Healing Romance の短編小説 &BiasFamily Emotions小説

The day Joe Tanner’s parents died and his classmates cornered him in cruel bullying, I was the one who jumped into the river to save him—and lost my heart to him in that moment. For the next ten years, I poured everything I had into him. I hid my own admission letter to Great Eastern University. I washed dishes until my hands cracked, hauled bricks until my shoulders bled, even sold the pocket watch my mother left me—all so he could study without worry. I watched him rise from a ridiculed illegitimate child to a celebrated professor at the very peak of academia. All I ever wanted in return was a home we could call ours. But the day he achieved success, he forgot the woman who had built his world. So, I made my choice— If he could abandon my love, then I would walk away without looking back.

I secretly married my husband for six years, and then his first love came back. I decide to leave with my child and let his first love take her rightful place.

At the annual gala, my father had me marry Asher Ziegler, a rising star in the finance industry whom he had groomed. Back then, I, Maddison Gruber, had no idea that Asher was in love with someone else. Sometime later, my father's company is investigated for product fraud, and his company's stock plummets. He even faces criminal charges. When this happens, Asher immediately brings his first love, Cora Singer, home and tells me outright that he is going to make her his legally wedded wife. My mother-in-law admonishes me. "Your family's bankrupt now, and you're completely barren! Why shouldn't my son remarry?" Asher slides a divorce agreement in front of me, his tone condescending. "Sign this, and I can let you stay here and live alongside Cora." But I say nothing. I merely quietly book a ticket to leave this place. In seven days, I will be following my father down south.

My husband doesn't love me or our daughter. It's been six years since she was born, but he's never held her. The doctors say he has an emotional disorder, and that he doesn't know how to express the way he feels. But when his true love returns, he smiles at us for the first time. He even brings our daughter a gift. I think it's because he's finally seen sense… until she and I see the photo he uses as his phone's wallpaper. In it, his eyes are crinkled as he smiles. He has one arm around a little girl whose front tooth is missing, and he holds his true love's hand with the other. My daughter tugs on my hand, and her eyes redden. "Mommy, do you think we should leave? Should we give Daddy three final chances? Let's leave him if he still doesn't want us after that."

My stepson pushes me down from the second floor, all because I accidentally break a bowl. He stands over me, looking down with a cold, emotionless gaze. "You're just a stand-in my grandfather forced on us. Don't even think about replacing my mother!" I stare up at the boy I've raised for eight years, and his indifference cuts deeper than any wound. Blood slowly trickles down from my forehead. Fighting through the pain, I dial a number. "Whatever debt I owed has been paid. It's time for me to leave." Coincidentally, I already have the divorce agreement that his father has signed.