Melodramatic Regret Short Stories & Novels

At an alumni reunion, my husband's business rival Vanessa Graves stands up in front of everyone and raises three toasts to him. "The first is for the time you risked your life to save me from a group of thugs and ended up with broken bones and spent six months in the hospital. "The second is for the five years we were together, and every bit of love and devotion you gave me. "The third is for putting everything behind you and coming here tonight to see me." She finishes her drink and looks at my husband, Russell Grayson, with teary eyes filled with affection. The whole table erupts in whispers, every pair of eyes locked on her and Russell. "No wonder the campus queen has been single all these years. She's been waiting for Russell Grayson." "They were everyone's golden couple back in the day. After they broke up, he was a wreck for the longest time before someone else swooped in. Are they about to get back together?" Under the weight of everyone's loaded stares, I smile and slide Russell's glass away from him. "No drinking if you're driving, honey. I have a prenatal appointment this afternoon. Why don't you come with me?"

The day our family went on vacation to an island resort, my younger sister, Alana Fisher, climbed over a safety railing to get the perfect photo. She lost her footing and, in her panic, dragged me into the ocean with her. The rescue crew was about to pull me out first since I was closer when Mom suddenly took a yellowed paper coupon from her wallet and tossed it toward me. "Corinne, let Alana get on the rescue boat first! This is the last thing your father and I will ever ask you to grant!" When I was seven, I couldn't afford birthday presents for my parents, so I drew a hundred wish coupons by hand. Each one read: [Redeem this coupon for one wish. Corinne has to say yes, no matter what.] Years later, when Alana wanted my bedroom, they used one. When she decided she wanted to be an only child, they used another. From then on, I wasn't even allowed to call them Mom and Dad. I had to call them Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. Even the college tuition I'd spent three years working part-time to save was taken from me with the ninety-ninth coupon and used to pay for Alana's dance training. Now, only one coupon remained. I stared at it floating on the surface of the water and suddenly stopped struggling. Then I slipped the only rescue line around Alana and pushed her toward the boat myself. My parents were too busy wrapping her in a blanket and checking her for injuries to notice anything was wrong with me. As the rescue boat headed back to shore, not one of them realized my calf had already cramped so badly that I could barely hold on to my flotation board. Mom only turned back long enough to shout, "Corinne, hang on! We'll come back for you!" I watched them disappear into the distance, a bitter smile pulling at my lips. When I was seven, I believed that if I granted all one hundred wishes, Mom and Dad would finally love me the way they loved Alana. It wasn't until the freezing ocean water closed over me that I finally understood. A hundred wish coupons hadn't been enough to make them choose me even once. But they had been enough to cost me my life.

At a charity gala in Manhattan, a reporter asked the final question of the night. "Mr. Hayes, whose name will be on the $200 million trust you announced tonight?" The question had barely left her lips before knowing laughter rippled through the crowd. The answer was obvious. It could only be me —— his wife and the heiress to Lockwood Holdings, Chloe Lockwood. I was about to stand and share in his moment. But my husband, Eric Hayes, dropped a bombshell. "It will be named for the most important person in my life: the girl I once shared a bed with." "When I was broke and had nowhere to go, she gave me half her bed. We split the rent on a $350 attic room." "Her warmth was the only reason I could sleep at night." "Without her encouragement, I wouldn't be who I am today." The reporter scrambled to recover. "Mr. Hayes is clearly a man of deep loyalty. What a beautiful story you share with Ms. Lockwood!" "Not Chloe. Another woman." Eric corrected her without hesitation. Every pair of eyes in the room landed on me. Three seconds of silence passed. I leaned toward my assistant Vivian and gave her two quiet orders. "Find her." "Then... strip Eric of everything."

On the day I went into labor, my mate Caleb Ashford received a call from his first love. "Caleb, I'm back. Can you end your mate bond with her and become my mate?" Caleb glanced at me in the delivery room, said nothing, and hung up without hesitation. I thought he had chosen me. But the day I was discharged after giving birth, he slid a mate bond dissolution agreement across the table toward me. "Nora, I'm sorry. I can't say no to Lila. After the bond is dissolved, I'll give you a large sum of money to make up for it." I stared at the dissolution agreement in front of me. I didn't cry or make a scene. I picked up the pen calmly and signed my name, Nora Hart, at the bottom. Caleb hadn't expected me to agree so readily. A flicker of shock crossed his eyes. I handed him the signed agreement. "It's fine. I've always known Lila is the one you've loved all these years. "Being your mate for seven years was already more than I could have ever asked for." With that, I turned and walked away under his stunned gaze. Once I was out of his sight, I looked at my copy of the agreement again. The settlement was enough to keep me comfortable for three lifetimes. He had no idea that playing it cool was a gold digger's oldest trick.

My wife's student, Talon Palmer, hired someone to stab me, leaving me critically injured. In six years as an attorney, my wife Audrey Taylor had never lost a case. Yet she stayed up all night compiling nearly a hundred pages of trial materials, all to prove Talon innocent. I stood in the doorway for six straight hours, torturing myself as I watched her work. Finally, I asked hoarsely, "Why?" She didn't even look up. "You accused Talon of being the other man. All he did was ask that thug to pretend to be his brother and scare you. Everything that happened afterward was the thug's own doing. It had nothing to do with Talon." I shook my head in disbelief. Hysterical, I rushed forward and tried to tear the documents on her desk to pieces, but Audrey caught my wrist in a cold, unyielding grip. "Stop it, honey. If you absolutely have to decide who's to blame here..." Audrey's gaze met mine. I was devastated and furious, but all I saw in her eyes was cruel pity. "Then I guess you can only blame yourself for being too weak to fight back. And for having the kind of arrogant face that makes people hate you."

Ever since I was little, I knew my mom didn't want me. My dad, though, kept telling me that she loved me, but some complicated stuff was keeping her away. He said that once I grew up, I needed to find her and claim my place in her life. I always figured he was just making things up so I wouldn't grow up resentful of the motherly love I never had. Then the debt piled up. Dad was scrolling through TikTok, looking for any way to drum up sympathy online, when he suddenly let out a wild yell. "Scrappy! Look, it’s your mom! Pack your stuff, we’re going to find her!" I stared at the screen. The woman in the video was stunning, effortlessly poised, and dripping in old-money elegance. A cold pit formed in my stomach. My mom was a wealthy socialite from New York City? How could someone like her ever be connected to a holler like ours? Even with the doubts screaming in my head, I packed my worn-out duffel bag and boarded the bus to Manhattan with my dad.

On the way to our wedding, my fiancé got a hysterical call from his ex-wife. "Gavin, he's having another episode. He keeps crying for his daddy." This was the third time it happened. Each time we were about to get married, her son would have another psychosomatic episode. Gavin Grant looked at me hesitantly. I knew what he was thinking, so I nodded. "I'll get out. Go ahead." He clasped my hand gratefully. "I'm sorry, Vivian. I'll make it up to you." Before I could even steady myself, he was already telling the driver to turn around. Still in my wedding dress, I stood by the side of the road and hailed a cab. Then, my phone buzzed with a message from Gavin—he'd given me $100 million. He hadn't forgotten to compensate me. He'd just forgotten what I'd told him. "Gavin, three strikes and you're out." I took the money. After all, a gold digger had to respect the money. But as gold diggers, we had another rule. Everyone was worth pursuing, Gavin included. But after three strikes, he simply wasn't worth the trouble anymore.

Naomi Henderson, my girlfriend, makes three wishes on her birthday night in front of the birthday cake I have baked for her. Her first wish is for Bryan to stay safe and well every day. Her second wish is for Bryan's project to win an award. Her third wish is for the cat she and Bryan raise together to grow up safe and healthy. Bryan Green is none other than my best friend. I stand by the table, still holding the candles I haven't lit yet, while everyone in the room laughs and joins in on the fun. Bryan turns to Naomi with a playful smile. "How come you didn't make a wish for Julian? He's your boyfriend, you know." Naomi smiles with absolute certainty. "Do I even have to guess what his wish is? He obviously wants to marry me." She takes out a men's ring from the bottom of the cake box a moment later. If this were before, I probably would have nodded along to everyone's cheers, but now I merely watch as she puts the ring on my ring finger. It is so loose that it can slide right off. It is two sizes too big, which fits Bryan perfectly. I chuckle softly. I have loved Naomi for seven years, but moving on from her only takes this split second.

"Dominic, Julian, guess what I wished for?" A cheap, marked-down cake sat on the table. I closed my eyes and made a wish. When I opened them, the two chairs across from me were empty. That was when I remembered: my brothers didn't want me anymore. When I was ten, my brothers brought Leah Morgan home. She was the daughter of their late mentor, Professor Andrew Morgan, and they told me to treat her like a real sister. But little by little, Leah stole all their affection from me. I grew anxious, then competitive. I thought that if I were good enough, they might love me a little more. In the final round of a piano competition, Leah burst into tears after losing to me. Dominic comforted her. "In my heart, you play better than Heather ever could!" I ranked first in my school and won a scholarship, which cost Leah her place among the candidates. Julian went so far as to force the school to investigate whether I had cheated. At my eighteenth-birthday party, Leah fell from the second-floor balcony into the pool. She pointed at me. "Heather pushed me!" My brothers were furious. Without an ounce of mercy, they dumped me in the worst part of town. "We indulged you for too long, Heather. That's why you became so competitive. Now it's time you learned to rein in your jealousy." They even sent local thugs to my door to harass me and steal what little money I managed to earn. They thought I would learn my lesson. What they didn't know was that I had received an email offering me a full scholarship to the University of Zurich. I was about to leave for Switzerland, and I was never coming back.

Every time my foster sister, Lindsay Hartley, and I disagreed, Carl Curran and my brother Mark Hartley would settle it with a vote. When Carl and I were choosing our future home, I wanted somewhere in the southern district, close to our parents. Lindsay wanted the busier northern district instead. Neither of us would budge, so we put it to a vote. Carl was the first to raise his hand. "You're being so narrow-minded. You don't understand anything about actually living your life. Go with Lindsay's pick." Mark patted my head. "Don't be so selfish. The north side is close to Lindsay's office, so she can come stay with us whenever she wants." Three to one. I was forced to give in again. Then came the renovations. I wanted the big south-facing room as the master bedroom, but Lindsay wanted to turn it into a walk-in closet instead. Carl stepped in. "Let's just vote on it, so you can't say we're playing favorites again." No surprise: Lindsay won again, unanimously. And the room left for me, the actual bride, was smaller than half the size of that closet. Looking back over the hundred-some votes we'd had. Carl had sided with me: zero times. Mark had sided with me: zero times. Watching the three of them huddled together, deep in discussion over how to decorate the closet, it suddenly hit me. The so-called votes were never anything but a convenient excuse for them to openly favor Lindsay. If that was the case, then I was done playing a game on a scale that would never tip in my favor.

After getting trapped in a malfunctioning elevator with two classmates, my classmate Sheldon couldn't resist running his mouth. He pressed the emergency call button and said, "Sir, you fell for it! We were just pressing it for fun!" "Brats!" The security guard cursed and slammed the phone down. Harvey and I wanted to beat Sheldon up on the spot. Sheldon, however, looked completely unconcerned. "Just press it again." When the call connected again, Sheldon grabbed the chance to speak first. "Hahaha! Sir, it's us again! Why do you keep falling for it?" The security guard lost his temper. "You bunch of kids–" I quickly cut him off. "Sir, don't hang up! The elevator really is malfunctioning! We're trapped inside!" Sheldon, however, clicked his tongue and sighed. "Jason, you're even better at acting than I am." The call disconnected again. Harvey and I were so furious our jaws were clenched tight. Meanwhile, the temperature inside the enclosed elevator kept rising. Harvey's asthma suddenly flared up, but he had left his inhaler behind. I could only dial the number again like a madman before desperately trying to explain. "Sir, my classmate is having an asthma attack! He's barely breathing! Please, you have to believe me this time!" The security guard replied coldly, "Are you kids ever going to stop? I've encountered plenty of pranks like this. Don't abuse public resources and interfere with me doing my job!" The call was hung up again. I watched as Harvey's face turned blue, and his breathing grew weaker and weaker. I completely panicked.

On the day of our graduation photo, the class started sorting everyone into groups. I'd barely taken my place beside my boyfriend, Evan Brooks, when someone started shouting. "Put Claire next to Evan!" "Right? Claire's the prettiest girl on campus. She belongs beside the campus heartthrob!" Before I could react, my childhood friend Liam took my arm and gently traded our positions. "Nina, switch with Claire. "It's only a graduation photo. Don't be petty." Evan smiled and didn't refuse. He only stepped half a step aside, opening a space for Claire. I froze where I stood and touched the barrette in my hair without thinking. It was the first gift he'd ever given me. I'd stood in front of the mirror for ages getting it right, because I wanted one proper photograph with him. Right before the shutter, Evan called to me. "Nina." My heart lurched. The next second, he reached up and took the barrette out of my hair. "Claire's hair is a mess. Let her borrow this." The teasing started up again. Claire lowered her head and smiled. Evan didn't explain. The photographer called out. "All right—happy graduation!" When everyone shouted it together, I was standing at the very edge. At that moment, I finally understood that I had never belonged there. Since I had no place in your graduation photograph, you would have no place in my future.

Brandon Hawthorne said if I wanted to marry him, I had to prove I was tough enough to be a Hawthorne. He took my bank cards, ditched me in a city I'd never been to, and made me figure out how to get home alone. When my fever hit 104°F, he still refused to let the family doctor through the door. Instead, I had to smile through dinner with a house full of Hawthorne relatives while I could barely stay on my feet. And every time I finally asked Brandon for help, he looked at me like I'd failed him. "You can't even handle something this simple. How are you supposed to be my wife?" But when his childhood friend, Patty Rowan, got blisters from her shoes, he picked her up and carried her away in front of everyone. She got a headache in the middle of the night, and he left me alone in the hospital to take the family doctor to her. I asked him why. He frowned. "Patty's fragile. And she's not the one trying to become a Hawthorne." Then came our engagement party. I accidentally ate peanuts. My throat started closing. I couldn't breathe. Brandon grabbed my EpiPen and locked me in the lounge. "This is your final test. If you want to marry me, tough it out." Then Patty called. She had a paper cut. Brandon immediately left with the doctor. "Hold out for ten minutes." I lost track of time. Right before everything went dark, I saw Brandon come back with Patty tucked close beside him. She had a Band-Aid on her finger. Through the haze, I heard the disappointment in his voice. "Patty was bleeding, and she didn't even cry. Are you seriously pretending to be dead?" Then came the final blow. "You failed the test. You're not ready to become a Hawthorne."

The day I discovered Sean's affair, I cornered him and my stepsister Tina in the company warehouse. A fire broke out afterward. Tina died saving me from the flames, and Sean was injured when a pillar collapsed on him. His shoulder was wrapped in bandages. "Joanna, are you happy now?" His ragged scream that day echoed in my ears for a long, long time. Two months later, the company went bankrupt because of the fire. To pay off the debts, Sean and I moved to a run-down neighborhood. I worked three jobs a day, all to ease the guilt eating me alive. A few years passed, and our relationship seemed to find its way back to what it once was—right up until Valentine's Day. That was when I spotted the supposedly dead Tina at the supermarket, shopping for seafood with Patricia, my mother-in-law. "Patricia, thank you. Without you, Sean and I wouldn't be this happy." "Don't mention it. If we hadn't gotten rid of that crazy woman back then, what would've happened to my precious grandson?" Patricia smiled and patted Tina's hand. "It's Valentine's Day. Sean reserved that rooftop restaurant just for you two. Go enjoy yourselves." My first instinct was to call Sean, but before I could even dial, a text from him came through first. "Babe, picking up a coworker's shift tonight. Night pay and the bonus come out to almost two hundred dollars. I'll bring you something good on my way back." I froze where I stood. So that was it. Three years of hardship, and all of it had been a lie they'd carefully woven around me.

The night before our engagement, my best man Reese suggested we play Never Have I Ever — our version, where you name something you have that you think no one else does, and anyone who doesn't have it puts a finger down. "Sitting in this room is someone I can't have," he said. Everyone else's fingers went down, except Reese's and my fiancée Molly's. The others erupted in whistles and teasing, not caring that I was right there. "I have the most loyal fiancé," Molly said. "Boring and dull." Everyone glanced at me, and the private room fell into an awkward silence. I was suddenly exhausted. Molly and I had been together for two years. Tomorrow was our engagement party, yet she'd just publicly admitted there was someone she wanted but couldn't have. And in her eyes, the only redeeming quality her fiancé had was loyalty. When my turn came, I said calmly, "I have a grand wedding of the century." I turned to Molly beside me. "But as of now, it's canceled."

During my wedding, someone suggests that we play the game "one dollar and 50 cents". The host will call out an amount that the players will have to match by forming groups. I draw the 50-cent straw, and so does my best friend, Rebecca Cross, who is also the group favorite. My fiance, Ian Chilton, his childhood friend, Richard Price, his older sister, Anne Chilton, and my stepsister, Chelsea Whitmore, all draw one-dollar straws. For the first round, we need to make up a total of 1.50 dollars. I make a beeline toward Ian, but he gazes distractedly at Rebecca. It isn't until he is assured that she won't be eliminated that he finally loosens his painfully tight grip on my hand. Before I can truly feel my disappointment, the second round begins. This time, we need to make up a total of five dollars. Everyone instinctively surges toward Rebecca. I don't pester Ian this time, and he naturally fails to notice that I've been left out. It isn't until the host reminds them that they're 50 cents short that they reluctantly let me into their group. For the third round, we need to make up 2.50 dollars. It's clear that the six of us can conveniently form two groups of said amount, yet they debate heatedly over who gets to be in the group with Rebecca. As time is running out, Richard and Chelsea finally walk reluctantly toward me, having lost in a game of rock-paper-scissors. In the final round, we need to make up 4.50 dollars. As soon as the whistle is blown, they crowd together merrily. Ian even considerately wraps his arm around Rebecca's shoulders out of fear that she'll be jostled. Meanwhile, I'm knocked to the floor by the crowd, my palms digging deeply into splinters sticking out of the wooden floor paneling. From start to finish, nobody spares me a glance. In that instant, everything feels pointless to me. When we played hide-and-seek as children, they only realized I hadn't been "found" after nightfall. When we visited the amusement park as adults, they would always forget to buy my ticket. All things considered, it simply isn't polite to keep trying to fit into a small group that doesn't have room for me.

My husband Marcus Ashford has severe social anxiety. In three years of marriage, he refused to meet a single one of my friends or family. Even our wedding was just the two of us, because he said a crowd would trigger a panic attack. Because it hurt me to see him like that, I put up with my parents' disappointment and my friends' confusion, made every excuse for him, and guarded his fragile little world with both hands. That changed tonight, when I stumbled onto the social media page of his first love, newly returned from overseas. In the photos, Marcus moved through the room with Chloe, working the toasts with total ease, laughing wide and unguarded. I opened the next live photo, and a snatch of conversation came out of it. "Marcus, isn't today your father-in-law's birthday too? You're not going to swing by?" Marcus answered as though it were nothing, "Going would just be pointless socializing. A waste of time. I'd rather stay here with Chloe." I went through those few photos over and over, more times than I could count, until my eyes were dry and stinging, and then I shut off the screen without a word. Then I called a lawyer and had the divorce papers drawn up. So his world was full of voices and noise after all. It simply refused to open for me, and for me alone. Fine. If the party wasn't mine, I wasn't going to keep forcing my way in.

Vito and I had been giving each other the silent treatment for three days, and he never once reached out. With the Family’s enemies hunting me, I hid under a bridge and called him. “Vito, the Colombos are after me. Can you come save me?” Vito said coldly, “Antonia, are you playing the victim again? “I’m in the middle of a Family meeting. Don’t bother me!” The footsteps outside the bridge came closer. I said quietly, “I’m not lying.” He scoffed. “Fine. Wait for me, then.” I curled up under the bridge. The Colombos’ men shot me in the chest. Right up until my breathing stopped, Vito never came...

Before the birthday party even began, Jeannie Collins cast her phone screen onto the large display in the private room. Then she started an anonymous poll in the group chat she shared with all our mutual friends. The question was simple: [Should I stay with my boyfriend to cut the birthday cake tonight, or go with my childhood friend to his movie premiere?] Thirty seconds. The countdown began. The numbers kept climbing. [Childhood friend: 17 votes.] [Boyfriend: 1 vote.] Everyone assumed that one vote was mine. Jeannie leaned back against the couch, glanced at the results, and smiled. "Majority rules." Marvin Snyder immediately slipped the movie tickets into her hand. "Looks like everyone thinks I need you more." I stood in front of the birthday cake, which was still untouched, while wearing my favorite white shirt. Someone in the room whistled. "Don't be a sore loser." Fair enough. This kind of voting had been going on for three years. After every argument, a poll would decide who should apologize first. Whenever a party ended, another poll would decide who she drove home first. Even when I asked her if she loved me, she would toss the question into the group chat. "Let's see what everyone thinks." I used to believe that if I could just win once, she would finally choose me without hesitation. However, I had never won. Not once. Tonight was no different. Jeannie stood and reached for her coat. As she passed me, she casually pinched my ear. "Be good. I'll make it up to you when I get back." I stared at the poll results glowing on the screen, then turned off my phone. Without a word, I pushed the cake knife toward her. "There's no need." I looked at her. "I'm abstaining."

My Alpha mate, Leon Worth, brought a breathtaking mermaid into our estate. He named her Nerissa and tended to her every need with painstaking care. That day, the moment Leon stepped out, Nerissa walked right up to me—and placed my Luna Crown on her own head, right in front of my face. "Leon and I have known each other for six months now. He promised me with his own mouth—he'd take care of me for life." She traced a finger along the crown's rim, her smile poised. "I've made up my mind—I'm willing to drink the potion for him. I'll give up my tail. Delores, step aside and hand over the Luna position. It'll save everyone the humiliation in the end." I didn't argue with her. I just waited for Leon to come back and explain. But when he finally returned, he didn't even bother to take that crown off Nerissa's head. He left me standing there like I didn't exist, while he knelt beside her, gently cleaning her scales, his voice low and tender—like he was handling something fragile, something precious: "Just three more days. I'll get you a better heated pool." The way he looked at her—I'd seen that look for seven years. Now, it belonged to someone else. I turned and walked away. I didn't look back. My flight had barely broken through the clouds when my phone lit up. A message from Leon flashed across the screen: "Delores, don't go. I did all of this—to save you!"