Cerita Pendek Melodramatic & Novel Mistress Face Slapping

My best friend, Billy Steele, gets jilted at the altar by his heartless fiancée, Megan Landry. In tears, he begs my fiancée, Anna Faulkner, to step in and save the day. Anna reassures me, "Craig, Billy and I have known each other since childhood. We're closer than friends. Today's wedding is just a formality. You and I are getting married next week anyway, so think of this as a chance to get familiar with the wedding proceedings." For the sake of our friendship, I grit my teeth and nod in agreement. I watch as Anna, who is supposed to be a bridesmaid, becomes Billy's bride instead. Eyes brimming with love, Anna loops her arm through Billy's during the ceremony. When the officiant asks if she is willing to marry Billy, she answers with even more conviction than she does when I propose to her. I keep reassuring myself that it's all just an act and that I shouldn't take it seriously. But after they exchange rings, the officiant smiles and announces, "The groom may now kiss the bride." The guests immediately erupt into cheers and urge them to kiss. Billy pounds his chest and promises me, "Craig, don't worry. We'll just fake the kiss with a clever angle." I take him at his word. But in the very next second, Anna rises onto her tiptoes and pulls Billy into a deep, passionate kiss right in front of everyone.

Graham Mercer was allergic to cats, but he kept one anyway. And somehow, that cat always seemed to matter more to him than I did. When I crashed my e-bike and called him, he said he was busy cleaning the litter box. When the cat bit me, he took her straight to the vet before even checking on me, worried that I'd exposed her to germs. The day I lost my job, he casually tipped the pet sitter $1,437. That night, I scanned the QR code on the cat's collar. A photo popped up showing a young couple cuddling the cat. That was when I realized the pet sitter who kept coming over was Graham's ex. And the cat? She was theirs, too. They had raised her together back when they were dating. I closed the page, unblocked my own ex, and sent him a message. Me: [If you want to get back together, then try to win me over properly. Getting me fired is a pretty pathetic way to do it.]

The day my parents traveled all the way from home to discuss the wedding arrangements, the Miller family—led by Grayson Miller—showed up late. After my third call went unanswered, my mom forced a smile and tried to comfort me. "Maybe they're stuck in traffic. It's no big deal. Your dad and I don't mind waiting." And wait we did—for three hours. Their expressions slowly shifted from eager excitement to quiet sorrow. My dad kept tugging at the stiff, ill-fitting suit he rarely wore. Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore. His eyes reddened, and his voice trembled as he asked, "Sweetheart… does it have to be him? "I'm not trying to break you two up. It's just—you'll be thousands of miles away from us. If you ever get hurt, your mom and I… we won't be there in time to wipe your tears." My nails dug into my palms. Still, I smiled, helped my parents to their feet, and said: "Dad, Mom, let's go home. Forget the engagement. I don't want it anymore."

Sasha Barlow receives a call from Aidan Gallagher when she leaves the hospital after getting an abortion. He says, "Get ready. Mr. Conley is coming tonight, so bring five bottles of whiskey and three bottles of red wine." Sasha subconsciously clenches her hand around her phone. "Can I skip tonight?" Aidan pauses. "I know you're angry about yesterday, Sasha. Natalie hit you yesterday, but I reprimanded you instead of helping. "You need to remember that she's my girlfriend, though. She comes from a good family, and her parents have always treated her like a princess. She's bound to be a little willful and spoiled. You're older than her, so cut her some slack."

In the fifth year of her marriage, Natalie Shaw is taken to the police for the 199th time after being mistaken for a mistress. Someone comes to bail her out. Her face is covered in scratches and blood. A chunk of her hair has been ripped out, exposing raw, bleeding skin. It's a horrifying sight. She cries from the pain. But soon, she goes numb. She sits in the chair in silence, trying to untangle her hair, which has been clumped together by thick, sticky blood. Only when a police officer hands her a document and tells her she is free to leave does she slowly lift her head. And sure enough, the person who has come to bail her out is not her husband, Adrian Carter.

On April Fool’s Day, my CEO husband cut out my heart to save his childhood sweetheart's son. After the surgery, he tossed me into a cold rental apartment, where I died in agony. Three days after my death, my five-year-old daughter played in the room as usual. Walking by the sofa, she wrinkled her little nose and mumbled, "Mommy, there's a weird smell in here." She touched my face and murmured, "Mommy, are you pretending to be Snow White? Why are you so pale?" She shook my arm harder and raised her voice, "Mommy, it's my birthday today—get up and blow out the candles!" Confused, she picked up the phone and called her father. “Daddy, did I make Mommy mad? I lit the candles, but no matter how much I call her, she won’t wake up.” On the other end of the call, Patrick Hart’s voice was cold and impatient. “What could possibly be wrong with her? She’s just pretending to be asleep for sympathy. It’s Johnny’s birthday, I’m busy. Don’t bother me! Tell your melodramatic mother to stop playing her little tricks. I don't have time to humor her." My daughter removed the candle from her bun, pinched off a piece of the bun, and fed it to me. "Mommy, I made a secret wish… I really wish you could hold me again, just like before."

After I started dating Ryan Kellogg, I gave up the little rituals I had loved for twenty years. No birthday cakes. No fireworks on New Year's Eve. No more searching for the restaurant with the prettiest view on our anniversary. Ryan always said real life didn't need all that decorative nonsense. He only agreed to a modest engagement dinner because I insisted. But when he arrived that evening, he was wearing a perfectly tailored suit. Our friends and relatives looked at him with new respect. I was thrilled, convinced he was finally learning to meet me halfway. Then, on the drive home, I happened to see a post from Sophie Bennett, the younger graduate Ryan had been mentoring. In the photo, she stood beside him outside Bellhaven State University, wearing the heirloom brooch his late mother had meant for his future wife. Her caption read: My mentor said he never expected the first time he'd wear a full suit would be for my graduation. I scrolled farther. Ryan had sent Sophie flowers and a cake for her birthday. He'd even helped celebrate the adoption anniversary of her dog. I touched the empty place above my heart and felt something inside me turn cold. His romance was a privilege reserved for Sophie. Our engagement dinner had merely fit into his schedule. As we entered our apartment complex, Ryan tapped the steering wheel. "Han, I gave you the engagement dinner you wanted. Let's just do the courthouse ceremony next week and skip the wedding." I put away my phone and smiled. "All right." He was right about one thing. There was no reason for us to get married.

After we got engaged, my fiancee sent a child from abroad. She also sent an email along with it. [Noah, I was so bored overseas that I accidentally had a baby with Raivo Fallon. Since you’ve always been so eager to suck up to me, I’ll leave this child in your care. You can get some practice ahead of time so you’ll be ready to be our caregiver when I return home to Abrein.] Without a word, I handed the child over to the butler. Seven years later, all the CEOs stationed overseas returned to Abrein for their performance reviews. Laina Miller drove up in a Raypach, leading a large entourage that blocked me at the entrance to the Miller family residence. She held a cigarette between her lips, tilted her head, and took off her sunglasses. “Did you miss me that much? Did you wait here at the gate just for me? “Just so you know, for the sake of the child’s registration papers, Raivo and I got married overseas. From now on, you two will be brothers. You’ll share everything. “The Miller and Lewis families are now related by marriage. You don’t care about just a small piece of paper, do you?” After that, she blew several smoke rings in my direction. They choked me until tears streamed down my face. I wiped my tears away and hurriedly backed away. My child’s mother was the pettiest person I ever knew. She had warned me long ago to keep my distance from other younger female relatives. If she found out her niece was harassing her husband, the Miller family would be in an uproar.

When my father succumbed to a brutal illness, my world shattered. The day before his funeral, my fiancé abandoned me to marry his first love, which added to my grief. When I confronted him, his irritation was palpable. "Megan's dad is dying of cancer," he snapped. "His last wish is to see her get married. I did something good. Can't you see it?" That night, I called him, desperate for answers, only to hear that woman's smug voice. "Blake is in the shower. Can I help you?" I hung up without a word, my heart sinking. Later, he called back, exhausted and dismissive. "I'm swamped with wedding plans. Don't bother me with irrelevant things, okay?" Silence was my only response. I tossed the engagement ring into the trash and canceled our wedding plans, severing the ties that bound us.

Seven years after registering our marriage, my husband Gaius and I finally decided to hold the romantic wedding ceremony we had missed back then. That day, I wore the wedding gown I had designed myself and walked toward him with hopeful eyes. Before I could deliver my carefully prepared vows, an incident interrupted the moment. Amid the stunned murmurs of the guests, Gaius dashed toward the woman who had fainted—again—at my wedding. His voice trembled with urgency, eyes burning red. "Call an ambulance! Now!" He didn't even look back as he left the wedding hall. When the wedding bell rang seven times, I calmly pulled off my veil. Facing the guests who had yet to disperse, I smiled and said, "As you can see, today marks the divorce ceremony between Gaius and me. Please, eat and drink to your heart's content. Don't let the trip go to waste!"

At my husband's book launch, the young woman beside me leaned in close. "Are you a fan of Professor Gyver too? I don't think I've seen you here before." Julian and I had kept our marriage private, so I shook my head. "I was just passing by. It sounded lively in here, so I came in to look." She noticed the white cane by my feet, and understood at once. Onstage, the host asked Julian where the book had come from. He looked toward my side of the room, and his voice went soft. "I promised the person I love that we'd watch a sunrise together. It never happened, for various reasons. So I wrote the regret into the book." When it ended, applause filled the hall. The girl beside me went bounding up and threw herself into his arms. "Professor! The book's out. When are you taking me to see that sunrise you promised?" My smile froze on my face. The sunrise was mine. It had always been Julian's promise to me. Julian ruffled her hair, helpless, let his eyes sweep past me from across the room, then took her hand and left. He didn't know I could see again. That was the only reason I'd come. To tell him that the sunrise we'd waited so long for was finally ours to watch. He'd always said the auditorium was too crowded, that he couldn't find me. So I'd wait alone until every light went out, then leave with my cane. He could find me. That was never the problem. He just wanted a different girl beside him when the lights were on him. I dropped the plane tickets I'd bought for him into the trash. The sunrise doesn't wait. Neither do I.

At the National Diving Championships, I pushed through the searing agony of seven painkiller injections in my shoulder to execute a flawless dive. Yet, I ended up losing by a mere 0.3 points to Seren Lockwood, whose splash was visibly far worse. Only after the event did I realize it was my boyfriend, Cassian Blackthorne, who handed me a bottom score of 65. I stormed into the judges’ lounge. “Cassian! You knew this event determined qualification for the world tournament, and you knew Seren didn’t dive better than me! Why give me the lowest score?” Cassian rubbed his temples with a weary expression. “Seren needs this spot far more than you do, Elowen. Just step aside for her this once. You’ll have other chances.” I was twenty-four. For a diver, there was rarely ever an “after.” Exhaustion washed over me. For three years, Cassian had used that same dismissive, disappointed tone to force my retreat. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was an email invitation that had been sitting in my inbox for weeks—an offer from the World Aquatics Federation in Switzerland to serve as the technical advisor and head coach for its youth team. I had repeatedly turned it down for Cassian’s sake. I unlocked my phone and tapped accept. “Elowen, you’ve always been the sensible one,” Cassian said softly. I looked up at him and smiled. This time, I had no intention of being sensible ever again.

I pick up my husband Ethan Fuller's phone to transfer 200 dollars to myself for poker, but I stumble across his buddies' group chat, where they're planning a proposal. "Saturday at 7:00 pm, on a yacht on the river. Everybody dress up a little, guys. Let's give the future Mrs. Fuller a moment she'll never forget." "Jordy, you're in charge of keeping his wife occupied. Whatever you do, don't let her find out. That woman's sharp as a tack." "Don't worry. My wife says they'll be playing poker all night. There's no way she'll get there in time." "Hahaha, I'm dying. Once Ethan gets her to say yes, his wife won't even have anyone to go crying to." "By the way, Ethan, is the ring well hidden? We don't want a repeat of last time, when she almost dug it out." "I hid it in the company safe. She doesn't know the combination." "Once this is a done deal, I'd like to see her try to make a scene." The messages keep scrolling up, and the latest one is a voice message from Ethan. I tap it, and there's a smile in his voice. "Thanks for going to all this trouble, guys. When this is all taken care of, drinks are on me. Keep a close eye on her, and don't let anything go wrong." The light from the phone screen falls on my face. I stare at the group chat, then switch screens with a tap and decide to transfer another 20,000 dollars to myself. It's poker, after all. My luck had better be running hot.

On the last day before my study-abroad application closed, I was about to give up my full scholarship offer. Then, out of nowhere, I got a call from my future self. "Don't give it up. Click confirm enrollment. Right now." "Harley locked in his own graduate placement three months ago. The only reason he wants you to stay is that Katy needs you to finish her senior thesis for her, and he needs your money every month to live on. "Two weeks after you turn down that offer, the two of them go public with their relationship. "That so-called best friend of yours, Katy? She already betrayed you. She's been sleeping with him." I froze, my finger hovering over the mouse. The voice kept going, speaking faster and faster. "Listen carefully. Once you confirm the offer, take the twenty thousand dollars left in your account and put every cent into the Eklund Growth Fund. It goes public next March. It'll grow eightfold within the year. "Once you're abroad, apply to your advisor's AI lab before your first semester ends. That project gets acquired by Coogle two years from now, and as a core team member, you'll get a share of the payout. "Twenty-two-year-old me, I'm begging you. Stop wasting yourself on people who don't deserve it." The voice cut off. I took a deep breath and moved the cursor to "Confirm Enrollment." The instant I clicked, my mind was made up. I wasn't going to bury my own future for anyone who wasn't worth it.

My husband's first love gets engaged. To make her regret it, he abandons me, his newlywed wife, and joins a research project down at the southern tip of the earth. I've made 999 attempts across several years to visit him, with each one ending in failure. After five years, I stopped going. During a lively birthday party, he suddenly shows up. When he sees my slightly bulging belly, he howls in anger. "I spent five years at the research base, and not once did you care about how I was doing! Who's the father of the bastard child you're pregnant with?" "It's none of your business," I calmly reply.

I was Callum's secret mate for twelve years. I managed his internal affairs, placated the elders, guarded the borders, fought off rogues, and handled every mess he didn't want to deal with. But he never looked me in the eye in public. Even when I was pregnant and attacked by rogue wolves, he was having sex with the daughter of an Alpha from the neighboring wolf pack. I didn't hesitate to sever my mate bond and leave. Five years later, I met him again at a Multi-Pack Council banquet. He looked at my logo-free clothes, his eyes filled with arrogant disdain: "Sera, I'm marrying Vivienne next month. She's an Alpha's daughter; only she deserves to be Luna. But I can send you back to the wolf pack to be my mistress." I scoffed: "Save it." The next second, my daughter called: "Mommy! Mommy, when are you coming home? Maisie misses you!" Hearing my daughter's voice, Callum regained his arrogant confidence: "Sera. That's my pup, isn't it? You still love me. Even after you left, you kept our baby." I stared at him for a second. Then I slapped him across the face. He didn't know that our child had been miscarried during the rogue wolf attack, and Maisie was my and Alpha King's pup.

For seven years, my girlfriend, Sienna Jacoby, struggled with emotional avoidance. She never initiated a conversation with me. Whether I discussed major or minor matters with her, she only replied with either [1: Yes] or [2: No]. Even when I showed her the medical record that confirmed my uremia diagnosis, she gave a curt response and turned to go to work. My best friend, Ethan Quinn, once advised me, "A woman like her is worse than an air conditioner. At least an air conditioner knows when to cool you down and when to warm you up. What is the point of being with someone like her?" I stroked the ring on my ring finger and smiled. "She is just sick and does not know how to express herself. She loves me." A month later, on my birthday, I arrived at the restaurant late and saw Sienna sitting next to Ethan. They leaned closely together. The woman who always acted cold toward me beamed as she carefully wiped the rain from my friend's forehead. Ethan wore Sienna's coat. I looked away and fixed my gaze on the text message I sent to her a few minutes earlier. Clint Button: [Sienna, it is raining heavily today. I did not bring an umbrella. Could you come and pick me up?] Sienna: [2: No] I stood still and realized that I was the sick one. I had been blind as a bat.

After her miscarriage, Elise Emery became exactly the wife Colsen Locke had always wanted. She quit telling him about her day. Quit calling when he stayed out all night. Even when an old man falsely accused her of hitting him with her car, she didn't call anyone. Didn't ask for bail. She just spent seven days in custody. At dusk on the seventh day, the precinct's iron gate clanged open. Elise had barely made it down the steps when a black Maybach screeched to a stop in front of her. The door swung open. Colsen stepped out in a custom suit, tall and lean, all broad shoulders and cold control. Same polished look. Same unreadable face.

At the party, my daughter deliberately raises a question to my husband. "Daddy, since Ms. Lloyd is having your baby, does that mean we'll be living with her in the future?" He places the nicely cut steak onto my plate and answers softly, "Your mommy and I made a deal—whoever betrays first will disappear from the other's life. I can't afford for that to happen, darling, so this must stay a secret. Even when the baby is born, I will never let Mommy find out about them." Then, he signs to me, "I'll always love you." My eyes turn red-rimmed without him noticing. Little does he know, my hearing was restored a week ago. He doesn't realize I've learned about the mistress he's been hiding either. And he definitely doesn't know I've secretly bought a ticket to volunteer-teach in the Seru Plateau. All I have to do is wait for the paperwork to clear in seven days. Then, I'll disappear from his life for good.

My daughter, Lily, was hit and dragged for two whole miles by a drunk driver. I rushed her blood-drenched body into the emergency room. While the doctors saved her, I collapsed onto the floor in the hallway. With the last ounce of strength left in my body, I sent a text to my husband, Howard. [Lily is in critical condition. Get to the hospital now!] A few seconds later, my phone chimed with a reply. [Stay safe. I’ll be over as soon as I wrap things up here.]