Melodramatic Romance Short Stories & Bias Marriage Novels

The first time Silvia Robinson undergoes ECT, she is all alone. Even Gregory Fisher, her fiance who loves her so much, is nowhere to be seen. After the doctor gives her a muscle relaxant, she starts to get drowsy. She is in a daze when she recalls what happened that evening. She has waited three hours in line for a special cake, which she is planning to surprise Gregory with. However, she comes home to see Gregory kissing her younger sister, Ella Robinson. The two are deep in a kiss as they hold each other tightly in an inseparable embrace. The cake in Silvia's hands drops to the floor, smashed beyond recognition as Silvia delivers a slap across Gregory's face. Then, she finds herself being pushed down the stairs by Ella. As she rolls down the stairs, Silvia feels like she has already seen this coming. Anyone close to her will eventually be taken away by her sister.

During a summer road trip, a sudden car crash occurred on the highway. My boyfriend and my sister lunged forward without hesitation, sheltering me behind their bodies. My body emerged uninjured, but shattered glass pierced through my eyes, leaving me permanently blind. Overwhelmed with guilt, they cared for my every need, vowing to serve as my eyes for the rest of their lives. Though I lost my sight, I still felt deeply blessed. As our wedding day drew near, I was unexpectedly bound with a vision restoration system. "Host's vision has been restored. If no one detects your recovery within three days, your eyesight will be restored. If anyone finds out, you will die instantly." Overjoyed, I accepted the terms. But right after I finished trying on my wedding gown, as my boyfriend was driving me home and stopped at a red light, he suddenly leaned back. My sister leaned forward naturally from the back seat, and the two of them locked lips.

Elle's toxic first love had only one birthday wish: for us to get a divorce. The first time I refused, she aborted our three-month-old baby. The second time I wouldn't budge, she pressed a box cutter to her wrist and asked me to choose: divorce, or widowhood. And today was the third time. Even the clerk at the courthouse knew me by now. When she handed over the divorce certificate, she teased me with a smile, "Remarrying again in a month, same as always?" Elle expected me to fall apart the way I always did, to beg her to stay. She'd already started frowning, bracing herself to explain. I just took the divorce certificate from her hand and said, calmly, "We're not remarrying." Elle froze where she stood, staring at me without moving.

Jasmine Pepper and I had been married seven years, and because we were poor, my son and I spent our nights secretly collecting bottles to recycle. My son was quick at it, and good, always looking up at me with a hopeful little face when we finished a round. "Dad, do we have enough saved up to take Mom to the amusement park?" Jasmine was frugal and quiet by nature, and she often turned down our son's requests, always claiming there wasn't enough money. But that day, I counted a whole bag of change and could hardly believe it. I grabbed my son's hand and took him to buy tickets for the amusement park. The moment I looked up, though, I froze. There was Jasmine, one hand laced with another man's, the other cradling his son, riding the carousel like she didn't have a care in the world. My son and I stood rooted to the spot. The ticket seller gave us an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, sir, but that lady's booked out the whole park for the day. You'll have to come back another time."

My wife, Florence Jipson, told me that our son, Bart Lyons, had been in a severe car accident. His eyes were crushed in the crash, and he had completely lost his vision. I rushed from my company to the hospital. I begged the doctors to use my eye for Bart’s transplant. After the surgery was completed, I was wheeled out of the operating room. Then, I heard the sound of everyone bursting into loud laughter. “God, Benedict is such an idiot. He falls for the same nonsense every single time and never learns.” “Flo, if you told him to go kill himself next time, he’d probably do it too, wouldn’t he? He’s such a well-trained little puppy.” Florence stood in the crowd, holding hands with her assistant, Solomon Sowden. She was laughing just as wildly. “What can I say? Sol loves this kind of drama. So, I had to play along and tell him Bart got hurt. “I really thought Ben would be smart enough to catch on this time. I never expected him to actually be willing to donate his own eye.” Even the eight-year-old Bart nodded in agreement. “Having such a silly dad is so embarrassing.” I was utterly disheartened when I heard Florence and Bart’s mocking remarks. It turned out that even family members who had lived together for more than ten years could become strangers in an instant. I finally chose to let go.

To save my daughter, I collected 50,000 plastic bottles. Day after day, I dug through trash, carried them home, and traded them for scraps of hope. However, when I finally hauled them all to the recycling center, I learned their selling price had dropped. The 50,000 bottles were worth only enough to buy my daughter a better urn. Desperate, I held my feverish daughter in my arms as she suffered a seizure. I called my actress wife for help. Her answer was ice-cold. “$5,000 for a fever? Do you think I’m some kind of charity?” The irony was that she had spent $50 million building a private hospital for her screen partner’s dog just hours earlier.

Once, I posted a photo of Eugene Chapman and me. He stopped me right there on the street, his face cold as he pushed my phone down. "Louisa, I don't like putting my private life online for strangers to gossip about. Delete it. You don't need to be that desperate for attention." People streamed past us as I fought back tears and deleted the post. Only when the photo disappeared did his expression finally soften. He sighed and pulled me into his arms. "Come on. We just need to live our lives. We don't have to post everything online just to prove something to other people." After that, I never posted about him again. For the next three years, there wasn't a single trace of him anywhere on my social media. When my best friend asked if I even had a boyfriend, I laughed it off and told her Eugene was just a private person. Even our wedding invitations for next month only had a scenic photo on the front. Then last night, a pet influencer's video popped up in my recommendations, and Eugene was in it. He had one arm around a girl and was grinning at the camera, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The post had more than ten thousand comments, almost all of them gushing about how cute Eugene and his girlfriend were together. I went through the account, post by post. The first video of him went up just eight months after Eugene and I started dating. The girl's pinned comment read, [He insists on filming us every single day. It's so annoying.] So Eugene never hated having his life all over social media. He just hated having me in it. I closed the app and texted the wedding planner. [The wedding is canceled.]

Wade's father died in the line of duty. At his funeral, Wade stood solemnly at the very front of the crowd. By the time I hurried back from out of town, there were only two spots left for the funeral procession. One was beside my husband of seven years, Wade, whom I had secretly married. The other was at the very back of the line. Naturally, I assumed the spot beside him had been left for me. But the moment I took a step forward, Wade walked right past me and nodded in the direction of my best friend standing behind me. "Helen, come here." The relatives around us began looking in our direction. Someone murmured, "Isn't that Wade's girlfriend? They look perfect together." Others began chiming in. "I've never seen her before. I heard they were classmates in college. With Wade's personality, if he lets someone stand beside him, that means he's serious about her." "That explains a lot. He practically saved that spot for her." I froze where I stood. My grip tightened around the black umbrella in my hand. I walked to the very end of the line and took my place. With so many people standing in front of me, all I could see was Wade's rigid back. Throughout the entire funeral, to avoid raising any suspicion, he didn't even turn around once to look at me. Suddenly, it all felt utterly meaningless. After seven years of marriage, what exactly had I been holding on to?

In the seventh year of our marriage, my wife, Serena Clark, digs up my parents' urns and places them in front of me. Then she gives me two choices. "Either give your designs to Seth so he can enter the competition, or I'll scatter your parents' ashes into the sea," she says. Clutching the designs I've just finished, I swallow my pride and give in as tears burn in my eyes. The next day, a photo of Seth Johnson sitting on a yacht scattering ashes goes viral. Serena comments beneath the photo, "I'll give you everything I have and spoil you rotten." I stare at the urns in the corner of the photo, feeling my blood run cold. My deceased parents and I have become tools Serena uses to please Seth. Fine, then. I don't need a wife like her.

On our eighteenth attempt to get married, Miles Corbett stopped the ceremony again because I began my vow a fraction too late. He looked completely disappointed in me. "You know I'm a perfectionist. Why can't you follow the wedding schedule exactly? "If you miss the timing again, maybe you should let your best friend take your place." My best friend, Audrey Sloan, was famous for always being perfectly on time, so Miles used her as the standard I was expected to match. If I reached the curb one minute after Audrey at the end of the workday, he drove away with her and left me behind. If I entered the restaurant half a step later than she did on Valentine's Day, he gave her the candlelit dinner that was supposed to be mine. If I reached the airport twenty seconds after her before our annual vacation, he canceled my ticket and traveled with Audrey instead. Even at our wedding, he had stopped the ceremony seventeen times and used Audrey to rehearse my role seventeen times. To make the eighteenth attempt succeed, I filled the venue with more than a hundred synchronized countdown clocks and practiced every cue for over two hundred nights. But ten seconds before my vow was due, Audrey jumped the cue and said "I do" first. Miles ignored both me and the synchronized clocks and canceled the wedding for the eighteenth time. The problem had never been my timing; the problem was that the bride was not her. So I finally decided to give his perfectionism what it wanted. Miles took Audrey's hand again. "Watch carefully. We'll demonstrate it one more time." I smiled and slid the wedding rings onto their fingers. "No demonstration needed. I wish you both a lifetime of happiness."

My husband, Joe Anderson, was a captain of a cargo ship. He would usually spend about ten months a year at sea. I always trusted him, but I had a habit that no one really knew about. Whenever he docked at a port for replenishment, I would go for a drink with the vice captain’s wife, Helen Scott. Luke Henson was a quiet man, but Helen was very talkative with a very low alcohol tolerance. We were chatting about life and our husbands away on the ship. Third drink in, she suddenly leaned in and said, “Joe’s too romantic. “Last month, when they were docked, he deliberately looked for a local jeweler to customize a wave-themed jewelry set. “There were necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and more. He even asked for the items to be shipped back. I’m so envious of you.” I said in a low voice, “Is that so? Why didn’t I receive it?” I did not ask any further questions, and she changed the topic tactfully. That night, when I got home, I looked through his shipping logbook and saw that the jewelry delivery address was not my home. The tides had turned, and it was time for me to leave.

My wife, Ally Martin, is a CEO who's convinced that every man who married her only wanted her money. Any expense of mine over a hundred dollars has to go through her for approval first. I loved her enough to become the man standing quietly behind her empire. But the day I got into a car accident, she turned down my three-thousand-dollar surgery request. "Do you have any idea how many people live on three thousand dollars a month? I don't make money so you can leech off me!" The surgery came too late. My hand was left permanently disabled. I'd only just come off the operating table when her childhood friend, freshly back from abroad, posted on Instagram. The photo showed off a watch worth five million dollars. The caption read: [Guess some girls never really grow up. She's still willing to give me the best of everything, just like when we were kids.] He'd tagged Ally. I didn't blow up the way I used to. Instead, I liked the post and left a comment of my own: [Good for you two. Spend the rest of your lives like this.]

I have to go on a business trip for a week, so I get a cat-sitter to come over and feed my cat Muffin while I'm away. But on the second day, when I check the live footage from the living room surveillance camera, I see my fiancee, Kate Swanson's childhood friend Samuel Lambert enter the password for the front door and walk into the house. Then, he throws a grape into Muffin's bowl. Samuel Lambert raises an eyebrow in the direction of the surveillance camera. "Hey, Jonathan. Muffin is a smart one, isn't it? It's not touching the grape at all." Then, as I watch in horror, he unplugs the surveillance camera. I feel my heart sink, and I immediately ask the cat-sitter to head back over and check in on Muffin. Then, I call Kate and question her. "You gave Samuel the password to our house again, didn't you? Did you know he tried feeding Muffin a grape, and he even unplugged the surveillance camera in the living room?" Kate answers with thinning patience, "But Muffin is fine, isn't he? Samuel was just messing around. He doesn't mean it. Also, he has already apologized to me. He said what happened with the surveillance camera was just an accident. "Come on, you're a grown man, so stop making such a huge fuss over nothing. Samuel and I have known each other since we were in diapers. Am I not allowed to talk to him anymore after we get married? Well, I guess Samuel was right. You really are somewhat of a control freak." That's the 38th time. I've changed the password 38 times, which is also the number of times Kate has leaked the new password to Samuel. For some reason, I don't think I'll change it a 39th time.

The first time I went to the boutique to try on wedding dresses, I stumbled upon the staff playing their game of “Guess the Bride.” The big screen inside was displaying the package my fiancé had reserved. Eager to snag the commission, the makeup artist spoke up first: “I remember the bride is petite and delicate. She looks absolutely stunning in a mermaid dress.” The photographer chime in: “She has straight bangs and two dimples when she smiles.” “Oh, right—and a red mole on her collarbone. She looks best in an off-shoulder gown.” I froze right on the spot. I had waist-length, voluminous waves, no dimples, and certainly no mole. The person they were describing fit my best friend—Charlotte Holmes, whom I was closest to—to absolute perfection. Just as I was about to confront them, a store employee walked up to me. Roughly shoving a DSLR camera into my arms, she snapped: “Are you the new assistant? What are you waiting for? Go check the behind-the-scenes footage!” My finger accidentally grazed the playback button, and the screen lit up. I saw Charlotte wearing the very wedding dress I had set my heart on. Meanwhile, Jeremy Sanders, my fiancé, had his arm wrapped around her waist. They both were smiling sweetly at the lens. Going through a string of intimate photos of the two of them, a bone-chilling cold swept through my entire body. In the five years I had been in a relationship with him, Jeremy had never taken a photo with me. Every time I wanted one, he would say the camera made him anxious, indifferently pushing me away. Turned out he didn’t mind the camera at all, only the person standing in the frame. After staring at the footage of the two of them wrapped in a passionate embrace, I stepped forward and placed the camera back on the front desk. “Since you’re all so fond of this woman, I guess the wedding dress should be hers.”

On our first wedding anniversary, my husband's childhood friend, Sophia York, is busy policing what I eat. "This one's too spicy. You can't have it." "This one won't do. It's far too greasy." "This one is deep-fried, too. You can't eat it." She smacks my fork away before taking my glass of orange juice away from me too. Once she's done, all that's left in front of me is a bowl of plain pasta. There are 12 dishes on the table, but plain pasta is the only thing I'm allowed to eat. Looking at me sympathetically, my husband, Ivan Jefferson, picks up a piece of beef that's been rinsed with water and places it on my plate. "Listen to Sophia, okay? She's a nutritionist. Once you recover from gastritis, you'll be able to eat whatever you want." I've been eating like this for three whole years, and my gastritis still hasn't gotten any better. Later, I become pregnant. As I struggle with morning sickness, I suddenly crave blueberries. Ivan rushes out to buy some, only to return with Sophia in tow. She slips into one of our indoor slippers as if she belongs here and immediately starts to clear out my refrigerator. "You've always had a sensitive stomach, Lily. Now that you're pregnant, it's even more important for you to watch what you eat," she says. "Let me take care of you for the next couple of months." Ivan feeds me a blueberry and gently coaxes, "I feel uneasy about leaving you home alone while you're pregnant, Lily. Sophia's a professional." Sophia pulls out her credentials and shows them to me. I stare at the name of the shady association and suddenly burst out laughing. Is this what he calls a professional? All that's left in my refrigerator are vegetables and some beef. As I stare at the nearly empty refrigerator, I suddenly feel tired of living this way. Once my morning sickness eases, I'll move somewhere else and start a new life.

It took Daisy ten years to transform from a humble street vendor into a star investor in the corporate world. I stood by her side for every single one of those ten years. During our darkest year, I threw away every last drop of my self-respect and begged my estranged mother just for twenty dollars to buy us a decent meal. Looking back into Daisy’s heartbroken, tear-filled eyes, I gave her a soft smile and asked just one thing: "On the day the company finally goes public on Nasdaq, will you bring me with you?" She held me close and promised she would. Years later, when her company’s empire was soaring at its absolute peak, I gently brought up my old request once more. She didn't even bother lifting her eyes from her desk. "I’m way too busy right now. We'll talk about it later." So, I never brought it up again. Until one evening, I accidentally stumbled across a viral short video of her company’s grand public listing online. Daisy, who had told me she was merely away on a routine business trip, was standing right there on the Nasdaq trading floor. However, the man standing proudly beside her wasn't me but my younger half-brother, Jason. Holding hands, Daisy and Jason struck the ceremonial bell together, ringing in her billion-dollar empire. As fireworks exploded across the digital screen, she pulled Jason into a gentle, tender embrace. "Thank you for being here to witness the most important moment of my life," her voice echoed through the video. "I’m so happy." Jason wrapped his arms around her waist, whispering back, "Me too." I turned off my phone screen and let out a faint, quiet laugh. Then, I went about my day as usual, buying groceries and cooking dinner. After finishing my meal, I sent Daisy a short, simple text message. [Got twenty bucks to spare?] She didn't bother asking me why. She simply transferred twenty thousand dollars straight into my bank account without a second thought. I kept twenty dollars, and immediately wired back the remaining nineteen thousand nine hundred and eighty. I sent her a final two-word reply. [Too much.] Then, I wired that twenty dollars straight to my mother, officially settling a decade-long debt. Ten years ago, for twenty dollars, I discarded my pride and dignity for Daisy's future. Now, with that same twenty dollars, she brought our relationship to an end. There was never any room for me in her grand Nasdaq victory, and the quiet life I built from here on out will never have any room for her.

The day after our wedding, Deanna Somerhalder secured her seatbelt and offhandedly told the car’s GPS, “Let’s go home.” The screen lit up, and the GPS said, “Now navigating to Harvey Bishop’s home.” My back stiffened. From the corner of my eye, I saw Harvey look up from the backseat. Deanna started driving. She sounded unbothered as she said, “The GPS is just using the most frequently used saved location. It’s just numbers. Anyway, this way we can drop Harvey home first.” Harvey said calmly from the backseat, “Don’t overthink this, Andrew. The GPS might just be used to this route because Deanna frequently picks me up.” I did not respond. Instead, I reached out to check the GPS history. The saved locations included Deanna’s workplace, her yoga studio, her parents’ house, and Harvey’s place. It did not have our new apartment address. We had picked every single thing in the apartment, built the wardrobe together, and painted every wall. Every corner of the apartment held memories. But it seemed that the home we built together was not worthy of a place in her car’s GPS. As for Harvey, he seemed to be the destination she truly wanted.

The day the university released the family placement positions for doctoral graduates, I went straight to the Human Resources Office to register. But the staff member barely looked up before rolling their eyes. "Mr. Slater, everyone at this university knows you cheated on your wife and are about to leave the marriage with nothing. How do you still have the nerve to ask about the placement position?" I thought there had been some kind of misunderstanding. I rushed home, hoping to explain everything to my wife, only for my mother to slap me across the face. "I don't have a shameless son like you. Get out of Natalie's house!" I was driven back to the rural school where I had spent the past three years teaching. But by then, the entire village was filled with rumors about me, and even the children avoided me. The day I received the divorce papers my wife had mailed me, I returned home. But before I could enter, I overheard her talking to her friends through the half-open door. "Natalie, you spread those rumors and forced your husband into divorcing you just so Mr. Talbot could get that placement position. Aren't you worried your husband won't remarry you afterward?" She let out a dismissive laugh. "Not even my mother-in-law has a problem with it. No one but me would marry a penniless man like him! Ian needs this job more than he does. In a week, once everything's settled, I'll forgive him for 'cheating' and take him back. He'll be so grateful that he'll probably thank me for the rest of his life." My grip tightened around the divorce agreement until my knuckles turned white. If that was how it was going to be, then I would give her the divorce. But once I signed those papers, she could forget about ever remarrying me.

For four years of marriage, Cillian Newberry's catchphrase had always been "wait." Traveling could wait until he wrapped up his work. Celebrating our wedding anniversary could wait until his meeting was over. Visiting my parents back in my hometown could wait until he had the time. Today was my birthday. I made sure to ask him two weeks in advance if he would be home for dinner. After he promised me he would be there, I spent the entire afternoon preparing his favorite dishes and waited for him to come home. However, I waited from six o'clock until nine, but he never showed. Then, an entertainment news broadcast caught my attention. [The CEO of Newberry Corporation was spotted picking up his childhood sweetheart after work! Could this be a case of old flames rekindling their romance?] I subconsciously looked up upon hearing the reporting. The broadcast showed a man holding an umbrella while tightly embracing a woman dressed in light clothing. It was only a few steps from the building entrance to his car, yet he tilted the umbrella toward the woman the entire way, letting the rain soak his own shoulder. Then, I received a text from him. [Something came up. I'll be back in a bit.] I thought I was used to waiting. I thought I was content with waiting quietly at the table for him to come home, as I always had. When I looked at him in his rain-soaked suit on the television, I realized I was done waiting.

My wife, Sienna Fairchild, has one ironclad rule. Every Monday, she has dinner with her brother-in-law. During that time, she turns off her phone and blocks every message. Nothing, no matter how urgent, takes priority over their little family gathering. Then one day, our daughter falls down the stairs at preschool and breaks her arm. I call Sienna over a dozen times, but not a single one goes through. With no other option, I call her brother-in-law instead. "Abby got hurt at school. Can you have Sienna come to the hospital?" The other end goes quiet. Just when I think the call has been dropped, Sienna's voice comes through. "My whole day belongs to them. Don't bother me unless it's actually important." The line goes dead. I stand frozen, staring at my daughter crying on the hospital bed. She looks up at me with red, tear-filled eyes. "Daddy, does Mommy not want me anymore?" I choke back the lump in my throat as exhaustion washes over me. Maybe it's time to find my daughter a new mother.