighed, finally giving up on her for good. "If she doesn't care about it, there's no reason for me to keep throwing it at her."

Nathaniel Cooper spent ten whole years slowly working his way into Audrey Sinclair's life. At last, he went from being a secret admirer no one knew about to the man she openly acknowledged as her fiancé. But just two weeks before their wedding, he decided to call it off. "I'd like to transfer to the research institute's Northwestern Branch. Please add my name to the list." Nathaniel placed the signed application form on the director's desk and spoke in a calm voice. The director, who had been looking at his computer, looked up in shock. "Nathaniel, aren't you and Audrey getting married next month? We all know you joined the institute to follow her. You're so close to finally getting what you want. Why would you choose to leave for the Northwest at such a critical time?" Nathaniel swallowed the bitterness rising in his chest and cut her off. "Just approve the transfer, please."

After six years together, Isabella McCarthy proposed to Gabriel Hart six times. He accepted all six. But when she proposed for the seventh time, he didn't immediately offer his hand. She looked up at him with sincere eyes, wisps of black hair falling across her forehead as the lights gilded the fine contours of her face. Gabriel looked at her and suddenly gave a sardonic smile. "Does this proposal actually count?"

After five long years of dating, Winona Shaw finally said yes. I was elated, like a scavenger who'd struck gold. I put everything I had into the engagement party, but out of the blue, Winona embraced Claude Landton instead. She even tried to frame me and boot me to jail. I canceled the party and called the cops instead. That made Winona mad, and Claude started panicking. Icily, I said, "Now, calm down. We have a lot of trials to go through. See you in court."

The third time Queenie Stone meets Evan Sutherland's parents, she receives another message from her childhood friend, Joel Lodge. "I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland. Something came up. I have to go," she says. Evan reaches out and catches her wrist, frowning. "You have to leave right now? My parents have been preparing for this all day. At least stay and finish dinner." Queenie sets her phone down in front of him. In her chat with Joel are four simple words—"The fog's rolling in". "This is my code with Joel," she explains. "He has depression. Whenever he starts spiraling, he sends me this. We agreed that no matter what I'm doing, I'll drop everything and go to him when I see those words. No exceptions." She sounds so serious, as if Joel will drop dead if she doesn't leave that very second. "Can't you wait until after dinner?" Evan asks. "At most, you'll just need to stay for two more hours." "Evan, Joel doesn't send that code lightly. If he has, it means he's at his limit. If I'm late and something happens to him, I'll never forgive myself. I'm sorry." Queenie turns to Evan's parents. "Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, I need to head out. I'll come by another day to apologize properly." She leaves without another look back. The front door slams shut, making Evan's parents jump. "Did something happen?" his mother asks. "Queenie left in such a hurry." Evan stares at the untouched dishes on the table and forces a stiff smile. Over the last five years, Joel has sent Queenie that code over 700 times. She could be on a movie date with Evan, yet the moment Joel's message comes in, she'll walk out halfway through the film. On New Year's Eve, before the fireworks even go off, she'll ditch Evan to go to Joel. Even when Evan has a 104-degree fever and is lying in bed needing someone to care for him, she'll still rush over to Joel in the middle of the night.