Independence Romance Short Stories & Novels

After I was rescued from a staged kidnapping, my wife, Vanessa, moved out of our bedroom on her own. No matter how I explained, she insisted I had been attacked because I had cheated. Even when I tried to touch her, she screamed and threw up on me. Friends and relatives looked at me with more and more pity. Everyone told me, "Vanessa's a good woman. Stop tormenting her." Even my son snapped, "You're so filthy. Why do you have to force Mom?" From then on, I was branded a cheater and a lunatic. I spent the rest of my life in misery and despair, and in my old age, I ended that wretched life by throwing myself into a lake. Only after I died did I learn that the kidnapping had been staged by Vanessa herself. She used my guilt to make me take care of our son and her father. Meanwhile, she kept herself "pure" for the man she'd never gotten over and lived a carefree life with him. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day I was rescued.

On the flight to the World Healthcare Competition, the lead professor had been checking the samples of the experimental drugs for the competition. When he got to Sabrina, the junior member of the team, she blinked innocently and said. "I replaced all the samples with highly toxic reagents. I wanted to test everyone's emergency response in unexpected situations. "Not just ours, though. I secretly swapped the other teams' samples, too." In my previous life, I immediately contacted airport security and forced all flights to be grounded, narrowly preventing a global medical disaster. Sabrina was arrested for deploying hazardous substances, missed the finals, and became a pariah in the medical world after that. At the celebration banquet, my boyfriend, the lead surgeon, locked me inside a negative-110-degree freezer. He looked at me with cold, unfeeling eyes as he said, "Sabrina was just joking. You could've quietly switched the samples back. If you hadn't called the police, she wouldn't have been ruined, and she wouldn't have slit her wrists in prison. "You should experience the cold and despair she felt before death." They pressed the cooling switch, and so my blood congealed as I suffocated in agony in the extreme cold. … When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the flight. Sabrina was cupping her face, looking at the lead professor with bright anticipation. I quietly put on my eye mask and said nothing. I wasn't going to stop her this time. Instead, I would let the entire team die from the poison together.

I have a secret. If I touch anyone, I will be able to see the face of the person they love the most. Ever since Dominic Hatterson has moved to the house next door when he was seven years old, I'm the one he loves the most. When he holds hands with me as an 18-year-old, I remain the person he loves the most. When he proposes to me at the age of 22, I'm still the person he loves the most. On the morning of our third year anniversary, I tidy his collar for him. The moment my fingertips touch his Adam's apple, I close my eyes out of reflex. Yet, that's when I see two faces. One belongs to me. The other belongs to a woman I've never seen before. That night, Dominic's phone lights up. "Thank you for spending the day with me, Dom." It's been 21 years since Dominic and I met. I've touched him over 100 thousand times already. And yet, this is my first time finding a mistake.

An app had been making the rounds online lately—one that let you text your future self. Right before the final paper of the SATs, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and fired off a message: [Future me, do I end up marrying Liam Tinsley?] The screen flickered, and a reply from an "Unknown Number" popped up almost instantly: [Yes. You had a big, grand wedding.] I clutched my phone and typed back fast: [And Mia Thompson was my maid of honor, right? She's my best friend!] The response came just as quickly: [She was. But she wasn't just the maid of honor, she slept with Liam on your wedding night.] My smile froze mid-expression. Then a second message hit: [Truth is, you didn't need to go through all that trouble tanking your scores just to match his. He bombed the math section on purpose—so he could end up in the same city as Mia, who was at the bottom of the class.] [He pushed you to turn down that top-tier university—not for your sake, but because he didn't want Mia to feel inferior next to your grades.] The pre-exam warning bell cut through the air. But I was frozen, my body ice-cold, unable to move. One last message slammed into my screen: [If you don't believe me, head straight to the motel behind the school after the test. You'll see the truth for yourself.]

On the Memorial Day weekend, Mason Hayes, the student my wife, Abigail Sullivan, had been sponsoring, insisted on riding with me back to his hometown. My car was small, the drive was long, and the trunk was already packed. There was no way to fit another adult, so I turned him down as politely as I could. That night, Abigail came home and stayed quiet for a long time before finally saying, "He ended up walking along the highway. His feet were torn up." I frowned, trying to make sense of it. "It's a holiday weekend. There are Ubers everywhere. He could've booked one in minutes." She nodded softly, the same gentle expression she always wore, and poured me a glass of water. I drank it. The next thing I knew, everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing under a brutal midday sun on an empty stretch of highway. Abigail leaned into Mason's shoulder, holding her phone up as she livestreamed. There was a faint smile on her lips, but there was nothing warm about it. "You said getting around was easy, right? Why don't you try walking home yourself?" The livestream was packed. The chat flooded with messages, people placing bets on how far I would make it. I looked straight into the camera, ran my tongue over my cracked lips, and said, "Done enjoying the show? Now come and pick me up."

My wife, Sophie Souza, cheats on me when she gets drunk. That's when she gets pregnant with her assistant, Dylan Hart's baby. By the time I come across Sophie's pregnancy report, she's already three months into her pregnancy. I tell her outright that I will choose to forgive her as long as she aborts the baby. But Sophie asks me coldly, "Which one will you choose? Me or your dignity?" I remain silent for a very long time afterward. In the end, I leave a divorce agreement behind and completely vanish from Sophie's world. But that's when she claims that she regrets making me choose.

My mother suddenly suffered a brain hemorrhage, and I needed to pay $80,000 for surgery immediately. I called my wife right away. Before I could finish, she cut me off impatiently. "Gabriel Cole, didn't we agree when we got married that we'd keep our finances separate? Your mother being sick is your family's problem. Why should you touch my savings? Can't you have a little respect for the contract?" Then my stepson's sneering voice came through from her side. "Uncle Gabriel, can you stop morally blackmailing my mom? As a grown man, isn't it pathetic that you can't even pay your own mother's medical bills? Stop bothering us while we're eating sushi." Because I couldn't pay the fee in time, my mother missed the best window for surgery and died. It wasn't until noon the next day that my wife called me. Her first words were an accusation. "What's wrong with you? It's already noon. Why aren't you back to cook? Don't you know Mason has tutoring this afternoon?" "My mom died of a brain hemorrhage!" I roared through gritted teeth. My wife froze for a second. The first thing she blurted out was: "Well, don't expect me to pay for the funeral. That's a matter of principle. "And your mother dying is your mother dying. That's not a reason for you to skip cooking." In that instant, I knew the devotion I'd poured out for more than ten years meant nothing to her. Rage hit my heart. I suffered a heart attack and followed my mother into death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my wife proposed separate finances after marriage.

I had an arranged marriage, and my wife was the only daughter of her family. Because of PTSD, she couldn't be intimate with anyone. When she handed me the signed agreement, she also sent a gentle, obedient woman to my room. "Even though it's our wedding night, I'm afraid you'll have to put up with this." I stared at her in disbelief, wondering if this was some kind of test of my character. Just as I was about to launch into a speech about loyalty and marriage, I suddenly heard the thoughts of the psychologist standing beside her. [What does he have to complain about? That position should've been mine! If Kayla didn't need the Grant family's support, she never would've agreed to marry a loser like him! Luckily, Kayla loves me. She even used PTSD as an excuse to save herself for me. I just need to try harder and get her pregnant, then Benjamin Grant will become a complete laughingstock!] The words that had been on the tip of my tongue disappeared instantly. Without hesitation, I accepted Kayla's arrangement. There was nothing wrong with people in a business marriage living separate lives. I wasn't an idiot. Why would I pick a fight with Kayla over something like this? Living peacefully and minding my own business was the smartest choice. To show that I had no inappropriate intentions toward her, I even ordered maternity and baby supplies for her. "I heard you're pregnant. Coincidentally, the woman you sent to me is pregnant too." I was planning to ask her for some advice. Instead, her face darkened. She gritted her teeth and snapped, "I'm not pregnant! She's not your mistress either. She's the IVF coordinator I hired to get you up to speed!"

It was the fifth year of my secret marriage to the CEO. At the company's annual gala, her male assistant got down on one knee and proposed to her in front of everyone. The way she looked at him was filled with nothing but affection. Caught up in the crowd's cheers and chants, she said yes. After the gala, I signed the divorce papers and handed them to her. Her assistant put on a sheepish, apologetic face and said, "I'm so sorry—I just wanted to know what it felt like to propose. Please don't be upset, Mr. Gabehart." She rushed to comfort him, then barely glanced at me and said, "You'd better think this through. At your age, honestly—who else would want you if you leave me?"

I've just received a text from my CEO wife, Cara Lavigne. Apparently, she's gone on another last-minute business trip again, so she can't accompany me to the funeral home. But soon, I see Cara's silhouette being captured in a photo, where she celebrates her assistant, Warren Stone's birthday with him in a work-related post he has just uploaded. The caption reads, "Thank you for the amazing cake, boss! I feel so happy to be able to celebrate my birthday!" I just smile calmly before leaving a like and a comment. "Happy birthday." My colleagues, on the other hand, start betting pools like mad to see what kind of tricks I'm going to pull this time in order to kick up a ruckus. Cara calls me immediately just to scold me. "Warren is just celebrating his birthday, so what's with the comment? He's a very sensitive person, you know! How is he going to survive in this company now that you've passive-aggressively humiliated him in that public post? "It's been barely two years since Warren joined this company, not to mention he doesn't have any friends! What's wrong with me celebrating his birthday with him, huh? People like you, who are born with silver spoons in their mouths, will never understand Warren's plight! "I want you to delete your comment right now! We'll talk more about this once I'm home! Your dad is already dead anyway, so you can just wait for a few more days before claiming his body!" I can only clench my fists tightly as I listen to Cara's heartless and nonchalant words. "No need for that." Once she is back, the divorce procedures will be done.

The night before my wedding, I caught my fiancé, Miguel Sheffield, kissing the Newells' biological daughter in the garden. I stood there with my pregnancy test in hand, my chest hollow. The next day, the wedding went on. Flowers lined the red carpet. Guests lifted their champagne glasses. But the bells rang again and again, and the bride never showed. The daughter the Newells had raised by mistake left only her engagement ring on the vanity. Then she vanished. I moved overseas and raised my child alone. I cut off everyone from my past. Five years later, I came home. And one by one, they walked right back into my life.

On the day I left for a business trip, my son, Billy Smith, livestreamed his suicide attempt from our home. While I took my time shopping at the mall, my younger sister, Lori Chaney, and my husband, Greg Smith, were beside themselves with panic. By the time I got the call from Lori, I dropped everything at work and rushed home. However, I reached home to see Billy sobbing into the camera. “Mom, whenever Dad isn’t home, you bring Mr. Scott into the house. After that, you’d force me to keep it a secret. When I refused to play along, you abused me in every way you could! I also found the medical report in your nightstand. You have AIDS, but you never told Dad. I’m ashamed to have a disgusting woman like you as my mother!” Billy then jumped from the building and landed on the rescue airbag without a scratch. I, however, became the target of public outrage. I tried to clear my name, but no one believed me. After all, who would risk his own life just to frame his mother? Greg even brought me a glass of poisoned milk and forced me to drink it. He then told everyone that I had committed suicide out of shame. When I opened my eyes again, I realized I had been sent back in time to the day Billy threatened to kill himself.

On the day my father died, his seven most trusted men all met violent deaths within the same twenty-four hours. Hugh Castillo sacrificed his legs to butcher the gang and put me in power. “Taz, don’t be scared. Those monsters are gone. You’re finally free.” In the years he lay paralyzed, I tried over a thousand experimental drugs and prayed at every church across the country. I hunted down every possible remedy, praying for just one that would bring him back to his feet. When Hugh learned of this, he swallowed a bottle of pills one night to end his life. After he was revived, he smiled and wiped the tears from my face. “Taz, I don’t want to be a dead weight. You deserve a better life than this.” That night, we held each other and wept. We swore that from then on, no matter what, we would never leave each other behind. But seven years later, a sweet-looking girl showed up at my door with a thousand photos I was never meant to see. “Every month, while you were praying to God in churches, Huey was busy trying out new positions with me. “Ms. Sheargold, don’t you know that used goods like you kill a man’s desire? It was no wonder he’d rather play the cripple than touch you.” I looked through every single photo, then put them up for auction underground.

The year I lost my sight at five, I found Stellan Hale half-frozen in the snow. I told my mother I wanted a companion to guide me and begged her to take him in. Then I leaned close to his ear and whispered a promise. "I don't need you to be my guide dog. Just stay alive. Go wherever you want to go." Still, Stellan stayed. After Mom remarried, he became the only person I had left. He watched over me as I grew up, serving as my eyes and my cane year after year. He even gave up his extraordinary talent for painting to study medicine, all for the sake of my sight. Even after he became one of the most brilliant ophthalmologists in the country, I still could not see. On my 25th birthday, someone he had once been close to won a prestigious art prize. He shut himself inside the study, and I could hear pages rustling behind the door. He told me, his voice carefully even, that he was writing my birthday wishes. I smiled and moved toward him, wanting to kiss his cheek, when words suddenly scrolled across the darkness behind my eyes. "Wake up, you blind little fool. He's tearing every one of his paintings to shreds. On the back of each one, he even wrote 'Go to hell, Elara Langley.' "Stop walking. There's a wire on the floor ahead of you. One more step and you're dead." I froze. Then I smiled again and kept walking. "Stel, Stel, every wish you made for me is going to come true."

I made a deal with the Devil. My soul, in exchange for seven days on earth after I died. The eleventh hour after my death happened to fall on our third wedding anniversary. The moment I walked through the door, he had just come home from another woman's place. He had an anniversary gift waiting for me. A set of sapphires. But the card tucked beside them bore another woman's name. I spotted a pale lavender hair tie in his hand. Once, I would have fought him over a hair tie like that, all the way from the front hall to the study. This time, I said nothing. It was him who froze instead, staring at me like I was a stranger. "You didn't used to be like this. I almost miss the way you used to fall apart over everything." He was right. The old me would have thrown a fit over something as small as him forgetting to cut my steak. But ever since the miscarriage, my heart had been dying by slow degrees. When I found out I was pregnant, I was overjoyed. I wanted him to be the first to know. But I couldn't reach him, no matter how many times I called. I lost the baby. I hemorrhaged. That very afternoon, while I lay on the operating table, a photo of him and that woman hit the entertainment headlines. He never even knew I had carried a child. Now there was only one last thing I wanted from him. To drive me up to the northern coast, and bury me with his own hands. But when he realized I had truly vanished from this world, he came undone.

My boyfriend was probably bad at math because he would always get an extra portion whenever he bought something. When we were supposed to go on dates, he would get three people's worth of vouchers. "Sorry, I didn't read too carefully. How about we ask your bestie to join us?" When it was my birthday, he bought two sets of gifts. "Sorry, I got an extra set. Maybe your bestie can have the extra one?" As time went on, the absurdity became the norm, and I numbly played along. Then, it was time to try out my bridal gown, but Zach Lawson, my boyfriend, stopped me. "This is the bridesmaid's gown. I'm keeping it for your bestie. The gown I designed for you is sitting right there." I looked at the bridesmaid's gown. It was luxurious and covered in small, glittering diamonds. The gown he designed for me was barely more conspicuous than a regular dress. There was even a yellowing bloodstain on the hem of the dress. It was at that moment that I decided to end things. He'd given the only haute couture gown spot to Daisy Green. So, I saw no reason to stay in this relationship anymore. I looked at my phone quietly and texted my mentor, who was in Brundela. "Do you have an opening in your institute for one more researcher?"

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.

During an avalanche, I risk my life to save my girlfriend, Naomi Sutton. I end up losing a leg and an eye. On the day I'm discharged from the hospital, she tells me, "I've done my part by taking care of you this whole time. There's no way I'll spend the rest of my life with a cripple. You understand why I need to do this, right, Caleb?" I've already resigned myself to a life of constant darkness when Zoey Rivers shows up. She doesn't mind that I'm disabled. She gently heals all of my wounds. Following our decision to get married, I start going through our belongings to prepare for our upcoming move to our new marital home. Unexpectedly, I stumble across Zoey's backup phone in the house. I find a secondary social media account that Zoey has been using to track the moving journey of her sister's battle against a crippling illness. The latest update reads, "I'm about to get married. Once it's official, I'll get him to donate a kidney to my sister at once, and she'll be saved." Posted with the caption is a photo of Zoey with a woman lying on a hospital bed—Naomi. At that very moment, the door opens behind me. "What's the matter, Caleb? Since you're at home, why didn't you answer me when I called for you?"

In the fifth year of my marriage to Raymond Lowe, Lilian Smith, the woman he had never been able to forget, returned. From that moment on, cracks began to form in our marriage. Raymond started breaking his promises. The first time was the day I won a major design award. He had promised to take me out and celebrate. Instead, a single phone call from Lilian was enough to make him leave. The second time was on my birthday. The candles had been lit, and I had not even made a wish yet when Lilian called. Once again, he walked out without hesitation. The third time was Valentine's Day. I sat alone in the private dining room I had reserved, waiting for Raymond for four hours. He never showed up. Later that night, I saw Lilian's post on social media. Raymond was with her, standing on a bridge beneath the stars. The fourth time was our wedding anniversary. That was the night I became the laughingstock of Liberty City. The humiliation was so public that there was not a single person in the city who did not know about it. I sat alone in a nursing home that evening when a message from Lilian appeared on my phone. After reading it, I walked into the operating room without looking back and terminated the pregnancy. In that moment, I also took back the love I had once given Raymond. Raymond, it was only because I loved you that you were able to hurt me again and again. However, the moment I stopped loving you, you became nothing to me.

Eight years into our marriage, my husband was as childish as ever. He loved playing pranks on me, constantly leaving gag gifts around the house. I would just smile, toss them into the storage closet and think nothing of it. A few days later, while deep-cleaning the house, I remembered his latest box and decided to throw it out. But the moment I lifted the lid, a foul, putrid stench hit me. Inside the box lay a severed human hand. Terrified, I collapsed to the floor, my fingers trembling as I dialed 911. When the DNA results came back, the detective's expression was a twisted mix of confusion and horror. "Ma'am, the DNA extracted from the severed limb..." he stammered. "It belongs to Michael Miller."