Tragic Love Romance Short Stories & Independence Face Slapping Novels

The day my parents traveled all the way from home to discuss the wedding arrangements, the Miller family—led by Grayson Miller—showed up late. After my third call went unanswered, my mom forced a smile and tried to comfort me. "Maybe they're stuck in traffic. It's no big deal. Your dad and I don't mind waiting." And wait we did—for three hours. Their expressions slowly shifted from eager excitement to quiet sorrow. My dad kept tugging at the stiff, ill-fitting suit he rarely wore. Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore. His eyes reddened, and his voice trembled as he asked, "Sweetheart… does it have to be him? "I'm not trying to break you two up. It's just—you'll be thousands of miles away from us. If you ever get hurt, your mom and I… we won't be there in time to wipe your tears." My nails dug into my palms. Still, I smiled, helped my parents to their feet, and said: "Dad, Mom, let's go home. Forget the engagement. I don't want it anymore."

Jasper Eaton decides to ditch me at the altar just so he can meet up with Wendy Klein, his ex-girlfriend who abandoned him when he almost got crippled five years ago. All the guests are stunned, to say the least. I can only tug at Jasper's hem of his shirt while trying very hard to keep my expression intact. "Can you please stay with me now?" Mixed feelings cross his eyes, but he soon wrenches my hand off him, finger by finger. At the same time, he shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but I must go now. I need to ask Wendy why she was so heartless to me back then." Amid the crowd's shocked gasps and murmurs, Jasper leaves without even looking back. My dad, who has a bad heart, trembles violently out of fury. I can only stare in a shocked daze as he collapses to the floor shortly after. "Dad!" I break down on the spot. Still, I manage to send him to the hospital. There, I slump outside the emergency room. At that moment, my phone buzzes for a short while. Two new text messages have shown up on my screen. The first message comes from Wendy. "I told you that as long as I'm back, Jasper will never choose you. You lost again, Celeste." The second message comes from Jasper. "Give me 30 days. We'll break up for the time being. Once the period is over, I'll definitely love you and you only." My gaze is already hollow at that point. The smile curving on my lips is one of mockery and bitterness. This time, I will never lose ever again.

When I was five, the wealthy Whitmores adopted me from an orphanage so their only son, Caleb, would have someone to grow up with. The first time we met, Caleb pulled his best friend Audrey Ellis over and gave me half his candy. After that, the three of us were inseparable. That changed in the summer after our college entrance exams, when Audrey confessed her feelings to me—and I accepted. Caleb quietly chose a university a thousand miles away. The night before he was supposed to leave, he went drinking alone. Someone dragged him into the alley behind the bar and beat and humiliated him until he died. Audrey and I spent the next two decades burdened by guilt. At forty, I was diagnosed with ALS. The night before I died, she held me and cried so hard she shook. "Julian, I love you. I always have." "But if there is a next life, I have to stay with Caleb. I can't let anything happen to him again." When I opened my eyes, I was back. I had returned to the day Audrey was going to tell me she loved me.

A sudden burst of screams erupted in the living room at 3 AM. I pushed open the door to hear the commentator announcing that my fiancé Noah Lucas' favorite team had advanced to the quarter-finals. Our best friend, Jessie Newman, jumped up excitedly and kissed Noah on the cheek. I would be taking wedding photos with Noah in another five hours. The hangover soup on the table had long since gone cold, with a cigarette butt floating in it. I could not help coughing. The two of them froze mid-conversation. Jessie realized what it looked like and stepped over the wine bottles on the floor with her fair legs. She hugged me and kissed me on the cheek, too. Her voice was gentle and innocent. "Lola, why are you awake? Don't overthink. I've been best friends with Noah since kindergarten. We were just messing around! Noah was too noisy, wasn't he? I'll teach him a lesson for you." Noah casually tossed a cushion at her, hitting her squarely on her bottom, and teased with a laugh, "You're blaming me? You were the one shouting!" Then, he nonchalantly reassured me, "Lola, we're about to take our wedding photos soon. Go and get some more sleep. We'll turn the volume down." There was no apology or explanation. They were just trying to brush me off, as always. They assumed I was being paranoid and petty, tainting their 20-year friendship by overthinking. I loosened my grip on my nightgown. "It's okay. You guys continue." I had had enough of this three-person farce. I was done.

Every single time I get intimate with my boyfriend, Lyle Holloway, I notice he always changes the bedsheets afterward. After a frenzied release, I can't help but ask him about it. Lyle gently twirls a strand of my hair around his finger and smiles tenderly. "Of course it's because your best friend sweats buckets. Every time before I do it with you, she gets jealous and insists on going first. Ever since I met her, I've realized that women really are made of water." His response catches me off guard, and I stare at him in utter disbelief. "What did you just say?" He stubs out his cigarette, a half-smile playing on his lips. "Grace, your mom was tortured to death in bed by your dad, not by me. So, every time you lie in bed like a corpse, it really kills the mood. That's your trauma, not mine, and you shouldn't expect me to pay the price for it, got it? "In fact, you should thank your best friend. She's helping you maintain our relationship!" My best friend, Pamela Sinclair, rushes in with tears in her eyes and immediately slaps Lyle across the face. "Apologize to Grace right now, you bastard!" I gaze at the two of them, but all I can taste in my throat is bitterness. Turns out, all these years, I've been nothing more than a burdensome killjoy in Lyle's eyes. I'm done squeezing into a bed that was never big enough for three of us…

I've been able to smell people's emotions since I was a child. Affection smells sweet. Sorrow smells bitter. Disgust and anger smell spicy. I'd been with Bruce Dawson for ten years, and the scent that clung to him had never changed. It was always sweet, cloyingly so. The only thing that ever shifted was the day my older sister left the country. That night, when he came home late, his scent had turned bitter enough to make me frown. But I never connected the two. Not until three years later, when my sister came home to get married. That day, his scent was bitter laced with something spicy, a mix I'd never smelled on him before. It struck me as strange. Without thinking, I followed him when he stepped away from the reception, and outside in the stairwell I heard his voice, low and pained. "That's enough, Jasmine! You'd rather marry a stranger just to make me give up on you?" My sister's voice cracked as she cried back at him. "What else can I do? You're my brother-in-law. Rosalie is my sister. We can't keep doing this to her!" I froze in the doorway, my whole body shaking with shock, my heart wrung out like a fist closing around it until I couldn't breathe. That was when my phone lit up with a reminder: my wedding to Bruce was next week. I stood there blank for two seconds. Then I called the hotel and canceled the wedding.

After his eighteenth failed attempt to divorce me, Jesse Pellam suddenly stopped bringing it up. Before that, every single attempt had ended in complete humiliation and chaos. I had harmed myself, threatened to jump from a building, and plastered the company lobby with intimate photos of him and his female assistant, Gianna Seyfert. At a press conference, I had even publicly stripped Gianna, leaving her with PTSD. Jesse had every reason to despise me; however, he never mentioned divorcing me again. He came home on time every day and gave me full access to his phone. He checked in with me every hour to update me on his whereabouts. Even during his business trips, we stayed connected through video calls around the clock. But I still could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. Every day, I pressed him for an answer, asking why he no longer wanted a divorce. “Haven’t I done enough?” he asked. Yes, he was better than ever, almost too good to be true. It was not until he caught me following him again that he finally admitted the truth. With exhaustion evident in his eyes, he said, “I received a phone call from my future self, ten years from now. He told me that if I divorced you, I would regret it.”

Jaime Barthes was the only son of the wealthiest family in Hartow City. Ever since he was a child, he could have anything he wanted. On his fifteenth birthday, he fell for Eden Hawthorn the moment he first saw her. Right then and there, he boldly declared, "She belongs to me, and nobody should ever think about touching her!" During the entire decade of their marriage, he was obsessively protective of her. She was forbidden from any kind of interaction with men, and she had to employ the help of her assistant for something as mundane as handing a report to a male colleague. Everyone assumed this was simply Jaime's love language. One day, he caught a terminal disease. The entire nation frantically searched high and low for a matching heart donor, and when they finally found one, Eden decided to give the heart to another man named Jericho Brown.

Before Christmas Eve, all of Nowevik was betting. Not on money. On me. Would I finally pull the winning lot? Would Leon Fabian finally take me to his family estate for Christmas? The Fabians had a rule. A new bride had to attend the Christmas Eve dinner with the whole family before she counted as one of them. I'd been married five years. Five years. The lot never landed on me. I'd become Nowevik's favorite joke. This year, the winning ticket went to a nightclub hostess. She lounged on Leon's lap and flicked it onto the table in front of me, smiling like she'd already won. The room went silent. Everyone waited— for me to lunge at her like I had the last four years. Claws out. A scene. But I didn't move. "Congratulations." Leon leaned in, breath warm at my ear, smiling like he'd just proved something. "Wynne, you're finally learning how to behave. Keep this up and you might actually become a proper lady of my house." I lowered my eyes and tore the ticket in half. My face stayed blank. Leon had no idea the five-year deal between my brother and me was already over. Soon, he'd come take me home.

Lucas Harlow and I have been together for seven years, and we plan to get married next year. When I accompany him to his hometown to meet his parents, we happen to arrive just in time for his cousin Spencer Harlow's wedding. Following a local tradition, the older relatives cheerfully urge Lucas to sleep in the newlyweds' bed the night before the ceremony for good luck. Lucas' mother, Beatrice Collins, takes my hand and explains with a smile, "Katherine, I hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable. It's an old custom around here. "Before the wedding, a man who's still a virgin blesses the couple's bed by sleeping in it. It's supposed to bring the newlyweds good luck and a happy marriage." I lower my head in embarrassment, for Lucas and I are saving ourselves for our wedding night. No matter how difficult the wait has been for him over the past seven years, he's always respected that boundary and insisted on doing right by me. When I finally look up, my cheeks still burning, I see that Lucas has gone pale. Flustered and visibly uncomfortable, he frantically waves everyone off and adamantly refuses to go anywhere near the bed. "I can't do it. You're going to have to find someone else…" As I watch my boyfriend avoid everyone's gaze, my heart drops.

My girlfriend, Selena Jenkins, and I are committed to a strict 50-50 relationship. We are three years into our relationship, and we split everything down to a single bottle of water. Then, out of nowhere, I get a call from a kidnapper. "We have your girlfriend. Have 150 thousand dollars ready, or she dies!" I calmly launch our app, SplitMate. According to the algorithm, this unexpected incident falls under "shared risk", meaning she is responsible for 50% of the cost. However, after factoring in the personal insurance policy I took out on her behalf, she only needs to pay 35,550 dollars. I send the calculation results to the kidnapper. "This is her share. Please contact her family for the payment. I'm only responsible for my own portion." The line goes silent. A few minutes later, I receive a livestream link. The livestream shows Selena tied to a chair, smiling at her phone. The live chat in front of her is blowing up. "Holy shit! This guy's a monster. This is the craziest livestream I've seen all year!" Later on, she follows the 50-50 rule to a T, but I'm no longer on board with it.

In the fifth year of her marriage, Natalie Shaw is taken to the police for the 199th time after being mistaken for a mistress. Someone comes to bail her out. Her face is covered in scratches and blood. A chunk of her hair has been ripped out, exposing raw, bleeding skin. It's a horrifying sight. She cries from the pain. But soon, she goes numb. She sits in the chair in silence, trying to untangle her hair, which has been clumped together by thick, sticky blood. Only when a police officer hands her a document and tells her she is free to leave does she slowly lift her head. And sure enough, the person who has come to bail her out is not her husband, Adrian Carter.

At my husband's book launch, the young woman beside me leaned in close. "Are you a fan of Professor Gyver too? I don't think I've seen you here before." Julian and I had kept our marriage private, so I shook my head. "I was just passing by. It sounded lively in here, so I came in to look." She noticed the white cane by my feet, and understood at once. Onstage, the host asked Julian where the book had come from. He looked toward my side of the room, and his voice went soft. "I promised the person I love that we'd watch a sunrise together. It never happened, for various reasons. So I wrote the regret into the book." When it ended, applause filled the hall. The girl beside me went bounding up and threw herself into his arms. "Professor! The book's out. When are you taking me to see that sunrise you promised?" My smile froze on my face. The sunrise was mine. It had always been Julian's promise to me. Julian ruffled her hair, helpless, let his eyes sweep past me from across the room, then took her hand and left. He didn't know I could see again. That was the only reason I'd come. To tell him that the sunrise we'd waited so long for was finally ours to watch. He'd always said the auditorium was too crowded, that he couldn't find me. So I'd wait alone until every light went out, then leave with my cane. He could find me. That was never the problem. He just wanted a different girl beside him when the lights were on him. I dropped the plane tickets I'd bought for him into the trash. The sunrise doesn't wait. Neither do I.

Ryan Becker's favorite phrase was always, "Just wait a little longer." I waited two years for his startup to stabilize so we could get married. I waited another three years for his mother to warm up to the idea of a wedding. On the night of his 30th birthday dinner, his mother slipped her emerald bracelet off her wrist in front of everyone. Passing down the heirloom was their old tradition for recognizing a daughter-in-law. I thought that this time, finally, I wouldn't have to wait anymore. "Give me your hand, dear." Yet Aurelie Becker reached right past me and smoothly fastened the bracelet around Sabine Hansen's wrist instead. The entire room fell dead silent. She patted the back of Sabine's hand warmly. "Sabine grew up with Ryan. We're all one family here, no distinctions between us." My hands were still resting on the table, my fingertips turning cold. Someone whispered, "What about Miss Solis?" Ryan leaned in close, lowering his voice. "My mom is just being sentimental. Don't take it to heart. I'll bring you a custom necklace from my business trip next month. Just wait a little longer, okay?" Sabine lifted her wrist, flaunting it right in front of my face with a provocative smile. "Look, Eliza, isn't it beautiful? Aurelie says it's an old-mine emerald." "It's beautiful," I said simply. Just then, the phone inside my bag vibrated. It was a text message that read: [Have you made up your mind? When are you coming to Phaelis?]

On the day my wife, Rachel Carter, receives her Ph.D., I rush back from overseas. But when I approach her with a carefully chosen gift, she slaps me in front of everyone. "I'm a married woman with a family of my own. Stop trying to make me your lover!" I watch as she turns away from me and makes her way over to a family of four. "Honey, Mom, Dad, don't mind him. This man is crazy. Let's go," she says gently. Refusing to give up, I catch up to her and grab her arm. "What happened, Rach?" I ask. "Who's this scary man, Mommy?" a child asks. "Why does he keep bothering you?" Rachel yanks her hand away and pulls out her phone. "I've already called the police. Stop harassing me, you piece of trash!" As I stare at her retreating figure, a wave of exhaustion suddenly washes over me. I pull out my phone and make a call. "Notify headquarters, William. Cancel all plans to relocate our global headquarters back to Jekovia." After I hang up, I toss the gift into a nearby trash can and walk away without looking back.

When it's almost time to get off work, Mason Lakeworth's coworkers drag him over to the window and point excitedly at a gorgeous woman downstairs. She's shown up outside their newspaper's building at exactly the same time for seven days in a row. "I did some digging! That's Lindsay Statham, the heiress of Heronvale's richest family. No wonder she drives a supercar with a custom vanity plate!" "And she looks good, too… Too bad she was set up and forced into getting married at a young age five years ago. I wonder which guy hit the jackpot and landed a woman like that." "But seriously, she's been coming to our crappy building for a full week. What is she even here for? Mason, you're always the last to leave. Have you seen who she's waiting for?" Mason stands off to the side in silence, saying nothing for a long time. His coworkers don't really expect him to answer anyway. They all start talking over each other, throwing out ideas. "Wait, Mason—you've been desperate for cash lately, right? Here's your golden ticket. Our new finance column is still short on a star interview. If you can land an exclusive with Lindsay Statham, the boss will definitely give you a huge bonus. You won't have to worry about your son's medical bills anymore!" Mason still doesn't respond. After a while, he withdraws his gaze from the window and finally speaks, his voice so calm it's almost numb. "My son died two weeks ago." He pauses, then adds, "And Lindsay… is my wife—the one I've been secretly married to for the past five years and the woman you're all so curious about."

During the holidays, my boyfriend, Felix Zimmerman, insists on bringing his female best friend, Cassidy Crowther, home for dinner. Everyone keeps fussing over Cassidy. Even Felix's mother, Helen Danes, takes Cassidy's hand and asks her about her life. Her eyes are already crinkling from how wide her smile has become. But when Helen notices me being ignored by everyone else, she's quick to frown at me. "Sienna, if you have nothing to do, you might as well help out in the kitchen." At the dining table, Felix keeps placing food on Cassidy's plate. When I mutter to Felix to help grab me a piece of crab due to how far the crabs are from me, he goes impatient immediately. Heck, he doesn't even bother glancing at me. "Can't you see that I'm busy? You can go get it yourself!" Left without a choice, I can only rise to my feet. But Felix's dad, Andrew Zimmerman, quickly stops me when he spots me reaching for the plate of crabs. "The act of peeling crabs is very unlady-like, Sienna. That's why you shouldn't have any." I'm pissed, to say the least. So, I dig out my phone and upload a post on my social media feed. "Does anyone want to invite me to their family dinner tonight?" Numerous text messages blast up my phone the next moment. Countless scions from various wealthy and influential families in Hillsbury quickly leave comments on my post. "Ms. Winslow, may I have the honor of inviting you to dinner with me?" "My home works too! My parents keep telling me that they haven't seen you in such a long time!"

After I become pregnant, Mason Clarke suddenly becomes incredibly attentive to me. He cancels all his social engagements and personally cooks for me every day. Everyone envies me for finding such a devoted and caring husband. Until one day in his study, I accidentally discover a document titled "Prenatal Blood Donation and Cord Blood Donation Agreement". My name and social security number are clearly written on it! In the beneficiary column is Chloe Reid, his first love, whom he has been supporting abroad for seven years. From outside the door comes his gentle, doting voice. "Chloe, don't worry. I'm personally monitoring her. Her nutrition and daily routine are held to the highest standards to ensure the baby is born perfectly healthy. Your life-saving treatment is absolutely guaranteed!" So all those pregnancy meals he carefully prepares for me, the mountains of expensive supplements, none of it is ever out of love. It's all to fatten me into nothing more than a walking blood bank!

On the seventh year after the breakup, I receive a package from Clarence Fraser. All 44 pounds of said package consist of the stacks of chat history I have with him in the past. Soon, Clarence's text appears on my phone screen. "Wanna meet up? I'd like to tell you something." I pause momentarily before responding with a "1". That number signifies rejection. Then, I turn my phone off. After wiping my sweat off with a towel, I pick up another crate of fruits and continue promoting them to the customers loudly, as though nothing has happened. It's been so many years, and I don't know why Clarence decides to text me all of a sudden. Similarly, he doesn't know that I've already become someone else's wife a long time ago.

Right after I had my uterine scraping procedure, Ian called. "Construction on Tina's new home officially starts today. I'm going over to keep an eye on things, so don't wait for me for dinner. "You're on your period today. Don't wander around outside for too long. Go home and get some rest." I touched my flat stomach and couldn't speak for a long time. All this time, Ian and Tina had been the design firm's poster children. One was a specialist in hard finishes, while the other was a prodigy in soft furnishings. Even our marital home had been designed by the two of them working together. But every time we discussed the plans, Ian would pull out another set of blueprints he had painstakingly refined and patiently explain to Tina the entire hardscape design he had created specifically for her new home. Every detail was a perfect replica of the dream house he and I had once imagined together. "Tina lives alone, and the house is small. Designing it for her is no big deal. "Besides, you're not pregnant yet. Once we have a baby, we can renovate the entire house, including the nursery, all at once. It'll save us trouble." For the sake of 'saving us trouble,' I had waited three years in a house where not even the walls had been painted. All I got in return were Ian's repeated excuses and empty promises. He didn't even know I was pregnant. He had mistaken the symptoms of my threatened miscarriage for a normal period. Tina's flirty voice came through the phone. "Ian, don't slack off! Come help me double-check the measurements we left for the bathroom cabinets!" The call ended abruptly. I took a deep breath as I listened to the harsh beeping tone. After waiting three years for this unfinished house, I suddenly didn't want to wait anymore.