Cerita Pendek Tragic Love Romance & Novel Bias Entertainment Circle

I was the most cheated-on man in our entire circle. People online had even put together a compilation of every time my wife had cheated on me. Whenever Vanessa Kane started threatening suicide, everyone knew I'd been cheated on again. The first time, she wanted to go on vacation with a college student she was keeping. She stood on the roof of an eighteen-story building and forced me to get on my knees and beg her. The second time, she wanted to celebrate her male assistant's birthday. She grabbed a shard of glass and screamed that she'd slit her wrists. When I tried to stop her, the glass severed a tendon in my hand. The third time, she wanted to win over a male model from a club, and she was dead set on becoming a nun. It went on and on. Then came the ninety-ninth time, when she said she'd found the love of her life. To sleep with Lucas Reed, she lost the baby she'd been carrying for twenty weeks, then threw what was left of our unborn child down in front of me. "You can forget it. I'm never having your baby as long as I live." Heartbroken and done, I laid a divorce agreement in front of her parents. "Let's get divorced. I'm letting Vanessa go."

When our number is finally called at the courthouse, my fianceé takes the appointment slip I'd spent three hours waiting for and hands it to her male best friend. "Zach and I will go in first. It's better for PR. You can take the next slot." Zach Jones slips my wedding ring onto his finger and flashes a smile at me. "Don't worry, man. I'm a PR professional. We're just signing some paperwork and taking a few courthouse photos. It's no big deal." Then, they walk hand in hand toward the registration office, neither one of them caring enough to notice my reaction. I close my eyes. For seven years, to avoid public suspicion, Eva Sinclair has used Zach as her stand-in for PR events. When photographers catch me entering her house, she responds by posting photos of herself and Zach lounging around in matching pajamas. When news of our engagement leaks, she surprises Zach with 999 roses on Valentine's Day as a grand declaration of her love. Even when it comes to our marriage, her first priority is still managing her image, and Zach takes my place, as usual. He's the first to try on the tuxedo. The wedding ring is sized for him. And now, he's going into the courthouse before me. I used to believe this was all to protect Eva's public image. But moments after collecting a new appointment slip, I open social media to see that Eva has already posted photos from inside the courthouse, along with the signed marriage certificate complete with the official seal at the bottom. Zach leaves a comment below the post. "There wasn't any need for PR this time, but she still made it public." It turns out that Zach's role as the "PR stand-in boyfriend" has stopped being just an act for Eva. Somewhere along the way, the act has become real. I don't cancel my appointment. Instead, I take a photo of the slip and send it to Eva's biggest rival. "Didn't you want to steal the groom? They're calling my number in 30 minutes. If you make it here in time, I'll marry you instead." If Eva cares so much about her image, then I'll find someone else to go public with.

I once made a promise to the top actress in the industry. If I publicly proposed to her 99 times on livestreams, she would, on the hundredth, officially launch our relationship. But when the hundredth proposal came, she was on a private yacht kissing a new rising actor. Her smile had been so sweet and carefree. I became a complete joke. Feeling guilty, she texted me: [I will say yes on your 101st proposal.] She entered my livestream, looking like a goddess had descended to earth. As she looked on, I lit all one hundred love letters I had ever written for her, as well as the stomach cancer diagnosis I had hidden inside. “There will be no 101st time, Miss Ford.”

The night Cameron Baxter won Best Actor, I was backstage cleaning up his ninety-ninth dating rumor. When a reporter asked whom he wanted to dedicate the award to, Cameron looked straight into the cameras and smiled. "To someone who waited for me for years—and someone I've let down far too long." Standing just outside the spotlight, my heart stumbled in my chest. After all, Cameron and I had been secretly married for eight years. Back when he was a broke actor who could not even get a callback, I sold the last piece of jewellery my mother had left me to pay for his acting classes. When a scandal nearly destroyed his career, I stayed up night after night, writing statements, calling publicists, and practically begging a director not to cut him from the film. Then Cameron became a star, and somehow, I became the part of his life he wanted to keep hidden. Still, he always told me the same thing. "When I win Best Actor, I'll tell the world about us." For eight years, I believed him. So that night, as I listened to him speak from the stage, I thought I was finally getting the answer I had waited so long to hear. The awards ceremony was not even over when I headed to his dressing room with the coat he had left behind. I was about to knock when I heard his manager's voice from inside. "Rose called again. She's crying. She said you promised you'd finally give her a real place in your life." There was a long silence before Cameron answered, "I owe her. If I hadn't been marrying Noelle that day, I would've answered her dad's last call." His voice dropped. "She's hated me for it ever since." His manager was quiet for a moment. "What about Noelle?" Cameron did not even hesitate. "Noelle understands me. She won't make a scene." Standing outside that door, I almost laughed. For eight years, I stood steadfast at his side, swallowing disappointment after disappointment, sacrificing pieces of myself for a life I thought we were building together. But to Cameron, none of it meant what I thought it did. I was not his wife. I was simply convenient. At three o'clock that morning, my phone buzzed with a breaking-news alert: Cameron was seen leaving the hotel with Rose Berger, their hands clasped together as cameras flashed. But that was not what made my breath catch. It was the ring on Rose's finger. I recognized it immediately. It was my wedding ring. The same ring Cameron had slipped onto my finger eight years earlier at our quiet city hall ceremony. No guests. No flowers. Not even a single photograph. Then I saw Cameron's post. He had uploaded the picture himself and added only four words beneath it: "The answer, long overdue." I stared at the screen for a long time before finally turning off my phone. I did not call him. I did not demand an explanation. I did not even cry. By then, I felt too exhausted for any of it. Instead, I opened my laptop and booked the first flight I could find to Rimevik, a remote northern country thousands of miles away. By sunrise, my suitcase was packed, and for the first time in eight years, I was ready to leave him behind. I had spent far too long standing on the sidelines while Cameron lived his life in the spotlight, always believing I would be there no matter what he did. But not anymore. After eight years of watching his story unfold, I was finally done being his audience.