Melodramatic 단편 소설 & Male POV Cheating 소설

For the 37th time, Jonah Bellamy calls me to ask if he can borrow my wife, Celeste Rochester, for a day. His daughter, Iris Bellamy, is having a Family Day at school. Since all the other children have their mothers accompanying them, he doesn't want his daughter to be made fun of. Celeste takes one look at me before grabbing her coat and rushing out the door. Before crossing the threshold, she leaves me with her go-to excuse. "He's divorced and raising his daughter on his own. It must be hard for him. So, don't be so petty." However, that day is also the day our son, Kevin Heathcliff, has been looking forward to for three whole months—his parent-child performance. He sits backstage, clutching his costume, waiting for Celeste to arrive. Even after the event ends, she never shows up. When we get home, we see Celeste on a live broadcast on TV. She's wearing matching outfits with Jonah and Iris, and she lets him drape an arm affectionately around her shoulders. When the host asks how many years they've been married, she doesn't clarify. She simply looks up and adjusts his collar, her eyes overflowing with affection. Iris wraps her arms around Celeste's waist and loudly calls her "Mommy". The camera pans across the audience as applause and hoots erupt from all directions. Kevin stares at the screen quietly for a long while before tearing the drawing of our family of three in his arms in half. "Mommy's always being borrowed by other people, Daddy. From now on, let's stop waiting for her, okay?" I look into his teary eyes, and the last ember of hope in my heart completely dies out. I pull out my phone and send a message to my lawyer, Everett Preston. "Draw up the divorce agreement."

On the day of my wedding, my groomsman, Steve Hayes, asks my bride, Vera Johnson, three questions. Both she and her bridesmaids will get money and a gold necklace each if she answers the questions correctly. I assume that she's determined to win, but surprisingly, she gets the first question wrong. "What's Colin's shoe size?" "Size 9," Vera replies without hesitation. "What's Colin's favorite color?" "Blue." Everyone exchanges glances with each other, feeling a little awkward. Steve asks Vera the easiest question. "When did Colin graduate from university?" Everyone believes that Vera won't get this question wrong. After all, we are university classmates. "2013," Vera answers. "I gave him a protective charm from Mt. Cloudpeak as his graduation gift. There's no way that I'll forget that." Panic grips my heart at that moment. I glance at my best friend, Steve, who's dressed in a blue groomsman suit. There's a protective charm hanging on the necklace around his neck. Steve's eyes flash before he whispers, "Colin graduated in 2012. The one who was held back was me." I'm struck by a realization. The last hint of hesitation in my heart disappears. The corners of my lips curl up into a smile as I look down to send my family a message. "Mom, Dad, can you drive the car over? I'm not getting married anymore."

I've just received a text from my CEO wife, Cara Lavigne. Apparently, she's gone on another last-minute business trip again, so she can't accompany me to the funeral home. But soon, I see Cara's silhouette being captured in a photo, where she celebrates her assistant, Warren Stone's birthday with him in a work-related post he has just uploaded. The caption reads, "Thank you for the amazing cake, boss! I feel so happy to be able to celebrate my birthday!" I just smile calmly before leaving a like and a comment. "Happy birthday." My colleagues, on the other hand, start betting pools like mad to see what kind of tricks I'm going to pull this time in order to kick up a ruckus. Cara calls me immediately just to scold me. "Warren is just celebrating his birthday, so what's with the comment? He's a very sensitive person, you know! How is he going to survive in this company now that you've passive-aggressively humiliated him in that public post? "It's been barely two years since Warren joined this company, not to mention he doesn't have any friends! What's wrong with me celebrating his birthday with him, huh? People like you, who are born with silver spoons in their mouths, will never understand Warren's plight! "I want you to delete your comment right now! We'll talk more about this once I'm home! Your dad is already dead anyway, so you can just wait for a few more days before claiming his body!" I can only clench my fists tightly as I listen to Cara's heartless and nonchalant words. "No need for that." Once she is back, the divorce procedures will be done.

By the third year of Roxanne Duranov's affair, Fredrick Tatham had finally become the husband she had always wanted. He no longer barged into hotels in the middle of the night to catch her with another man. He no longer demanded to know where she had spent the night. Nor did he resort to desperate acts of self-harm in a frantic attempt to hold on to a woman whose heart had long since drifted away. He had become as inconspicuous as an ordinary piece of furniture in the villa, quiet and unobtrusive, never making his presence felt. Then, one day, the hospital called. An urgent voice came through the phone. "Hello, am I speaking to Ms. Duranov's husband? She's been in a serious car accident and needs emergency surgery. We need a family member to come to the hospital immediately to sign the consent forms." Fredrick held the phone to his ear, his gaze fixed on the television screen.

Elise Van Doren and I had been together for fifteen years, but she still refused to marry me. Then we had a bitter argument about it. The next day, the television station sent me to the county clerk's office to do live interviews with newlyweds. When I got to a young groom, the question the system pulled from the live comments was, "What's the cruelest thing your wife has ever said to you?" I was sure someone was just trying to stir up trouble, and I almost skipped it. But the young man smiled shyly at the camera. "Nothing, really. She can never bring herself to be harsh with me. The meanest thing she's ever called me was 'you silly boy' when I burned my hand. "She's fourteen years older than me, and she treasures me. She always says that since I got together with her so young, she's going to spoil me rotten. That's why I chose my twenty-second birthday to marry her." The live comments went wild over how sweet they were. Even I smiled. I was about to congratulate him when a woman came up and threw herself into his arms. "Honey, what are you talking about?" My blood ran cold. The microphone slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. The woman was Elise. My girlfriend. The night before, she'd looked me in the eye and said, "You want to talk about dignity? If you had any, would you have been my lapdog at seventeen, begging me to be with you? You're paranoid all the time. Hell, I'm starting to think you're the one with another woman on the side!"

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.

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.

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'd just come off a night shift when the college kid Laura Marano had cheated with planted himself in front of me and begged. "Kyle, please. Let Laura have my baby. She said you're the only one she'll listen to. "I'm not asking for anything else. I never once told her to leave you. "This is my first child. You're a doctor. Doctors are supposed to have a healer's heart. Please, just give our baby a chance to live." While he pleaded, Laura rushed over, breathless. "The affair was on me," she said, guilt written across her face. "So whether this baby stays or goes, that call is yours to make." It was the same scene I'd lived through once before, back when I still believed in loving one person for a lifetime. I hadn't been able to stomach it back then: the girlfriend I'd loved for five years, cheating on me. I'd cut things off clean and never looked back. That decision was what opened my eyes to how the world really worked. The other man who'd stolen my place ended up living like a king, drowning in money. Meanwhile, I'd worked myself half to death in the operating room and still couldn't scrape together enough to treat my mother's illness. I'd come to agree with a bitter little saying: love, in the end, always turns out the same. So this time around, I told Laura something different. "Get rid of the baby. The wedding's still on."

The day after Lisa Goodner and I got our marriage license, I, Brad Dempsey, stood at the airport with two plane tickets in hand, waiting for my new wife. She showed up, but her childhood friend, Drew Fenton, was trailing right behind her. "Babe, Drew just went through a breakup, so I'm bringing him along to help him clear his head," Lisa explained carefully. Drew was wearing the exact same T-shirt as me. He gave me an apologetic smile. "Brad, I won't be in your way, will I? I just want to soak up a little of your newlywed happiness." I looked at the third ticket in Lisa's hand, the extra one seated right next to mine. Seat 16B. Mine was 16A. Lisa's was 16C. She had put Drew right between us. I stood rooted to the spot as rage shot from the soles of my feet straight to the top of my head. I yanked Lisa aside and lowered my voice. "Either he leaves, or I do." Lisa looked torn and a little exasperated. "Babe, don't be so unreasonable, okay? "Drew told me he's scared being home alone. He just wants to tag along and have some company. "Besides, I've known him since we were kids. What's the harm in him coming with us..." I cut her off. "If you don't send him away, we're filing for divorce right now."

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.

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."

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.

During a company team-building event, we held a trust fall activity. I stood on the platform with my back to Matthew Walter, my girlfriend's male assistant. My girlfriend, the CEO, held a megaphone and announced, "If you fail to catch someone, that means you don't trust your team." The first time, Matthew failed to catch me, and I slammed into the ground. My girlfriend, Jessica Homer, made excuses for him. "Calum, you're too heavy. Matthew isn't strong enough, so it's understandable." The second time, Matthew failed to catch me again. Jessica snapped impatiently, "Your expression was too serious. You scared Matthew." On the third attempt, I asked to catch him instead. Although I caught him without a problem, she announced to everyone, "Calum caught Matthew, but he let his emotions get in the way. He doesn't pass." Then, she stared at me and said, "Starting tomorrow, you'll be transferred to the logistics department to handle office supply purchasing. Matthew will take over your position as manager." I frowned. "Have you lost your mind?"

After the Sullivan Group went bankrupt, I abandoned everything and followed Jessica to Tylen City. It took her five years, but she eventually inherited her father's legacy and climbed back into the top three on the Forbes rankings. Yet, she never once brought up any word about marriage. That lasted until the night before the Day of the Dead. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her lighting candles while facing the direction of Cinea. "Dad, Mom, forgive me. I couldn't visit you this year because of work, but please continue to protect Chris and bless us with happiness for the rest of our lives." When I heard this, warmth filled my heart. My health was on the frail end of the scale. In the past, she always returned on her own since she didn't want me to be exhausted over this. This year, I decided to make the trip on her behalf after seeing the longing hidden in her eyes. However, what I never expected was to see the name of her former fiancé beside her name on the gravestone. Moreover, his title was engraved as her husband. As I looked further down, I saw another name beneath theirs. It was a name that belonged to their three-year-old son. At that moment, I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning. Only then did I realize that it wasn't Christopher she was referring to when she said, "Chris." Instead, it was Christian.

On the day we were supposed to leave for our graduation trip to the Cloudspire Plateau, my girlfriend dropped off the face of the earth. While I waited at Bellwarren International Airport, my roommate sent me a strangely loaded message. "Elliot, don't panic. There's a big surprise coming." I felt relieved. I assumed Naomi was running late because she was getting dressed up. She'd always promised that the day we graduated, she'd put on a wedding gown and marry me. Then our class representative dropped a cash giveaway into the group chat. @Everyone: "Thanks to every student and faculty member here to witness Naomi Keller and Derek Vaughn's engagement! Three years together, and they finally made it official!" It was cleaned out in seconds. One classmate after another posted congratulations. Then somebody finally put it together and wrote, "Holy hell, Owen. Did you forget to take Elliot out of this group?" The chat went dead silent. A second later, all of them started tagging me. "Elliot, don't come down here and make a scene. They've been together in secret for three years. It wasn't easy getting to this day." "You're so controlling that Derek couldn't show his face for three years. He's been through enough." Even our faculty adviser piled on. "Do it as a favor to me. You're a man, so be the bigger person. Don't ruin their night. Let them keep some dignity." Their messages closed in around me until I couldn't breathe, let alone ask a single question. The promise that was supposed to carry us from school uniforms to a wedding gown wasn't the only lie. Every part of those four years had been one.

For seven years, my CEO girlfriend never once came home with me to see my parents. She told me that she hated social obligations, and that she didn't want to deal with the gossip and hassle that came with meeting my parents and relatives. Even in daily life, she treated me with cold professionalism, never spending any anniversaries with me in favor of working overtime. I'd always thought that it was just a simple matter of her being too rational and prideful, and I was fine with slowly teaching her how to nurture a relationship. That was, until Thanksgiving arrived. Once again, she stressed that holidays were just a capitalistic norm, and that she was going to work overtime instead of coming home with me. By chance, however, I accidentally stumbled upon my intern's social media. Inside a private room at a five-star hotel, he and his family sat at a table as my girlfriend sat beside him, carefully serving him food. [Yo, my boss secretly brought my parents into the city for Thanksgiving, and even gave me gifts! She told me that I was worth special gestures, too. Where can you even find a boss this romantic? My parents even told me to marry her as soon as I could! LOL!] So she knew better than anyone how to make people feel cherished. I just wasn't worth any of it. I commented: [How romantic.] Then, I messaged my girlfriend. [Let's break up.]

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.

After three years away on business, I finally came home. My five-year-old daughter hid behind my wife, peeking out timidly as she asked, “Mommy, who’s that man?” I stood in the doorway, still holding the princess dress and puzzle I had bought for her. My wife, Heather Whitfield, had just come out of the kitchen. She had not even had time to take off her apron. The moment she saw me, she instinctively pulled our daughter, Nicole Lowe, behind her. “Desmond, why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?” My throat tightened. “The project wrapped up early. I can stay home from now on.” Nicole peeked out from behind her mother, revealing half of her little face. “Mommy, I don’t want him. I want Daddy.”

My fiancée, Summer Walker, and I were supposed to spend our honeymoon on a tropical island. Instead, she brought my two best friends along. I didn't think much of it, so I joined them for a game of Truth or Dare. After several rounds and several drinks, I was starting to feel tipsy. Adam Lewis and Joseph Thompson laughed and teased me for being such a lightweight. Then the bottle landed on my fiancée. Summer chose Truth. One of my friends asked, "What's your biggest secret?" She lowered her head, a blush slowly spreading across her face as her hand instinctively moved to cover her belly. I was about to smooth things over when both men rushed to offer to drink for her. Neither was willing to back down. Finally, Summer spoke. "I'm pregnant." Excitement surged through me, and I leaned in to kiss her. Then I noticed something was wrong. One man had clenched his knee so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. The other's fingers were trembling. They spoke at the exact same time. "Whose is it?" I froze. Summer lifted her head, her gaze darting between them. "I don't know." One of them ordered the driver to pull over. The moment the motorhome stopped, both men spilled outside and started fighting beside the guardrail along the coastal highway. Summer curled up in her seat and clung to my hand, crying as she apologized over and over. I pulled my hand free and stepped outside. The sea wind struck my face, stinging my eyes. In the distance, the two men were still wrestling with each other. We hadn't even reached the island yet, but as far as I was concerned, this trip was already over.