Middle-Aged Short Stories & Novels

I was in San Aria Bay with my mom, enjoying a quiet, sunlit getaway, when my phone suddenly lit up with a string of messages from my husband's ever-arrogant secretary. She sent a photo. The woman in it had been stripped naked, her body covered in blood, the sight almost unbearable. A voice message followed, her tone dripping with disdain. "Jeannie, do people like you always take advantage of others like this? "Mr. Smith just bought this house, and you already had your mother move in for free? As his chief secretary, it's my responsibility to remove anyone living off him."

By year's end, I'd closed a huge deal and snagged a $2.5 million bonus. The company even sent me on early maternity leave—nice perk for being eight months pregnant. Pauline found me lounging on the couch. "Why aren't you at work?" I cracked a joke. "Got fired. Guess I'll be stuck here playing housewife." Her response? A slap across my back. "Then get off and do the laundry! You're having a girl, not a son, and you think you can sit around like some princess?" My husband, Logan, walked in right then. He just pulled her into the nursery. Feeling hurt, I switched on the hidden cameras I'd secretly installed. I thought maybe he'd defend me. Yeah, no. What I uncovered? It was so much worse. Twisted secret after twisted secret.

The day before I am supposed to move into a nursing home, my daughter-in-law, Emily Freeman, cancels the deposit I have already paid without my permission. "It's not easy for Ryan to earn money. Instead of helping us save money, you want to stay somewhere so expensive," Emily complains. I frown and explain that I paid with my own money. Her expression darkens as she rants, "Isn't your money our money? Besides, how much money can you possibly have? Didn't you get all of it from Ryan anyway? "You don't help take care of the kids or do any housework. Now, you're just bleeding us dry so that you can enjoy yourself!" My son, Ryan Pratt, sides with her and criticizes me as well. "Mom, this is such a waste of money. If you ask me, you might as well go to a senior community and get a bed there for ten dollars. Someone will still take care of you." I am so furious that I faint on the spot and am rushed to the hospital. With the refunded money, Ryan takes Emily and goes on vacation abroad with his in-laws. After being discharged, the first thing I do is put the apartment I once gave my son as a wedding gift up for sale with a real estate agent.

My dad’s crush came back, and my mom decided to fake her death. “Jane, I’m the main character of a tragic story. If I don’t fake my death now, I’ll end up miserable. “Go tell your dad that Quiana killed me.” In my past life, I had done exactly as she said. My dad had flown into a rage and destroyed the Sullivan family. After that, my mom returned to the land of the living. I thought our family would finally be whole again. Instead, she clung to Dad and cried. “I gave Jane my contact information. How could she say I was dead?” To punish me, my dad locked me in a cold storage room. My mom shot me a cold look. “That’s what you get for calling that woman pretty.” In the cold storage room, at −58°F, I froze to death. When I opened my eyes again, my mom had already faked her death and ran off with her devoted admirer. I looked at my dad and asked with an innocent expression, “Dad, what does eloping mean?”

My sister, Megan Tate, suffers from a bizarre illness. Whenever she sees me, she convulses, vomits and sometimes even brings up blood. From then on, I become the invisible person in the house. I'm forbidden to appear anywhere Megan can see me. At first, my parents and my childhood friend, Kendrick Brown, still feel sorry for me, but as Megan's smiles grow more frequent, they gradually forget I exist. On the day I turn 18 years old, I sneak into the dining room while Megan is taking a nap in her room. Seeing a table full of delicious food and a huge cake, I happily run into my mom, Ellie Baker's, arms. "Mom, I know you guys still love me and won't forget about my birthday." The moment I finish speaking, Mom suddenly grabs my arm and yanks me under the dining table. "Megan is here. Don't come out." I'm stunned. Only now do I realize that all the food and cake on the table are for Megan. Even the pearl necklace Kendrick has brought is for her. And once again, I'm the "jinx" they've all forgotten about.

As soon as my neighbor, Shirley Lambert, walked past my house and peeked inside, her eyes lit up. "Mrs. Fisher, this place is huge. It has great lighting too. It'd make the perfect playroom for my son. "You live alone anyway. Just move into our living room. A two-bedroom apartment has more than enough space. "Since we're neighbors, I'll let you stay for free. No rent." I felt so irritated that I nearly gagged. She actually shoved past me into the house and started pointing around like she owned the place. "This crappy couch has to go. The living room would feel way bigger without it. "Oh, and the whole floor needs carpeting. That'd make it safe for my son when he runs around. "Also, why don't you have an air-conditioner? What if my precious boy gets a heat stroke? Could you even afford his medical bills?" She suddenly turned around and glared at me. "Mrs. Fisher, I'm talking to you. Are you deaf? Haven't you got any manners?" Anyone who didn't know better would've thought I was her servant and not her neighbor. I snorted. Clearly, she had no idea about my reputation as the neighborhood menace. "Well, I see you've got plenty of money, and I've got deep pockets. Why don't you hand all your cash over to me for keeping? "And if you like other people's houses so much, I'll write that for you in my letter to Santa this Christmas!"

My mate, Kael, got killed by rogues while trying to save me. He left behind a debt of ten million and a child, not yet a year old. Out of guilt and longing for Kael, I refused the advances of many excellent werewolves and never accepted a second chance, mate. I worked endlessly to raise my child and pay off the debt. But during a business meeting at a hotel, I saw my mate—who was supposed to be dead—lying in bed with my stepsister, Lila.

During the Christmas holidays, my parents began our family meeting with the yearly "family support vote." Our family's only recommendation letter for Oxford's architecture program lay on the table. My name had originally been on it. "I vote for Camilla." My older brother, Evan Prescott, was the first to raise his hand. "She just went through a breakup. She needs to get away to Europe for a while." "I vote for Camilla too." My mother kept filing her nails as she talked. "Selena can go to community college. Camilla's grades are bad. Without a recommendation letter, she won't get in anywhere." My father didn't hesitate. He slid the recommendation letter across the table to Camilla. "Three votes to one, Selena. It's settled." My younger sister, Camilla Prescott, picked up the letter and smiled sweetly. "Thanks, Selena. You've always been the independent one. I knew you wouldn't hold this against me." I looked at that letter. To earn it, I'd stayed up late for six straight months and drawn more than 300 designs. To them, all my hard work was just a way to get my sister's foot in the door. I stood up. I didn't cry, and I didn't demand an explanation. "Fine. If that's how you voted, give it to her." I turned, walked back to my room, and pulled out the suitcase I'd packed a long time ago. What they didn't know was that my own designs had already earned me an offer of direct admission to Harvard. That letter felt like a handout. I wanted nothing to do with it.

On New Year's Eve, my in-laws, Richard Prescott and Leona Reed, had flown back to have dinner at my place. However, our butler, Rupert Williams, had only prepared two plates of cold lobster rolls even though I had specifically reminded him that Leona was allergic to lobster. Rupert looked at me with his usual stiff expression and said, "Mr. Shaw, I understand that people from your background like to take advantage of situations. Your parents showing up for a free holiday meal doesn't surprise me." He added, "But as Ms. Jaclyn Prescott's most trusted butler, I have a duty to protect the Prescott family assets from being touched by questionable individuals, even if it's just a dinner. That said, I'm not heartless enough to let two elderly people go hungry. "Here are some leftover expired lobster rolls. Your parents can eat them and leave. Ms. Prescott is very busy with work, and I can't have her come home later only to deal with your poor parents." I froze for a moment, then realized he had mistaken Jaclyn's parents for mine. He was deliberately trying to humiliate me like he always did. I was about to explain when Richard and Leona, furious, turned to leave. However, Rupert called for the security guards to block their way. "I can understand that people from rural areas might lack proper manners, but wasting food is still a bad habit. Since the lobster rolls have already been prepared, I insist you finish them before you go."

I was diagnosed with cancer. After much deliberation, I called my husband. He fell silent for a long while. “Most of our mortgage is unpaid, and our children need money for school. You should go for conservative treatment.” I called my mother while weeping. “You’re so troublesome. None of my friends or family have cancer!” I stopped crying and started living for myself. God favored me and let me see reality early in my life. He even gave me a chance to start over.

Mom always said she loved my younger brother Derek and me equally, but she had selective hearing. I've been gluten intolerant since I was little. I told her over and over not to make sandwiches, but she never listened. At every meal, she made Derek's favorite sandwiches. When Derek and I both came down with fevers, she couldn't hear me mumbling deliriously through a high fever, but the second he whimpered, she stayed at his bedside all night. When we were both living away from home, she turned a blind eye to me pinching pennies in a cramped apartment. But the moment Derek complained that he "needed a better space for networking," she didn't hesitate to make the down payment on a luxury condo for him. My heart went cold, and I learned my own kind of selective hearing. I used to hand over most of my paycheck for what she called the "family fund" and to cover Derek's bills. Now, I couldn't hear her hinting that I should keep bankrolling the family. The only thing I could hear was whether my dog was hungry. All the money that used to go toward Derek's bills went straight to the dog instead. This time, the one who lost it was Mom.

After my adoptive parents finally find their biological son, Jason Miller, he decides to turn our lives into a full-blown drama about the real heir versus the imposter in a wealthy family. He has security cameras installed all over the house for no apparent reason, not even sparing the bathroom. One day, while he's showering, an electrical fault in one of the cameras sends a shock through him and lands him in the hospital. His eyes blazing with anger, he accuses me of trying to get rid of him to our parents and insists on calling the police. On another occasion, when we have dinner at a hotel, he slips and falls into the swimming pool, then tries to drag me in with him. He claims I've pushed him into the water and that if he hadn't reacted quickly enough to pull me in, I would have killed him. While our parents are out paying our hospital bills, he shoots me a vicious glare and hisses, "Let me tell you something. I'm not like those other idiots who just swallow their pride and put up with everything. You can't fool my parents about who you really are!" He then swears, "I'll make sure you get kicked out of this family." I sneer inwardly. Does this poor idiot really have no idea? I'm the one who's built this family's fortune from the ground up! If I walk away with the wealth I've earned, he won't be much of a rich kid anymore.

On my mother’s seventieth birthday party, I ran around handling various matters, paying out of pocket and putting in all the work. I did not even have the time to sit down and drink a sip of water. When I finally found the time to surprise her, I prepared eighty-eight grams of gold jewelry as her gift. Just as I was about to give it to her, I heard her talking to the other relatives. “See that? My daughter is truly my sweetheart. She woke up so early this morning to bake me this cake. I wouldn’t trade this cake for gold.” Our relatives immediately began praising my younger sister, Jessie Radley, for being so devoted. Only a couple of them pushed back. “Why aren’t you praising your eldest daughter, Mary? I heard she handled the entire birthday party.” “Tch. She only knows how to muddle through things. None of it had been done to my liking. Jessie is the good one. She got up at seven in the morning just to bake me this cake.” I turned around and walked away from the doorway. Since she loved Jessie so much, she could pay for this birthday party, worth eighty thousand dollars.

When Peter, my father-in-law, suffered a heart attack and needed an urgent transplant, the hospital miraculously had a compatible heart. Helen, my mother-in-law and I were overjoyed. We thought it was a blessing from above. However, just as we were getting ready for surgery, Nate, my husband, disappeared with the compatible heart. When we finally reached him by phone, it was Camile, his first love. “Nate is busy prepping for my dad’s heart surgery. Stop distracting him!” Helen was trembling with fury. On her way to confront Nate, she got into a car accident and ended up in a critical condition. I begged Nate to come back and operate on her, but he walked into another operating room. In the end, my in-laws died. Their bodies were donated for organ transplant. It was not until later that I found out that their organs had been donated to Camile’s family.

When I was seven, my constant vomiting got so bad that my mother took me to court and accused me of being born dangerous. If the charge stuck, I would be stripped of my family ties and sent straight to prison. Everyone said my mother was overreacting. "He's just a kid. Kids get sick. As his mother, you should be more understanding." But the moment the evidence was shown, the room went dead quiet. My mother had drunk herself into a stomach bleed just to land a contract, and the second she got home, I threw up all over it. The deal was voided, and she lost her job on the spot. On my sister, Ophelia Sowle's, birthday, I threw up all over her cake right in front of all her classmates. After that, she was shunned by everyone at school. She spiraled into depression and even slashed her wrists. It didn't matter where I was, at the dinner table or under the covers. I could start vomiting at any moment. My mother and Ophelia had to clean me up more than 30 times a day. It wore them down to the breaking point. What infuriated them the most was that every time I finished throwing up, I would look at them and laugh, as if I was mocking them. The judge brought the gavel down and declared me guilty of being born bad. Ophelia's eyes turned red as she cried, saying she couldn't bear to lose me. I didn't cry or fight it. I accepted the verdict. But I requested that the judge watch my memories first. The judge looked stunned. "Memory extraction means drilling into your brain. The pain is unbearable. Are you sure?" I nodded without hesitation. But Ophelia suddenly panicked. "I don't agree!"

At sixty-five, I got served divorce papers. The same day, my husband Sebastian — decked out in his wedding suit, of all things — popped a handful of sleeping pills in a suicide attempt. For years, we were the perfect couple. The kind of pair neighbors whispered about with envy. I couldn't wrap my head around it. The divorce. The pills. None of it made sense. Not until I found the photo and letter in his pocket.

To ensure fairness, my daughter said that she would draw lots to choose whose family to spend the New Year’s with every year. However, for the past nine years, she had spent the New Year’s with her in-laws. The latest draw was no different. On New Year’s Eve, my daughter gave me specific instructions. “Mom, we’re spending the New Year’s with my in-laws. We’ve made a reservation at the most expensive restaurant in town. Please help me save some money. You can just make some food at home for your dinner.” Hence, on New Year’s Eve, I ate alone while watching TV at home. When I stood up, I accidentally knocked over the raffle box. All the lots inside the box had my daughter’s handwriting. The words ‘in-laws’ were clearly written on every single one of them. For the past ten years, the lots had been fake. My daughter was willingly spending the New Year’s celebration with her in-laws, and she had never once thought of spending it with me, her biological mother, who had spent so much money on her. At the same time, I got a notification on my phone. Her mother-in-law posted something on social media. [My daughter-in-law is so lovely. She bought me so many gifts and chose to spend the New Year’s with us. It’s as if she’s our own daughter!] They smiled brightly in the video. On the table were gifts that she bought using my retirement fund. I did not sleep for the whole night. The next morning, I called the bank. “Please remove all the auto-debit accounts from my retirement account.” From then on, I would only spend my money on myself.

When my sister and I were born, a witch prophesied that once my wolf awakened, it would kill my sister. To protect her, my parents had the witch place a curse on me. As long as my body temperature stayed above 102°F, my wolf could never awaken. For eighteen long years, I suffered through burning fevers every single day. On my eighteenth birthday, my wolf was on the verge of awakening. To prevent any chance of it happening, they kicked me into the heat chamber. I cried and begged them to let me out. But my father said, "Are you trying to awaken behind our backs? You know your wolf will kill your sister. Is that what you want? To drive her to her death?" The chamber was scorching, searing down to my bones. I pounded on the door with everything I had. "Mom, it's so hot in here! I'm in so much pain! Please let me out!" "Oh, stop putting on an act." My mother's voice was sharp and cutting. "Just tough it out and the awakening will pass! Your wolf can't awaken, and then your sister will finally be safe. Why are you always so selfish?" Footsteps faded into the distance. Sweat poured from my forehead, dripping onto my clothes, only to be quickly baked dry by the heat. I curled up in a corner, wrapped in waves of heat and pain. Eventually, my mind went dark, my body gave out, and my breathing stopped.

For ten years, I woke at three every morning to knead dough for my breakfast stall, all so I could put my daughter through college. Hot oil splattered across my arms day after day, leaving scars on my forearms that would never fully fade. But today, just when I desperately needed the money to keep my stall open, I discovered that the $200,000 in my bank account was gone. It was not until I got the bank statement that I learned the truth. My daughter had reconnected with her biological mother back in middle school. All these years, she had been secretly transferring money to her. When I confronted her over the phone, I cried so hard I could barely breathe. "That money was our retirement savings!" But she only laughed impatiently. "Stop saying you raised me. You didn't even give birth to me. My biological mother is the one who gave me life. Consider the money you spent on me your way of showing her respect." The call ended with a cold beep. It felt like a blade had been driven straight through my heart. I rushed home like a madwoman to find my husband. I thought he would at least feel sorry for us losing our retirement savings. Instead, he sat calmly on the couch and took a sip of coffee. "Blood runs thicker than water. Stop being so selfish." That $200,000 was the money we needed to survive. And he was actually lecturing me about blood ties, when he was nothing more than her adoptive father too.

Madam Pratt, my mother-in-law, was in critical condition after a car accident, desperately needing surgery. However, as the lead surgeon, I—Lilianne Davis—stood by, casually scrolling through short videos on my phone. My best friend, Tiffany Owens, who was also a doctor, was far more anxious than I was. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the operating room. “Lily, why are you still stalling? Hurry up and save her!” I took a step back, clutching my stomach in pain as her face twisted in shock. “I have cramps so bad I can’t even stand. You do it.” In my last life, the moment I heard about Madam Pratt’s accident, I had swallowed a painkiller and rushed into surgery, working for hours to stabilize her. I had barely stepped away from the operating table when alarms blared. “Lilianne, what have you done? The patient is experiencing acute hemolysis!” “Call the family now!” Gareth Pratt stormed in, his face twisted with rage. He slapped me hard in the face. “Lil, you’re a professional surgeon, yet you gave my mother the wrong blood transfusion?!” I froze, reaching for Madam Pratt’s medical report to explain, only to find that the A-type blood I had seen before had somehow changed to B-type. The medical board arrived, and a blood test revealed traces of hallucinogens in my system. “Unbelievable! Taking illegal substances before surgery? That’s a cardinal sin for a doctor!” In the chaos, Emma Pratt, Gareth’s teenage sister, grabbed a scalpel and stabbed me multiple times. Blood gushed from my arteries, and I collapsed in a pool of crimson. As my vision faded, I couldn’t understand what had happened. I had never taken illegal drugs. Besides, I was absolutely certain of Madam Pratt’s blood type. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the moment right before stepping into the operating room.