Melodramatic 단편 소설 & Male POV Cheating 소설

After seven years together, Joan Quinton and I finally walked into the studio for our pre-wedding photos. Derek Blake—my old college roommate and the guy who'd introduced us—tagged along. The second he put on his custom best-man suit, Joan's eyes lit up. She immediately wanted a few pictures with him. I was standing in the middle in my wedding suit when Derek rubbed his nose and laughed. "Dude, I look like a bodyguard." Joan instantly pulled me aside and gave him the center spot. The camera flashed. The two of them looked way too natural together. Like they were the ones getting married. While we picked out photos, Joan tapped the shot of all three of us. "Let's blow this one up for the reception." I looked at her. "Why would another guy be front and center in a photo at our wedding?" She shoved the mouse away. "You're a grown man. Why are you being so petty? If Derek hadn't introduced us, would we even be together?" "It's just a photo. I'm still marrying you, aren't I?" I stared at myself on the screen. Even in my best suit, I looked like I didn't belong. Just because you're standing somewhere doesn't mean it's your place. And just like that, I was done fighting to be front and center.

My girlfriend, Emma Marshall, had hearing loss and was always claiming she misheard me. I asked her to pick up a gaming setup. She came home with two. "I must've heard you wrong again. Kevin can take the extra one." I asked her to order tacos. She got sushi instead. "Sorry, I heard you wrong. Kevin loves sushi, though. We should invite him over." Then I spent months planning every detail of the home we were supposed to build together and asked her to buy a place in Blackmere. On the day we were supposed to go see it, she drove straight to Carlifield instead. She didn't seem to notice anything was wrong until she realized I hadn't said a word the entire drive. "I'm sorry. I really thought you said you liked the scenery in Carlifield, so when I found this place, I bought it without thinking twice." But Kevin Stone, her childhood best friend, worked only a few minutes away. She hadn't misheard me. She just never cared enough to listen. Something inside me went completely still. For once, I didn't argue. I didn't ask for an explanation. I didn't even feel angry. I just looked at her and said calmly, "Emma, I think we should break up."

In my hometown, boys are expected to make their own wine by stomping on grapes from a young age. The wine will be given to their future wives and drunk on their wedding day. Since college, Suzanne Landon and I have left our hometown to make our fortunes elsewhere. Now that we've achieved success, we return home. The bottle of wine I've been keeping for 28 years can finally be opened. I know how much of a germaphobe Suzanne is. So, I deliberately replace my wine with a store-bought bottle for the Cherry Blossom Festival, even though I know it's against tradition. Just as I'm about to tell her the secret, I overhear her talking to her friends outside the door. "If you drink Finley's wine, then according to our local customs, you'd have to marry him. Wouldn't Chadwick be pissed?" "Exactly. Chadwick has already opened his bottle of wine. If no one drinks it, wouldn't it be embarrassing for him?" Suzanne laughs nonchalantly and says, "There's no way he'll leave me. He's even replaced the wine for my sake. Besides, his wine has been aged for 28 years. Who would possibly drink that? Finley's has only been aged for 20 years. I've heard that's the sweetest. "Even though I've chosen Finley, I won't mistreat Chadwick. If no one else is willing to marry him, I suppose I could always give him a place to stay by my side." It feels as though a hole has opened in my heart, and the cutting cold wind howled through it. I slowly pull my hand back. I'm not unwanted, and it's not like I have to marry her. I open the message that arrives every year without fail and type a few words before hitting send. "Are you still willing to marry me?" The reply comes almost instantly. "Wait for me."

To save my daughter, I collected 50,000 plastic bottles. Day after day, I dug through trash, carried them home, and traded them for scraps of hope. However, when I finally hauled them all to the recycling center, I learned their selling price had dropped. The 50,000 bottles were worth only enough to buy my daughter a better urn. Desperate, I held my feverish daughter in my arms as she suffered a seizure. I called my actress wife for help. Her answer was ice-cold. “$5,000 for a fever? Do you think I’m some kind of charity?” The irony was that she had spent $50 million building a private hospital for her screen partner’s dog just hours earlier.

I stood at the airport in a downpour and waited four hours. All I got for it was a message from Nicole McKenna: [Something came up at the office. Just grab a car and head home on your own.] I called a ride, but with the storm outside, it took another hour before a driver actually picked up my request. As unlucky as that was, I felt strangely calm once I finally climbed into the car. I even felt a flicker of relief when I saw the post from Freddy Sandler, Nicole's college junior. The photo showed the two of them at a candlelit dinner, captioned: [I said the rain was boring, so you came to keep me company.] None of it stung anymore. I'd finally made up my mind to leave her. The realization put me in such a good mood that I tapped "like" on the post without even thinking twice. Afterward, though, Nicole came to me with her eyes rimmed red and begged, "We've been together for years. You're really just going to let it go?"

My father was dying. There was no time to waste. Every flight and express-train seat to Meadowridge was sold out that day. The only remaining option was a last-minute business-class airline ticket costing twelve hundred dollars. My wife, Marissa Langley, a corporate president earning eight figures a year, frowned at the price. "Do you know what that much money means to this family?" "You're a stay-at-home husband who gets to live comfortably while I work. You never think about how hard I earn our money." Then she froze my cards. She took my phone. She kept my driver's license so I couldn't buy the ticket. Because of her, I missed my father's final moments completely. After the funeral, I saw a social-media post showing her celebrating the birthday of Tyler Beckett, the college intern in her department. The cheapest present she gave him was a custom Velvet Swan cake that cost thirty-three hundred dollars.

I was the simple-minded fool that General Adelaide Knight had pulled from a pile of corpses on the battlefield. The poison had been too severe. I survived, but my mind never fully recovered. When people hit me or cursed at me, all I ever did was stare blankly and smile. Adelaide took pity on me. She brought me into her home and refused to let anyone mistreat me. She once said, "Reed may be a fool, but he's my whole life." And like a fool, I believed her. For five years, I followed her everywhere like a shadow. Then Fabian Ortega returned to the capital. He looked so much like me that we could almost have been brothers. He'd been poisoned, and none of the doctors knew how to save him. His only chance was to fight poison with poison—using blood drawn from the heart of someone whose body was already saturated with an even deadlier toxin. So Adelaide placed a dagger and an empty bowl in front of me. Her voice had never been gentler. "Be good, Reed. Your body's already full of poison. It's just a small cut over your heart. It won't hurt. Let me take some blood for him. I'll buy you your favorite candy tomorrow, okay?" I stared at the cold gleam of the blade and slowly blinked. The truth was, when the knife pierced my chest, the blood came so fast that I felt so cold. Still, I endured it and forced the same vacant smile onto my face. "Okay." I watched Adelaide pick up the bowl of warm blood and hurry toward Fabian's room. She was in such a rush that she didn't even spare a glance at the bloodstained dagger she'd left lying on the floor. I tossed the cheap candy she'd bought me into the fire and clumsily began packing my things. Since she no longer wanted Reed's life, this poisoned fool had no reason to stay.

My wife of three secretly married years, Izzy Presley, threw a welcome-home dinner for her childhood friend who'd just returned to the country. A sharp-eyed coworker noticed the wedding ring on her finger and teased her about it. "Izzy, does this mean there's a wedding on the way?" Izzy didn't deny it. Instead, she traded a smile with Sebastian Wood, the friend she'd grown up with, and made her answer loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Yes. Sebastian and I are getting engaged." She handed out cash gift cards to everyone in the room as she said it, me included. Someone who'd had a little too much to drink called out. "I've watched Stevie and Izzy come and go together for three years straight. Honestly, I thought you two were the real couple." I kept my head down and tightened my grip around the stem of my glass. On my phone, the chat thread with Izzy was still open. That 200-dollar cash gift, the exact same amount she'd given every other guest in the room, burned behind my eyes. Then her voice drifted over, light as air. "My assistant Stevie is good at his job. Work is work, and feelings are feelings. Let's not confuse the two." The teasing only got louder after that. Through the whole party, everyone celebrated for her. No one knew that Izzy and I had already been married for three years. This marriage was like a deal struck in the dark, the kind that could never see daylight. Because I loved her, I'd gritted my teeth and held on for three years. But now, I was ready to let go.

Gillian Chadwick, my fiancee, has always put her adoptive brother, Jude Chadwick, first. When a new romantic trend catches on, he gets the first gift, not me. When she buys her very first car, she gives him the first test drive. Even when a fire breaks out in our house in the middle of the night, she rushes into Jude's room first and drags him downstairs. She doesn't call to wake me until she has made sure he's safe. After getting burned in that fire, I finally lose my temper and demand Gillian choose between Jude and me. She looks at me in confusion. "Thomas, Jude is the only family I have in this world. Why are you competing with him? How about this? I promise to treat you both completely equally from now on, okay?" After a long hesitation, I finally agree. But later, Gillian gives the wedding ring she has custom-made to Jude, and she even lets him be the first to see her wedding dress. On the day we go to get our marriage certificate, Jude tags along. "Thomas, Gillian has never been married before. Let me try it out for you first," he said shamelessly.

My wife, Sienna Fairchild, has one ironclad rule. Every Monday, she has dinner with her brother-in-law. During that time, she turns off her phone and blocks every message. Nothing, no matter how urgent, takes priority over their little family gathering. Then one day, our daughter falls down the stairs at preschool and breaks her arm. I call Sienna over a dozen times, but not a single one goes through. With no other option, I call her brother-in-law instead. "Abby got hurt at school. Can you have Sienna come to the hospital?" The other end goes quiet. Just when I think the call has been dropped, Sienna's voice comes through. "My whole day belongs to them. Don't bother me unless it's actually important." The line goes dead. I stand frozen, staring at my daughter crying on the hospital bed. She looks up at me with red, tear-filled eyes. "Daddy, does Mommy not want me anymore?" I choke back the lump in my throat as exhaustion washes over me. Maybe it's time to find my daughter a new mother.

In order to keep Sam Anderson from being fired, my lawyer wife, Blair Reid, drugged me before the hearing and handed my important case over to him. Blair then handed one of my major cases over to Sam. “The effect of the poison will only last for a day. Once the case is over, I’ll make it up to you.” I watched as Blair pulled an all-nighter to draft an outline for Sam and promote him. She also brought him around to network with other lawyers. After some time passed, Blair said she felt sorry for me. She told me she would immediately promote me to a partner at the law firm. However, she went crazy after realizing I did not get my voice back.

The day of my wedding, my girlfriend, Sherry Jennings, asked me to wait another three weeks for her. It seemed that she had used half her cells to clone her first love so that the dead man would have no regrets in life. The clone only had three weeks to live. During the first week, she beat her fear of heights to go on a Ferris wheel with him, holding him close at the top. During the second week, she used up all her savings to take him to see the aurora and immortalize their love. In the last week, their story touched people around the world, and with countless reporters watching, they kissed until the clone’s heart stopped beating. After that, she came back happily and told me that she wanted to have our long-awaited wedding. Unfortunately, what she came back to was the news of my death.

In Willow Creek, there is an unspoken rule about wedding processions: never retrace your route. But on the day we are supposed to get married, my fiancee, Emma Carter, orders our entire wedding procession to turn around and drive more than 12 miles back the way we've come—just to catch up with another wedding convoy. I am about to get out and demand an explanation when I overhear Emma talking to one of her bridesmaids, Lena Williams. "You drove more than 60 miles just to make it to Ryan's wedding," Lena says. "That's some serious dedication." Then she glances nervously in my direction. "And now you're making us turn around? Aren't you worried Nathan's going to be pissed?" Emma continues directing the drivers to turn the procession around. "Don't worry. He's waited ten years for me. No matter how angry he gets, he'll never actually call off the wedding. "If my family hadn't pressured me so much, I wouldn't have agreed to marry him this easily. "Ryan's biggest wish has always been to marry me, and that's not going to happen now. So turning back to see him off for part of the journey is the least I can do. It's a small way of making up for all those years he spent chasing after me." When the matching wedding bands slip from my hand and disappear beneath the seat, I let out a bitter laugh. So much for finally getting our happy ending after all those years of hardship. Apparently, that is only wishful thinking on my part. I pull out my phone, open my messaging app, and send a woman my location. "Are you still planning to marry me? I'm waiting for you here. Come. Now."

As the coaster climbed toward the top, I opened my eyes and reached over for my girlfriend's hand. What I saw was her fingers laced through my best friend's. Her thumb moved slowly across the back of his hand. A signal. Steady. I've got you. "Avery, I'm scared," I said quietly. She didn't answer me. She only held on to him tighter. Avery has a hearing impairment. Her left ear doesn't pick things up clearly. But every time the three of us went anywhere, she kept him on her right, tilting her head up to catch him, answering every single thing he said. I stood on her left, and it was like standing on the other side of a galaxy. The coaster started down again, and I closed my eyes, and my heart dropped with it. Avery, if somebody else is living at the very center of your heart, then so be it. It's time I took my own heart back and went looking for stars of my own.

After my wife, April Carter, gives birth to my child, I'm forced to quit my job and become a full-time stay-at-home dad. Before long, I spiral into severe depression. Countless times, I press a knife to my wrist, only for her to desperately throw her arms around me as I break down in hysterics. "Don't do this! Think about the baby and me! We're right here with you!" My brother, Lucas Getz, and my best buddy, Thomas Balfour, each grab a knife and press it against their own wrists. "If you want to die, we'll die with you," they declare. "Are two lives enough for you?" After that day, I fully commit to my treatment, determined not to let anyone else get hurt because of me. But just when I think I'm finally about to see the light, Lucas drags me to a wedding. Standing on the stage as newlyweds are none other than April and Thomas. My mind goes blank with a deafening buzz, and my blood runs cold. Lucas gazes up at the couple on stage with envy. "This wedding should have happened five years ago. But your depression has kept the two of them trapped in guilt." Then he turns toward me. "Do you understand now? The truth is, you're the one keeping us trapped in misery. It's time to let go."

My girlfriend, Loretta Summers, is an introvert and quiet by nature. Even our daily conversations are limited to things like, "Have you eaten?" or "Are you asleep?" Then, at a New Year's class reunion, I see her chatting animatedly with a guy, Ivan Lane. That is when I realize— it is time for us to break up.

I didn't come from money, so everyone around my rich girlfriend decided I had to be a gold digger. Nobody more than Tristan Reed, her male best friend. He told them he'd been kept by rich women himself, so he understood men like me better than anyone. To prove I wasn't that kind of man, I never accepted a single expensive gift from Vivian Ford during the three years I spent with her. Tristan had an explanation for that too. "He says no out loud, but he's waiting for her to offer something better on her own. It's called playing hard-to-get." Then came Vivian's birthday. I'd saved six months of my salary and bought her a necklace. I was almost at the door of the private room when I heard Tristan laughing. "See? I told you he'd buy something expensive. "That's the oldest trick a gold digger has. Pretend you're not after the money, then trade a little of it for a lot." Vivian sat beside him filing her nails. She didn't contradict him. Someone egged him on. "Vivian, your boyfriend's not just a gold digger, he's a professional." Then somebody spotted me and made a hushing gesture. "Quiet, he's here." Tristan just scoffed. "Some men ought to be honest like me. That's what rich women actually want. Am I wrong?" Vivian was quiet for a long moment. Then she looked up at me. "After all this time pretending in front of me, were you really just waiting for one big payout?" I stood in the doorway, and the necklace in my hand suddenly felt too heavy to hold. I didn't answer. I just turned around and left. A heart that's doubted every single time is one I'm taking back for good.

The day my daughter was fighting for her life, my wife, Shirley Hartley, was busy helping her childhood friend Oliver Burke get married. I called seventeen times. On my eighteenth try, she finally picked up. "Shirley, Nyssa's getting worse. The doctor says she needs life support now. They want twenty grand upfront. Where's the money?" Her voice turned ice-cold. "I used it. Oliver's wedding is coming up, and that stuff costs money. I'm not letting his fiancée's family look down on him. "Nyssa just has asthma, right? She coughs a little and suddenly they want twenty grand? Sounds like a scam." Nyssa lay in the hospital bed, her tiny face ghost-pale. Her eyes slowly opened. "Daddy, I want Mommy." I turned away, biting my lip hard so she wouldn't see me cry. "Mommy'll be here soon." But over the phone, Shirley snapped, "Oliver still hasn't picked out his wedding suit. I don't have time for you freaking out over this." Then she hung up. By the time I scraped together the twenty grand, forty minutes were gone. Half an hour later, the doctor came out of the ER. He pulled off his mask and shook his head. "If we'd started treatment thirty minutes earlier, she might've had a chance." Then my phone buzzed. A transaction alert. Shirley had taken the money that could've saved Nyssa and bought Oliver a $220,000 Maybach. I looked at Nyssa's blue-tinged face and called my lawyer. "Draw up the divorce papers. "And pull the records for every expense Shirley ever covered for Oliver. "I want every cent of our money back."

Sandra's ex-boyfriend had cancer, yet he still found the energy to keep pestering her. So I anonymously sent him a sum of money to make him leave her alone. But when Sandra found what I'd done, she threw the bank card in my face and shouted, "Why would you humiliate a dying man with money? He's already pitiful enough!" I looked at her calmly. "You're my wife. You shouldn't be worrying about another man."

Mandy York, my girlfriend, was practically a migratory bird that always flew away during summer. Every year, during July and August, which were the hottest months of the year, she would fly off and disappear from the face of the earth. She said that it was because her company gave her a special project abroad that required absolute secrecy from her. She was also not to contact anyone during that period of time. Even when I got into a car accident last year and lay in the ICU for two months, she never called to ask about me. Plenty of times, I had comforted myself and endured the harsh summer alone. One day, I accidentally saw the social media account of a friend of mine living abroad. It was his alternate account. Every year, during July and August, this alternate account would get really active. It would be full of videos and photos about his daily life with his daughter and a “mother” who always had her face hidden with stickers. In the videos, the mother accompanied the daughter to watch fireworks at Disneyland and pick up shells at the beach. Sometimes, I could see the side of her face. There was a mole at the corner of her eyes. I could even see a clear scar at the back of her hand. They were so familiar to me that my blood ran cold. It was Mandy. During the summer holidays, she would vanish for sixty days, and this had lasted for five years. So, she had never been flying off to work. She had gone to her other family. I sat stupefied on the couch and stared at the blinding sun outside. Suddenly, this year’s upcoming summer did not feel so difficult any longer. I picked up my phone and agreed to the marriage my family had arranged for me. Since Mandy refused to stay with me during summer, I was not going to waste my time on her.