Historias cortas y novelas de Marriage

The day I catch my fiancée, Autumn Freeman, in bed with another man, the guy on top of her deliberately slashes his own face. Autumn throws herself in front of him, refusing to budge. Even as I fall apart right there, she refuses to let me get a clear look at his face. She turns to me, her voice breaking as she pleads through her tears. "This is all my fault. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I only ask that you leave him alone, Clark Ballard." After that day, Autumn gives up her privacy. She hands me her phone every day and installs hidden cameras in her car herself. Even when patients text her, I grill her about it. She accepts everything without complaint, doing whatever it takes just to win me back. But when I go to pick up my suit three days before our wedding, the clerk gives me a puzzled look. "Mr. Ballard, you already picked up your suit this morning. I just came across a video of your wedding online." In the video she pulls up, Autumn's close friends, who were calling me Autumn's husband just yesterday, are handing rings to the newlyweds. Our mutual friends are standing right there, too, and Autumn looks absolutely radiant with happiness. Blushing, she gazes at the groom and softly calls out to him. "Kev." Hearing the groom's name, along with seeing a face that looks exactly like mine, leaves me rooted to the spot.

For five years, I had stood by my girlfriend as she worked her way from a tiny street stall to a successful chain of stores. Three times, I waited for her to finally give me a home. The first time, she bought a one-bedroom apartment. I packed my bags, ready to move in, only for her to hand the keys to her childhood friend, who had just gone through a divorce. "He's raising his daughter on his own. It isn't safe for them to live somewhere else," she told me. "Just stay with me in the basement for a few more months." The second time, she bought a two-bedroom apartment. I had already bought new sheets and gotten everything ready. Then, by some twist of fate, her childhood friend's apartment caught fire. She gave the new place to him and his daughter, then took me back to the cramped room behind the store. When I told her I wanted to leave, she hugged me with tears in her eyes. "Just wait a little longer. Once we buy a three-bedroom place, I promise I'll finally give you a real home." I stayed with her for another two years because of that promise. Finally, the day came when the new house was ready. I rushed over with the suit lookbook I had kept for so long, only to find her childhood friend already there, holding his daughter's hand as they picked out bedrooms. My girlfriend stopped me and lowered her voice. "He's fighting his ex-wife for custody. He needs a stable home if he wants a chance of keeping his daughter. Stay at the store with me for one more year. Once he gets custody, I'll bring you home right away." The suit catalog slipped from my hands and hit the floor. That was when I finally understood. It was not that she had never been able to give me a home. It was that every time, she chose someone else. This time, I was not waiting anymore. I no longer wanted the "home" she spoke of. I would leave her to care for the one person she had always wanted to protect.

It's the third year since my wife, Joyce Sinclair, cheated on me. I spread her intimate photos with her male assistant, Bryan Long, on the internet. Then, I doused myself in gasoline and threatened to drag everyone down to hell with me. Bryan's so scared that he flees the city that very night. I think I've won. However, to settle my lawsuit and cover the damages, my older sister, Rachel Lovett, sells her house and takes out high-interest loans. In the end, the burden becomes too much for her, and she jumps from a high-rise building. Her voice is hoarse in the recording she leaves me. "That's enough, Ray. We've lost everything. Mom and Dad have aged overnight, and I can't take it anymore..." Mom clutches Rachel's belongings and cries until she passes out. Dad's emaciated hands clamp around my neck as he demands at the top of his lungs, "How many more lives do you have to destroy before you're satisfied?" Tears silently trail down my cheeks, and I finally come to my senses. I no longer neurotically look into every single man around Joyce, and I stop badgering her with questions about the scent of men's cologne on her. Even when I walk in on her staring at a photo of her and Bryan and reminiscing about the past, I take the initiative to bring him back. It all comes to a head when Bryan wishes to become Joyce's lawfully wedded husband on his birthday. Without the slightest hesitation, I print out the divorce agreement, sign and seal it, and deliver it to him. To my surprise, Joyce rips the agreement to shreds. She grips my chin and demands hysterically, "Raymond Lovett, what happened to the stubborn man who'd rather die than divorce me? Where is he now?"

My wife, Sarah, was the executive chef at a renowned Michelin-starred restaurant in town. Her culinary creations were famous across the city, making a reservation nearly impossible to secure. Yet in our ten years of marriage, she had never cooked me a single meal at home. She always claimed that cooking was just her job, and when she came home, she didn’t want to set foot in the kitchen. Naturally, I wanted to visit her restaurant and taste her food. However, every time I brought it up, she insisted that all the tables were fully booked and told me not to make a scene. Everything changed when my mother’s seventieth birthday approached. Half a month in advance, I asked Sarah if she could reserve a table at her restaurant for a family celebration. To my surprise, she readily agreed. On the day of the dinner, I walked arm-in-arm with my mother, followed by around thirty of our relatives. Yet, when we arrived, the receptionist informed us there was no reservation under our name at all. Panicked, I called Sarah more than a dozen times, and she didn’t answer a single call. With no other choice, I swallowed my pride and rushed in, hoping to find her so she could let us in. The moment I pushed the doors open, I froze. Sarah stood there in a spotless white apron, meticulously placing a tiny chocolate car onto a five-tiered birthday cake, and standing right beside her was Mark, her high school sweetheart. As it turned out, today was his son's first birthday party. So it was never that she didn’t know how to care for her family; it was simply that I was never the family she cared about. I quietly backed out of the room, turned around, and reserved a table at another restaurant instead. If she didn’t want to cook for me, then from this day on, I would never ask for her cooking again.

When I went to get a replacement copy of our marriage certificate, the clerk at the registrar's office told me, "This certificate is a forgery. There's no record of your marriage in the system." "But Michele and I got married four years ago, at St. Mary's Church. We had witnesses..." I steadied my breathing. "Please check again." The clerk sighed and clicked her mouse a few times. "We found a registration for Michele Corleone, but the spouse listed isn't you." My voice shook. "Who's his legal wife?" The clerk answered without looking up. "Rita Greco." Before I heard that name, I'd still been telling myself the system might have made a mistake. But of course it was Rita, Michele's childhood sweetheart. Suddenly everything made sense. In the four years I'd spent as Michele's wife, he'd never once held my hand in public. No famiglia galas, no formal introductions. Some of the Corleones didn't even know my name. I'd asked him why, and he'd told me, "It's to protect you. In the underworld, the less visible you are, the safer you are." I'd believed him. Now I finally understood. The marriage I'd poured everything into, the one I'd believed in for four years, had been fake from the very beginning. I'd never once been let into his real life. And as the woman who'd made that mistake, only one path was left to me. With trembling fingers, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in four years. [Papa, I want to come home.]

I'm the Donna of the Vitale family, the wife of Domenico Vitale, the woman everyone is expected to bow to. Yet whether I need to access family funds, arrange a car, make a doctor's appointment, or even prepare a gown for a party, I must submit an application first. The woman who approves every request is Camilla Marino, Domenico's most trusted secretary. He says this is family protocol. As the Donna, I should be the first to follow the rules. Things change when I suffer a massive hemorrhage during my pregnancy. My request for emergency medical treatment is pending approval, yet I have already waited longer than I should have. I call Domenico and beg, "Domenico, please. Tell Camilla to approve it. We're going to lose our baby." He gently scolds me for trying to bypass family protocol. "Do as Camilla says." Just like that, he hangs up. That night, I lose my baby, as well as whatever love I have left for Domenico. I file for divorce and leave with nothing but a few clothes I owned before the marriage. He's convinced I'm doing this out of jealousy toward Camilla, that it is a calculated scheme to make him come crawling after me. He even tracks me down at my new place of work and publicly orders my medical treatment to be stopped, certain that once I lose the Vitale family's money and protection, I'll have no choice but to beg him. Trembling, our private physician tells him the truth. "Don Vitale, Signora miscarried a long time ago."

In my last life, I fought for power, kept the books, and built alliances for my fiancé from the Fire clan until I had secured his position as heir. On the night of the victory banquet, he killed me with his own hands. He said Sophia was the woman he truly loved. I had taken her place and forced their love into the shadows. They had been conspiring all along, and even the child I had raised so lovingly was their illegitimate son. I died consumed by hatred. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the marriage contract was to be signed. This time I wrote Sophia's name on it.

In the fifth year of my secret marriage to Dante Greco, a notorious Los Angeles mafia heir, I became pregnant. While I was at the family hospital for a prenatal checkup, I happened to see Vivienne Sarti's Instagram. "He says I'm still pretty even when I'm pregnant!" In the photo, she was lying lazily in a man's arms. My chest tightened at once. On his finger was the lion-head ring worn by the Greco Don. I tapped the "Like" button. Seconds later, Vivienne called me. "Ana, I wasn't trying to upset you. I was—" Before Vivienne could finish, Dante snatched the phone from her. "Anna Reid, who gave you permission to monitor our social media accounts? I've explained it to you plenty of times. We grew up together, and our families work together. If you keep getting jealous like this, how are the rest of us supposed to function?" I gripped my phone. For five years, Vivienne had used their childhood bond as an excuse to insult me. I had endured it every time. Dante would spend whole nights with Vivienne under the pretext of discussing family business. The moment I asked about it, he refused to say a word. He always said it was because I had no mafia background of my own. It wasn't my world, and I was done trying to force my way into it. I took off my wedding ring and dropped it in a trash can on the street. Then I called the private hospital. "Hello. I want today's prenatal record deleted. No one can know about it."

At the company's tenth-anniversary celebration, my wife's male secretary was in charge of the raffle. When it was time for the grand prize, he somehow drew his own name. My wife asked him what he wanted, and he pointed at the watch on my wrist. I flatly refused. How could a personal belonging be used as a prize? But the male secretary turned to my wife and whined, "That watch is a limited edition. There's only one in the world." My wife signaled for me to give the watch to him. I argued my case, but my wife slapped me across the face instead. "It's just a watch. Don't ruin the mood of the anniversary celebration." I smiled, took off the watch, and handed it to her secretary. It was a wedding gift from her that I had treasured for years, but now, I had decided to throw away both the watch and her.

When my husband’s family was caught in a massive pileup on the highway, he was at the beach with his first love. I didn’t call and demand that he come back. I simply dialed 911. Because in my previous life, I’d stopped him from going to the beach with her. Instead, he came with me to rush his family to the hospital. While he was gone, his first love was swept out to sea and drowned. When I found out, I was overwhelmed with guilt. But my husband told me it wasn’t my fault. I thought he’d forgiven me. Then, on our wedding anniversary, he took me to the beach. Right in front of me, he killed our daughter and threw her into the ocean for the sharks to devour. Then he held me underwater and waited for them to tear me apart. “This is all your fault! She’d still be alive if it weren’t for you! “You can die with her!” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the accident.

My mother, Dahlia Everson, falls seriously ill and has to undergo emergency treatment. The hospital has issued five critical condition notices for her. While fighting back tears, I call my wife, Nina Jeanes. I tell her, "Mom might not make it. Can you come and see her? She has always cared about you the most…" I hear only the sound of someone typing on the other end. After a long while, Nina finally replies, "Death comes for everyone. It's nothing. I have a court hearing tomorrow, so remember to get me breakfast from that restaurant I frequent." Her indifference makes my heart ache fiercely. After ten years of marriage, she remains as cold as ice. She's always this cold and detached, whether toward me or anyone else. Even when Mom is at death's door, she's thinking of tomorrow's breakfast as if the situation doesn't concern her at all. The only time she's ever shown any visible mood swing is when she had an miscarriage a few years ago. I saw her caressing her stomach sorrowfully in the bedroom. Back then, I naively assumed that she wasn't naturally apathetic but simply didn't know how to express herself. One day, I'm on the way home when I see her tussling with a restaurant owner's wife without a care for her image. She looks nothing like an elite lawyer. I hear her yell, "How do you have the nerve to betray Will when he treats you so well?" It's the first time in ten years that I've seen her looked completely unhinged. In that moment, I realize something—her coldness had always been reserved only for me.

Late one night, I came across a post asking everyone to share their wedding photos. I was about to leave mine in the comments when I saw a pinned reply. It was a set of wedding photos of my wife and my cousin. My mind went blank. I clicked into the poster's profile. There were more than a hundred posts, and almost all of them were wedding photos. I scrolled all the way down and opened the first one. At the top of the comments was a message from my childhood best friend: [Finally public! I've been waiting forever for this. Wishing you two a lifetime together!] Right below it was my mother's comment: [You both look wonderful. Take good care of each other.] There were also comments from mutual friends and relatives. Every single one of them was congratulating the couple. Something inside my head finally snapped. From beginning to end, I was the only person who hadn't known.

When I brought my girlfriend, Ivy Rossum, home to meet my family, my cousin, Kevin Lonsdale, snuck into her room, took off his clothes, and got into her bed. When we found him, he clutched the sheets and said in a shaking voice, “Paul, I didn’t do this on purpose. I thought I was going to my room.” It was the same excuse he had used before. Eight years ago, when I brought my first girlfriend home, he had done the exact same thing and used the same excuse. I finally called him out on it. “Everyone occasionally ends up at the wrong door, but how did you get in with the wrong keycard?” Kevin’s face went white, his tears suddenly halting. Dad defended him and scolded me. “Kevin has always been absent-minded, you know this! Look at him now. He’s had a shock. How could you humiliate him when he’s already in such a state?” I felt suffocated. I held strong and did my best not to tremble. I looked at the woman I had loved and kept secret from my family for six years and asked, “Ivy, how would you like to deal with this?”

Alexis Lomb gives me a bank card with a spending limit. I can spend up to 300 dollars a day. For any amount beyond that, I need to photograph the receipt and send it to her for approval. She says it's for financial transparency within the family. I follow her rules for three years. Last month, a physical exam reveals that I have a lung nodule. So, the doctor recommends a biopsy. I photograph the bill and send it to her. She replies instantly, "7,200 dollars? It's just one nodule. Can't you just monitor it for now?" I don't reply. I cancel the appointment. That evening, she comes home and tosses two shopping bags by the entrance. I recognize the logo. Upon taking out what's inside, I see it's a necklace worth 8,600 dollars. Under the shopping bags is a greeting card in her handwriting. It reads, "Happy birthday, Wes. You deserve the best." Wesley Leach is a new planner at her company. At a department dinner last week, he even grinned and asked me, "Emmett, Alexis is especially generous toward you, isn't she?" I put the card back where I found it. In the end, it is my dad, Vincent Selcer, who accompanies me to get the nodule checked. It turns out to be benign. When the result comes out, I don't tell Alexis. I tell the court instead. When she receives the summons, she texts me, "Can we sit down and talk things through?" At long last, I learn how to use her words against her. I text back, "Submit an application and wait for approval."

After discovering that Hugo Cavill's cheating on me, I develop severe depression. To put my mind at ease, he has two location-tracking bracelets custom-made for us. The first time I discover that the bracelet's location is at City Hall, I rush over, only to find my best friend, Vivian Walker, hand-in-hand with my younger brother, Kieran Crawford, waving at me. "Hugo accidentally left his bracelet in Kie's car yesterday, Bri. We are just about to bring it to you after we obtain our marriage certificate." The second time around, the bracelet's location shows that Hugo's at the hospital. Worried that something has happened to him, I hurry over, only to find the bracelet on Dad's wrist. "You came at just the right time, Bri! Hugo came to see your mom and me yesterday and left his bracelet behind. You really need to give him a good talking to. Without this bracelet, we'd be just as worried about him as you." The third time, the bracelet's location shows up at a wedding venue. Without telling a single soul, I hail a cab and race to the hotel, only to see Hugo onstage in a tuxedo, solemnly planting a kiss on Katalin Miller's forehead. Mom's and Dad's voices drift over from the corner. "I hope Bri doesn't find out too soon this time. She almost caught Hugo and Kat after their prenatal checkup at the hospital last time." Vivian and Kieran chime in. "It was the same when they registered their marriage. It's a good thing we went together that time." Someone sighs. "Whatever happens, we absolutely can't let Bri find out. God knows what she'll do given her condition." At that moment, a voice rings out in my mind. "They've all betrayed you. Is there any other reason for you to stay alive?"

The staff member handed the marriage certificate back to me. "Mr. Evans, this marriage certificate is a forgery. According to our records, Mrs. Fielder's spouse is Marcus Brown. They have a six-year-old son together." The words on the certificate blurred before my aching eyes. I held my daughter tightly in my arms as my ears rang. A second later, my phone vibrated. A message had arrived from Marcus, Natalie's assistant and her legal husband. Marcus: [Matthew, my wife is at our son's parent-teacher conference. She doesn't have time to register your illegitimate daughter.] I clutched my phone and stared at the message until tears blurred my vision. So I was the other man all along. The grand wedding we'd once held, the years we'd spent inseparable, the marriage I'd been so proud of... None of it had been real. On the way home, I called the woman Natalie hated most, her sworn enemy. "I'm single now. If you're still willing, I'll marry you in seven days," I said.

My husband, Adrian Locke, was obsessed with saving money. He said we needed to cut unnecessary spending, so I went three years without buying new clothes. He said our bills were too high, so I handed over my entire paycheck and lived on a 200-dollar monthly allowance. I ate at the hospital cafeteria, took the bus, and used the cheapest skincare products I could find. Then Jenna, the new intern in his department, had a birthday. Adrian spent 28,000 dollars on our joint credit card. He booked a luxury restaurant and filled a room with balloons and flowers. I texted him to see what he'd say. "The cafeteria raised the price of lunch by five cents, so I'll skip it." His reply came instantly. "Okay. Just eat more at home tonight." Then I got a notification. Jenna had posted nine photos on Instagram. The caption read, "Adrian said the internship has been exhausting, so I deserve to treat myself." So he wasn't frugal. Just with me. I cut that joint credit card in half, then called a lawyer. "Hello, I need legal advice about dividing marital property in a divorce."

My mother, Diane Sutton, was helping me into the bridal suite when she suddenly stumbled forward. Someone had smeared strong adhesive across the red carpet. Her shoe came off, and four of her toes poked through her torn stocking. My father, Martin Sutton, rushed over to help her, but as soon as he turned, everyone saw the sticky note on his back. "Clearance! 99 cents!" The room fell silent. Chiara Lombardi, Enzo Valli's assistant, couldn't hold back anymore. She burst out laughing, then said, "Look how embarrassing they look! I hereby declare the 100th test officially underway!" I froze. "Wasn't it already over?" Three years ago, Enzo told me he wanted to marry me. His father, Don Marco Valli, respected me as an attorney but believed my family background made me unfit to marry his son. So Marco and his advisor came up with 99 tests and put Chiara in charge of them. They hoped I'd eventually give up and call off the wedding myself. Over the next three years, Chiara replaced my toothpaste with mustard, swapped my shampoo for depilatory cream, and even released rats into my room at night. Whenever I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, Enzo would pull me into his arms and murmur, "Nora, just hang on a little longer. Once the tests are over, I promise no one will ever hurt you again." He could not openly defy the procedure the advisor had set, but he never once bothered to ask what Chiara had put me through. As long as we got married in the end, what I endured along the way didn't matter. Last night was the 99th test. I thought the nightmare was finally over. Then Chiara announced, "You passed. But your parents haven't! You're going to be the Donna one day. Your parents represent the Family too. If they can't handle something this minor, what good are they?" I turned to Enzo for help. He ruffled my hair as if soothing a petulant child. "Do as Chiara says. Just hang on a little longer." I'd put up with this for three years. I was done enduring it.

Everyone at Hartwell Group knew I loved Julian without a shred of dignity. I was the one who got him through his four most dangerous years. When there was an incident at one of the hotels, I went in his place. When the press had the group surrounded, I stood in front of the cameras for him. When protesters closed in on him, I put myself between them and took more than a dozen stitches in my arm. So when Julian gained full control of the group, our divorce became final, and he immediately announced his engagement to my sister Claire. Everyone looked at me with pity. I could accept that Julian did not love me. I could accept that on the very day our four-year marriage ended, he got engaged to my sister. I could even accept that the townhouse he promised me in the divorce settlement was given to Claire at the last minute. None of it had ever been freely given, so I had no right to ask for more. And besides... in four more days I was leaving New York.

My mate, Alex, had a childhood friend named Emily who was a healer. When she discovered that I was a highly sensitive person, she volunteered to put me through what she called 'desensitization therapy.' The first time, she told me I needed to learn to control my emotions, so she locked me in a noisy bar's storage room for an entire night. The second time, she said I needed to overcome my tactile sensitivity. She drenched me in ice-cold water and forced me to stand in the freezing wind for three hours. Alex was present every single time. Each time, he told her, "Thank you for all your hard work, Emily. I know how much you're doing for her." Then came the banquet, where she poured an entire vial of wolfsbane-laced potion into my champagne and announced that this would be my final desensitization therapy session. I clutched my swollen throat and collapsed to the floor. I couldn't speak or catch my breath. Alex merely frowned and said coldly, "Elena, this is for your own good. Just get through this one last session." Lying among the shattered glass, I closed my eyes and pressed the beacon badge I had never used before. When Dad finally burst through the doors, tears I'd held back for three years streamed down my face. It was time to end this.