Tragic Love Romance の短編小説 & Countdown 小説

The first time I meet my girlfriend, Nadine Grant‘s parents, she stops me at the door. Her childhood friend and neighbor, Nick Lockwood, has just pulled a tarot card. The card says I'll attract trouble today, so I shouldn't go inside. Before I can say a word, Nadine reaches for the gifts in my hands. "Wait in the car for a while," she says. "When dinner's over, we'll go home together." I don't let go. "I've spent over a month getting ready to meet your parents, and you're not even letting me in?" Displeasure is written all over her face. "Andy, I'm doing this for your own good!" Before I can argue, she shoves me back into the car. Nick smiles at me through the car window. He says, "Andy, don't take it the wrong way. I'll go in and keep Mr. Grant company for you." Nadine stands beside him without looking back once. This is all happening because of one tarot card Nick pulls. I'm the one who's here to meet Nadine's parents, yet I'm somehow the last person they want inside. Then, I have no reason to become part of this family either!

For the seven years after our marriage, I spend whole nights in the prayer room before he will even touch me. Eric Compton says it is to atone for what I owe Monica Lynch. When his mother, Barbara Lane, pushes me to fulfill my wifely duties again, I overhear Eric's friends laughing. "Let me think. How many rounds of IVF has Avery done this year? She's trying very hard to get pregnant." "She probably doesn't know there's no way she's ever getting pregnant with Eric's kid." Eric scoffs. "Every time we're done, I give her a glass of milk. After all these years of birth control, it'd be a miracle if she got pregnant." He adds, "Everything she's suffered through is just payback for driving Monica away." I smile bitterly and send the recording to Richard Compton. "I'm not the lucky one meant to carry on the Compton name. Can I go now?"

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my wife, Blair, the daughter of the city's richest man, straddled my lap, her kiss deep and intoxicating as she toyed with my lower lip. The same night, we just announced our pregnancy to the world. Just then, Blair's best friend, Chloe, asked in French, her tone suggestive: "Blair, you're absolutely glowing. But tell me honestly, how does it feel to get railed by another man while carrying a baby?" Blair let out a soft laugh, a familiar sound that sent a chill down my spine. She replied, also in French: "It feels absolutely incredible, Chloe. He's like a wild wolf. Just yesterday, he had his head buried between my thighs, using his mouth to bring me to tears before taking me so deep I forgot my own name." Her fingers were still toying with my collar, but her gaze was already distant. "But remember, keep this from Kevin. If he finds out what I've been doing behind his back while pregnant, it will be a disaster." The socialite sisters gathered around them shared knowing chuckles, raising their glasses and promising to keep the secret. The warmth in my veins turned to ice. My fervent passion to welcome a new life was instantly reduced to a pathetic joke. They had all forgotten that I spent my childhood in southern France. I understood every single syllable. I forced myself to remain calm, my face fixed in the perfect smile expected of a blissful husband about to welcome his first child, but the hand holding my champagne glass was trembling. I didn't fly into a rage. I didn't smash everything in sight. Instead, I took out my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days prior for the Aegis Agency, a highly classified organization on the other side of the world, and clicked "Accept." In three days, I would vanish from Blair's world.

After four years with Killian, I got pregnant. I took the pregnancy test and my ID to a private hospital to set up a file, but when entering insurance information, I was stopped by the blonde administrative specialist. "Mrs. Smith, the system shows there is a problem with your marital status." She looked at me awkwardly. "Your marriage to Mr. Killian is not legally effective." I was stunned and instinctively retorted, "That's impossible. We registered in Las Vegas, all the procedures were..." "There is only an application record, no final signed effective document." The specialist turned the screen around and tapped the keyboard a few times. "Moreover, Mr. Killian's legal wife... shows another lady's name." That name was like a thorn, piercing fiercely into my retina. Elena. Killian's personal secretary, and also publicly recognized as the benefactor who saved his life in the Alps avalanche five years ago. I felt all the blood in my body flowing backward. How could it be her?

In the seventh year of Julia Fenner's marriage to Colonel Everett Warden, she carried her family papers to the housing office to buy a subsidized faculty apartment and was told the record in her hand was a forgery. How could that be possible? Certain the clerk had made a mistake, Julia politely asked her to check again. "My husband transferred my records after we married." The clerk checked the county and military-family registry again, her patience visibly thinning, and looked at Julia with something close to scorn. "There's no mistake. Everett Warden's lawful record lists two other people: his wife, Lydia Warden, and their son, Peter."

The day my overseas assignment finally ended, I kept my return a secret from Marielle Knox and spent thirteen hours flying home. We'd argued only a few days earlier. Marielle wanted me to keep building my career abroad, but I was determined to come home and marry her. Even as I was about to board, she was still trying to talk me out of it over the phone. "Weston, don't throw away your future for me. As long as we love each other, it doesn't matter whether we get married." Hearing that only made me more certain. The moment I landed, I went straight to a jewelry store, bought a diamond ring, and called my childhood best friend, Chase Davis, to tell him about my proposal plan. A baby was wailing on his end of the line. Chase tried to soothe the child and snapped at me, "Weston Brown, wake up! You've been long-distance for five years, and she keeps putting off the wedding. She obviously doesn't want to marry you. "Marriage is where love goes to die. Ever since my wife had the baby, I've been losing my mind!" I was about to argue when I saw Chase walk out of a baby store, holding a child. "My wife's here. Talk later." He hung up in a hurry and waved toward the curb. A black luxury sedan pulled up in front of him. The door opened, and a woman took the baby from his arms and rocked him with the ease of someone who'd done it a thousand times. Sunlight fell across her profile, and the sight stung my eyes. The wife my best friend had kept secret for two years was Marielle—the girlfriend I'd spent five years loving from the other side of the world.

I have claustrophobia, yet Luther Jansen abandons me in a stopped elevator so he can bring some flu medicine to his assistant. I ask for a divorce after that. He signs the papers without hesitation and laughs about it with his friends. "She's just throwing a tantrum—her parents are dead, so there's no way she'll leave me. "Besides, there's a 30-day cooling-off period for divorces, right? I'll generously let this matter slide once she regrets this, and she'll be back." The following day, he shares an intimate photo of himself with his assistant. "I want to record every moment of your shyness." I count the days until I'm free. Then, I calmly pack my stuff and make a call. "Can you buy me a flight ticket to Nanderton, Uncle David?"

Clara Sterling, the richest woman in the city, successfully got a divorce and the custody over her daughter. I married her right away. Five years into our marriage, I've already quit my job and focused on becoming a great father and husband at home. Everything changes when Clara's ex-husband, William Sawyer, returns to the country abruptly. That night, my stepdaughter, Sarah Sterling, moves my things from Clara's room to a guest room. "You're my stepdad, so you can't sleep with my mommy. I can't make Daddy sad. You should leave our home!" The maids make fun of me. Meanwhile, Clara raises an eyebrow at me. "It's completely normal for Sarah to take her biological father's side. Don't take her words to heart. You're my husband now, anyway." I just hum in response as I pack up my luggage silently. Clara tries to climb into my bed late at night, only for me to turn her away. "Our marriage contract will come to an end in two days. Once the time comes, let's get a divorce."

Three years ago, my best friend was hit by a car trying to save me. She had been in a coma ever since. I sat by her hospital bed, holding her hand. "Serena, you promised you'd be my maid of honor, remember? Julian and I finally set the date. Please wake up soon, okay? I miss you so much." My choked sobbing was cut short by a phone call. The nurse was asking me to come pay next month's hospital fees. But when I came back, I heard the voice I had been desperately waiting three years to hear. "Julian, you told me to wait for you while you broke things off with her." "I've waited three years for you! She comes to see me every single day, and all I can do is lie here." "Now you two are getting married. What about me!"

My girlfriend, Natalie Whitcombe, was the heiress to a wealthy family. Yet, she still took my salary and insisted that we save every penny together so we could eventually run away and start a new life. She bought me only discounted items close to their expiration dates, picked up clothes her neighbors no longer wanted for me to wear, and bought me the cheapest version of everything. Meanwhile, I turned down a high-paying out-of-town job assignment just to stay by her side. I even secretly worked part-time at a restaurant after my regular shifts, hoping to earn a little extra just to save more money. Unfortunately, I eventually ran into Natalie at that very restaurant. The woman who was always telling me we needed to save money had just spent tens of millions to reserve the entire restaurant for her childhood sweetheart, Ewan Somerset, to celebrate his birthday. Then, she even announced that Ewan was her fiancé in front of everyone. Ewan smiled. "If I'm your fiance, what does that make Sylvan Joffre? I heard he's been working himself to the bone at all sorts of part-time jobs every day, saving money so he can elope with you." "I'm just fooling around with him," Natalie said nonchalantly while withdrawing every last cent from my salary account. "It's not my fault that he was stupid enough to take it seriously. This is everything he saved over five years. Consider this a tip and split it among everyone." I received a hundred dollars from my own savings before the cheering crowd pushed me aside. Then, my phone pinged with a text notification from Natalie. "Babe, I'm standing in line to buy discounted goods right now. I'm sorry you've had to struggle alongside me. Once we've saved a million, we'll run away together." However, I would never believe her lies ever again. So, I texted my supervisor, "I'll accept the assignment. I don't care if I never come back."

My son, Yale Foster, had what they called school-pickup anxiety. Every afternoon before dismissal, he needed to know I was home waiting for him. So when he called from his smartwatch yet again to tell me not to come get him, Yates Foster looked genuinely troubled. "Winnie, don't come to the school. "If Yale sees you at the gate, he will start panicking that you're going to leave him. Once he starts crying, no one can calm him down." I stood there with my car keys in my hand, unsure what I was supposed to do. Yates sighed. "Mom's already gone to pick him up. Just stay home and wait for him." That was how three years passed with me almost never picking up my own son from school. Helen Foster handled pickup in my place and went with him on the school's family field trips. Whenever I wanted to go myself, someone always had a reason why I shouldn't. "The entrance gets so crowded. You'll only make him more anxious." "His teacher says Yale's finally getting used to the routine. We shouldn't keep changing who picks him up." "Winnie, you already work so hard. Leave little things like pickup to us." I believed them. Until today, when I happened to see a group chat on Helen's phone. Buried in the group's photo album was a password-protected folder: [Yale's Growing Up] I opened it and found everything I'd missed: school performances, parent-teacher conferences, family field days, graduation photos. Three hundred twenty-seven pictures. In every one of them, Yates, Yara Xavier, and Yale stood together. I wasn't in a single shot. In one photo, Yara even had a name tag pinned to her chest that read: [Yale Foster's Mom] The last file was a video. Yale was holding up an award when he asked, "Dad, why isn't Mom here yet?" Yates smiled and corrected him. "Mommy Yara is already here, isn't she?" Everyone behind the camera burst out laughing. And just like that, I understood. For the past three years, while they kept finding reasons to shut me out, they'd been letting another woman take my place throughout Yale's entire childhood.

Before my abortion, my best friend asked, "You're pregnant with Zeke's baby. Why do you suddenly want to break up with him?" I handed her my phone. "Because of one message." The conversation was still open to the text I had sent around noon. I included a picture of my lunch and complained about how terrible the takeout was. Four hours later, Zeke Evans replied with two simple words. [I see.] But when I checked social media, I saw that he liked a picture of Hailey Moore's lunch and commented, [Takeout isn't good for you. I'll cook for you from now on, like I did today.] Underneath, the two of them exchanged more than a dozen pointless comments, chatting as though they never ran out of things to say to each other. I stared at the post for a long time before deleting the message I had started typing, asking what he'd had for lunch. Then I scrolled back through our old conversations. For seven years, I shared every little detail of my life with Zeke: flowers I passed on the street, weeds pushing through cracks in the sidewalk, the stray cat that hung around outside my building. In the beginning, he was just as excited to tell me about his day. Over time, his replies dwindled into distracted, simple answers. It started when Hailey came back. When you love someone, you want to share your life with them. Everything Zeke stopped telling me, he was now telling her. "Ruby, they're ready for you." The nurse was calling my name. I looked out the window at the evening sky, then got up and followed her. The sunset was beautiful that day, but for the first time, I had no desire to take a picture and send it to Zeke.

It has been 99 times that Henry and I have filed the application for divorce and then withdrawn it. Each time before finalizing the divorce, Henry always waits for me to humbly beg him to stay married. I turned down the offer to be the chief composer at a famous studio in Vienna because Henry didn't want a long-distance relationship. I deleted all my male friends because Henry didn't want me to be too friendly to them. I stopped wearing red lipstick, composing, and traveling alone, because he said married women should stay at home instead of being impulsive. Only after I finally manage to appease him will he allow me to withdraw the divorce application. After my 100th divorce application, as I was leaving, the deputy clerk asked me curiously: "So, when are you going to withdraw your application this time?" I looked at Henry's cold back in front of me, forced to smile with tears, and told myself in my heart— This time, there will be no withdrawal of the application. After the 30-day cooling-off period, we'll be officially divorced. But why did his love only find its voice when I had already walked away?

I loved my husband, Damian, for fifteen years—from school uniforms to a wedding dress. Everyone said he doted on me down to his bones. Until I saw him with my own eyes, shielding another woman in his arms. All because of one absurd misunderstanding, he chose to cheat on me as payback—and even let his mistress get pregnant without a flicker of guilt. I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I just smiled and tricked him into signing the divorce papers, ready to disappear from his world for good. But I never expected that his best friend, Lucian, had been waiting for me in the shadows all along. I used to think he was gloomy, that he hated me. I never knew that he had loved me for fifteen years like a madman. When Damian finally realized his mistake and got down on his knees begging me to come back, he found me locked in Lucian's arms. Damian stared at his former best friend, almost unhinged: "She's my wife! You went behind my back and took my brother's woman—do you have any morals?!" Lucian just flung the signed divorce certificate in his face, and smiled—cold, and utterly possessive: "I'm chasing my own wife. What morals do I need?" "And watch your filthy mouth. From now on, you call her Mrs. Kane."

At Greg Jenson’s birthday party, an obituary suddenly created a huge ruckus in our school year’s group chat. “Oh my God, Luanne Lee is dead” “It’s got to be fake news. A bad thing never dies. How could a malicious woman like her die so easily? Back then, she literally took Greg...” Sitting at the head of the table, Greg twirled his phone in his hand, his eyes dark. “It's fake. I just got a call from her this morning. She said she was coming to my birthday party.” However, someone hesitantly held up their phone, showing the screen to the room. “If I'm not mistaken, this person really is Luanne. The memorial service is at the funeral home in the neighboring city. Should we go check it out?” On the screen was a photo of a funeral hall, and there I was, lying peacefully right in the center. Greg’s expression turned to panic. He bolted upright and headed straight for the exit, but the moment he opened the door, he froze dead in his tracks. The deceased ‘me’ was standing right at the doorway. Looking into those deeply familiar eyes, I smiled and said, “Greg, it’s been ten years. I'm here to wish you a happy birthday.”

In the final year of my bond with vampire lord Saul, the curse of our pact struck, and I was overwhelmed by agony, but my lord was nowhere to be found. He had gone out. He left me to suffer. Alone. When the door finally creaked open the next morning, I looked up through bloodshot eyes—hope flickering like a dying candle. But he wasn't alone. He carried an unconscious woman in his arms, her head resting against his chest like she belonged there. Ignoring me as I curled up on the floor in pain, he first carried the woman to his room and called the old butler anxiously. "Jacinda's passed out. Hurry! Check if she's all right!" The old butler cautiously pleaded on my behalf, hoping our lord could save me first, but Saul frowned and interrupted: "Jacinda is in danger, and I have no mind to drink her blood now. She just needs to pull through herself. Believe me, she won't die. Right now, the priority is to save Jacinda." A frown and a glance in my direction was his only response to the old butler's desperate plea. With my only hope shattered, I clenched my teeth and slashed several long wounds on my arms and hands to drain blood for self-rescue. After a long period of weak convulsions, the curse of the pact finally ended. I lay in a pool of blood, sending a message with my last faint consciousness. "I promise I will leave him."

On the way home after learning I was pregnant, my husband, Christopher Monroe, the director of a research institute, suddenly breaks the silence. "There's something I need to tell you." What he says next leaves me stunned. "My widowed sister-in-law is pregnant with my child, too." The smile on my face freezes. I stare at him as he pulls a prenatal examination report from his pocket. It isn't mine. His voice is so calm that it sends a chill down my spine. "That day, you had a high fever and fell asleep in the back seat. We screwed like rabbits in the driver's seat, right where you're sitting now." In an instant, it feels as though I'm plunged into an icy abyss. I open my mouth, but no words come out, as though something is lodged in my throat. Christopher glances down at my slightly rounded belly before delivering his next blow, each word cutting deeper than a knife. "I only intend to have one child. Everything I can offer, from financial support to connections and opportunities, will go to Serena's child. If you choose to have this baby, you'll be raising it without any help from me. "Now that I've told you the truth, whether you keep the baby is entirely up to you."

For four years, I was in a secret relationship with Luke Collins. Even his closest friends had no clue. But everything changed when his first love returned. His friends started betting on when he'd break up with his girlfriend. "Right now." I blurted out. I knew because I was about to walk into an arranged marriage with someone else.

My husband, Colonel Ronan, swore to protect the wife and son of his fallen comrade. Everyone in Greyhaven admired his devotion. At home, our seven-year-old daughter learned to eat her birthday cake without him. Then her teacher sent home an assignment. [My father is dead. He died at Mara's house. Whenever she calls, he goes to her, and I have to wait until he remembers me.] Ronan came home demanding an explanation, with a birthday present tucked beneath his arm. Our daughter thanked him. "Good evening, Colonel." He wanted me to tell her to call him Dad. Instead, I answered the letter I had kept hidden in my desk. My father, the King of Northmere, had asked me to come home. He wanted me to return to the palace and take my place as the next Queen of Northmere. And Ivy would return with me—not as the daughter everyone had overlooked, but as a princess. In fifteen days, we would leave everything behind and go home to a family that had been waiting for us all along.

Naomi Cole kept a detailed journal that outlined every plan she had for her life. She planned to wake up at 6:00 a.m. every morning. Even if she didn't fall asleep until 5:30 a.m., she would still open her eyes at exactly 6:00 a.m. She planned to attend college at 16. Even when an accident left her with a broken right hand just before an exam, she refused to miss it and completed the entire test with her left hand. She planned to fall in love at 20. So, the year she graduated from college, she accepted Zachary Brooks' confession of love and became his girlfriend. She planned to get married at 25. So, atop a snow-covered mountain, she took the initiative, knelt before Zachary, and proposed to him. Together, they became the kind of fairy-tale couple everyone envied. Naomi followed every detail of her life plan to the letter. She never left anything to chance. Then she turned 28, the age at which she had planned to have a child. But despite all her efforts, she couldn't get pregnant. So she decided to leave Zachary and find another man who could help her fulfill her plan...