Maiikling Kwento tungkol sa Melodramatic at Romance, at mga Nobela ng Male POV na may Awakening

The day Carly Stein and I make things official, she syncs her phone to my smart weighing scale. Every morning, my body fat percentage and biometric data get uploaded straight to her phone. Whenever my fat slips above 8%, she turns cold. "Lower it to 8%, Danny. Get those muscles razor-sharp, and then we'll get married." For six years, I obsess over every calorie and burn myself out in the gym because of those words. On my birthday, I eat a single slice of regular cake. She immediately flags it on our shared fitness app as a severe loss of control. Now, I finally hit 8%. I have the broad shoulders and narrow waist she demanded. Yet on the day of my custom suit fitting, Carly leaves me waiting in the shop for three hours. Aiden Turner, an old friend, sends a photo. Carly is sitting with him in a barbecue joint, picking onions out of his plate. "Hey Danny, I just got back in town. Carly said you're cutting for the wedding and can't have this stuff, so I didn't invite you." On our app, Carly logs that grease-heavy midnight meal as a "companion day". I open the scale's historical setup logs. That 8% body fat goal was created six years ago—the exact day Aiden moved abroad. There's one line of text in the target notes field that hasn't been completely deleted. "Aiden at his physical peak." I stare at the screen for a long moment, then hit unpair. After that, I go to the suit shop and change the name on the suit reservation to Aiden Turner.

When my wife, Hazel Zimmerman, is diagnosed with a terminal disease, she insists on divorcing me just to set me free. I refuse to do so. Instead, I travel all over the world to seek doctors and treatment remedies in hopes of finding Hazel a cure. I keep going at it until I start vomiting blood from exhaustion. But as soon as I reach home, I overhear Hazel bragging to her best friend smugly. "Brandon, that idiot, actually thinks that I really have cancer! I just wanted to use this excuse to divorce him so I could go on a world trip with Nathan. "Once I've had my fun, I'll claim that I'm cured of my disease. Then, I'll remarry Brandon again." "Do you really think Brandon will believe your excuse?" the best friend asks. Hazel just sneers in disdain. "That idiot loves me so much that he can't live without me. Ever since he found out that I have cancer, he's been crying his eyes out. What can he tell, anyway?" When Hazel brings up divorce once again, I don't hesitate to accept it this time.

Vivian Grant lost her memory and forgot everything about me. Her memory stopped in the year when she loved her ex-husband most. No matter how the people around her tried to explain it, she still believed I was the third party who had come between them. The doctors said her amnesia might be treatable, so I held on to that hope and refused to let go. For three years, we got divorced and remarried over and over again. We became the biggest joke in the city's elite circles. Some people even started betting on us. They bet on when I would finally give up, and when Vivian would finally remember. Then news of our eighth divorce hit the trending charts again. Reporters rushed into the law firm with cameras on their shoulders. They shoved microphones in my face, their questions full of provocation. "Mr. Sterling, as a divorce attorney, how does it feel to have been divorced eight times yourself?" The firm's sign was smashed. The commendation banners clients had given me were trampled underfoot. Before I could respond, my supervisor fired me for damaging the profession's reputation. "Julian Sterling, let me give you some advice. Have some self-respect. Stop clinging to Ms. Grant." I clenched my trembling hands and suddenly felt exhausted. They were right. This time, I really should give up.

Someone uses AI to put my face in a pornographic video, and it gets over 20 million views. The day I decide to take legal action, everyone close to me tries to stop me. My childhood friend, Vivian Clark, corners me at the door, warning that suing will only make people believe the video is real. My best friend, Mike Crain, snatches the evidence out of my hands and throws it in the trash, insisting the people behind it are overseas, and the police will never track them down. Even my older brother, Graham Campbell, calls, telling me to think about our parents' health and stop disgracing the family. I take a deep breath. I finally manage to get away and head straight to my girlfriend Wanda Beckham's apartment. She's a lawyer. If anyone will help me clear my name, it's her. But when I walk in, I find her curled up on the couch in the arms of her childhood friend, Everett Patterson. He's casually admitting that he's the one who made the video, brushing it off as a mistake with the AI software. Wanda just laughs and hands him a beer. Vivian and Mike are there too, sipping their drinks as they joke about how Everett should have been the one dating Wanda all along. They say I've been standing in his way for years and had it coming. I freeze in the doorway. The people who ruined my life were right there beside me all along—and I was blind to it.

My girlfriend, Jade Swanson, was very respectful toward her teachers. Every time we went out on a date, she even invited my single male teacher, Oliver Graham, along. Three for dinner. Three at the movies. Even when we traveled, it was three people sharing a room. I got jealous and lost my temper, but she only said, "Oliver is your mentor. Making him happy is equivalent to helping you build a good relationship. You're not very capable. Since we were little, haven't I always helped you smooth things out? You're a man, so don't be so petty!" On Valentine's Day, I finally passed my housemanship. Jade hired an outdoor band half a month in advance to celebrate for me. She said, "From now on, the three of us will no longer go out together. It's just going to be two." I waited for a full six hours until early morning, soaked under the rainstorm, yet the venue remained empty. Shivering, I made my way back to the hospital break room, where a warm, cozy light spilled from inside. Jade was carefully drying Oliver’s wet hair, her tone tinged with playful reproach. "You insisted on going out even though it was raining. What if you caught a cold?" Oliver smiled with a gentlemanly charm. "I was just going to get some candles. Jade, thank you for spending my birthday with me." Subconsciously, I opened my chat with Jade again. There were still no new messages from her. I gave a self-deprecating smile. It turned out they were "the two" she mentioned: she and Oliver. Fine then. In that case, I would stop being the invisible third wheel in their story.

Three years after his release from prison, Cody Lawson finally learns how to coexist peacefully with Titus Sweeney, his sugar mommy's husband. When Titus is neglected, Cody encourages her to spend more time with him. When Titus gets worried that Cody might have a child with her, Cody makes sure to use strict contraceptive measures, going so far as to undergo a vasectomy for his sake. In their social circle, Cody is jokingly dubbed the "ideal kept man", the one who gives the legal spouse the least amount of trouble. Andrew Lloyd, a social-media-influencer friend of Titus', arranges a live-streamed interview with Cody. The camera is angled straight at Cody's face as Andrew asks with a hint of disdain, "So, Mr. Lawson, you dropped out of Strawford University at 20 and became the star performer at Nirvana Host Club. "Later, you latched onto Ms. Harvey, who was already engaged to Titus, and even stabbed Titus in a fit of jealousy, landing yourself a five-year prison sentence. "I'm curious, though. Can a gold-digger like you ever truly love someone?" Cody pauses, then offers a faint, wry smile as he replies, "I can. When I was 18, I had my first-ever girlfriend. Her name was Jennifer Harvey." She had been so good to him, and yet, later on, she faked her own death just to deceive him.

I'm born with the ability to see how much time remains in every relationship between two people. Throughout my 13 years of marriage to my wife, Francine Spence, the rare word "Forever" glows above both our heads. But on the eve of our son Oscar Baxter's birthday, I stumble upon a conversation between Francine and her client, Dale Stratton. In it, I discover that she has been letting Dale use Oscar as a substitute for his deceased son, Zachary Stratton, to ease his grief. In an instant, the golden word "Forever" vanishes, and in its place is a glaring crimson number—7 Days.

While I was with a client looking at watches at a luxury boutique, I spotted a Chanel bag sitting on the authentication counter. "You've got a great eye, sir. This bag retails for eleven thousand dollars, and the young lady who brought it in wants to let it go for under three thousand." As the sales associate opened the inner pocket, a hand-drawn dried-flower card slipped out. "May my girl never have another worry." I wasn't seeing things. It was the seventh-anniversary gift I'd given Veronica Hale, with a note in my own handwriting. The sales associate started chatting idly. "A young woman dropped it off the day before yesterday. It's already been authenticated. She said she needed cash fast to buy her younger boyfriend a car." Younger boyfriend? A car? The color drained from my face. I opened the video account of Dylan Kerr, the college intern at her company. In the video, he was holding a slender hand in the passenger seat, their fingers laced together. On the woman's wrist was a clover bracelet. The one I'd fastened there myself three years ago. Fighting back nausea, I swiped my card and bought the bag. "No need to pack the card. Just throw it out."

I ignored my friends and family’s objections and insisted on pursuing my now-girlfriend, who was disfigured in a car crash when she tried to save her first love. Some laughed at me for being a back-up plan, but I didn’t care. I worked day and night, earning money for her plastic surgery, and stayed by her side as she walked out of depression. But on the eve of our wedding day, as I was doing her laundry, a marriage certificate dropped out of her pants pocket. The groom was her first love. I was about to make things clear with her when I overheard her conversation with her best friend. “I know Steve saved me, but if Yves doesn’t marry me, he’ll be forced into a marriage alliance. I don’t want to see him lose his freedom. “As for Steve, I’ll find someone to forge a certificate for me. Don’t blurt this out, okay…” I felt my blood then grow cold as I quietly changed the groom of our wedding three days later to her first love. By the time she found out about the surprise, I would have left for abroad, never to return.

Marty Greene, a newly hired assistant, publicly humiliates me by calling me a worthless nobody who hangs around Audrey Melton. As my girlfriend and an award-winning actress who loves me more than life itself, Audrey promises to stand up for me. She devises a seven-day plan to build Marty up before bringing him crashing down. On the first day, she replaces me with Marty as her personal assistant, claiming she wants him to understand how hard I work. On the third day, she gives him a luxury car and a mansion, supposedly to make him lose himself in vanity. On the fifth day, she bakes him a birthday cake on a live reality show. She insists it's a crucial part of her plan and begs me to be patient. Then on the seventh day, my mother, Deborah Faulkner, suddenly falls gravely ill. As she lies dying, her final wish is to see Audrey one last time. Audrey readily agrees. But I wait at the hospital all night, and she never shows up. Instead, all I see is a post from Marty on X. "Audrey is simply too kind for her own good. She almost falls for a scam after just one phone call. Luckily, I'm smart enough to see through it and stop her from falling for it." Mom dies without ever getting to see Audrey again. It's not until the following day that Audrey finally calls. "Babe, just hang in there a little longer. I'm going to expose Marty's vanity and ruin his reputation at today's awards ceremony. Then, we'll go public with our relationship and have the wedding of the century to make Mrs. Landry happy." Audrey has no idea that Mom is already dead, and that I'm done waiting for her.

After my family went bankrupt, my wife, Claire Finley, was drowned in the river by debt collectors. To pay off our debts, I took on a job at an underground casino as a human punching bag. Every punch I took earned me 50 bucks. Then, one day, I'm about to deliver drinks to a private room. Through the crack in the door, I see Claire—supposedly dead—sitting in the seat of honor, leisurely sipping a glass of fine red wine. "It's been over three years since I last saw Nathan. I wonder how he's doing." Dad, dressed in a sharp suit despite our family's so-called bankruptcy, sighs. "He's probably been hiding away, grieving for a few years. Once he gets over it, he can always find someone else. Whatever happens, you and Victor will get to live in peace, so long as he believes you're dead." Victor Gray is Dad's son with his first love. A glance around the private room reveals nothing but familiar faces. My once-close friends are all there, along with the very people who have supposedly killed Claire. So, everything has been a setup from the start. The only thing that has been real is the hell I've endured over the past three years. Balancing 20 bottles of beer in my arms, I smile and shake my head. Once I save up 80 dollars for an urn, they can finally be free of me.

On Valentine's Day, Callista Vance and I were supposed to meet up. However, she never showed up. I waited all day until nightfall and tried calling her, but she never answered. Then, her childhood friend uploaded a new post. In the photo, Callista leaned against his shoulder, looking coy, while the matching rings on their ring fingers gleamed conspicuously. His caption read, "I finally gave Callista the ring I'd promised her as a child. A childhood dream fulfilled." I didn't call to confront her. I simply liked the post and commented, "Hope you two last forever." But as I was leaving, Callista clung to me, her eyes red. "You're the only person I'd marry."

The clock was ticking with twelve minutes left before the ceremony was supposed to begin. The wedding car that my bride, Teagan, and I sat in stopped at the curb. The church doors stood open a hundred yards away, ready for our arrival. My parents and relatives were gathered outside with the officiant, photographer, wedding coordinator, and the rest of the bridal party. The wedding coordinator’s voice came through my earpiece. “Parker, you’re clear to head in. We’re starting at 9 sharp.” I was about to tell the driver to go when the door of the groomsmen’s SUV behind us swung open. “Hold up. I forgot my tie.” That was enough to halt the entire procession. Teagan unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out. “Oh, no! It won’t look good in the picture if a groomsman is missing a tie.” Standing by the SUV, Luke looked at me with a smile. “Parker, have the driver wait a minute. I can’t show up at your wedding in a white and collar sticking out. I will make you look bad.” He then turned to Teagan. “Don’t I have a spare tie kept with you? Can you help me find it?” Teagan nodded and dumped her bouquet on me, just to dig through the bags at the back of the car. Silence gripped the air. My mother’s face went white. I held the bouquet, my eyes fixating on Teagan. “We’re going to be late for our wedding, Teagan. We can still make it if we go now.” Teagan frowned. “I’m already here anyway. What’s a few minutes?” As Teagan went on a mission to get Luke a tie, I broke into a smile. Turning around, I held my phone and texted a number I had almost forgotten. “Don’t you want to marry me? Be at the church at 9. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Ruth Jensen is determined to cure Zeke Carlton of his jealous streak. Every time he gets jealous, she buys her assistant, Calvin Ward, a present—everything from jewelry to expensive cars to villas. Zeke goes from throwing hysterical fits to going completely numb. One day, Ruth buys Calvin gifts for the 99th time. She looks at Zeke, who's shaking all over, his face drained of color. She says disdainfully, "Zeke, I can't stand men who are jealous and possessive. If you never learn to be generous and graceful, then I'll just keep treating Calvin well." But this time, Zeke doesn't question her like he usually does, nor does he ask her for money. He's actually gone to the office to pick something up today. To his surprise, he walks right into Ruth throwing a birthday celebration for Calvin there. The place is crammed full of gifts she's gotten Calvin, piled so high there's barely room to walk. At the door, a few workers are hauling in boxes while gossiping. "Careful. These are all this season's new releases Ms. Jensen bought for Mr. Ward. If we break anything, we'll never be able to pay it back!" "How many times has it been this month? Every time Ms. Jensen does this, she buys him stuff worth millions of dollars…" Zeke feels like someone has sliced his heart open. Every time he asks Ruth for money to keep paying his grandmother's medical bills, she always complains. Yet she doesn't even bat an eye when she buys Calvin these insanely expensive luxury goods. Zeke turns to leave, but Ruth frowns and calls out to him. "Are you actually stalking me all the way to the office now? It's Cal's birthday today. Did you deliberately come here dressed like that just to be an eyesore?"

Throughout our four years of college, Charlotte Montgomery booked train tickets for me and my buddy, Forrest Croft, whenever we headed back to school or went home for break. She always claimed that getting tickets was a race against the clock, and somehow, the three of us never managed to sit together. Every time the tickets were issued, Forrest would tear into her in our group chat. "Charlotte, can you be any more useless? You managed to book three tickets in three different train cars. Next time, you'd better stand right next to him, even if you have to stand the whole way. Otherwise, you'll answer to me." Charlotte always fired back immediately. "Who the hell do you think you are? I could crouch at his feet, and it still wouldn't be any of your business." I believed them. Even when I spent six hours sitting alone in an uncomfortable seat, or came down with a fever in the middle of the night and called Charlotte more than a dozen times without getting an answer, I assumed she'd fallen asleep in another train car. It wasn't until our graduation trip, when someone asked to switch seats with me. I dragged my suitcase over, only to find Forrest with my jacket draped over his shoulders, his head resting on Charlotte's shoulder as they shared a pair of earbuds. When Charlotte saw me, she simply pulled out one earbud and sat up straight. "Let's get one thing straight. We've always been careful not to give people the wrong idea. I only kept it from you because I was afraid you'd feel uneasy if you knew we'd be sitting next to each other for six hours." Forrest patted the seat beside him. "I'm your buddy. Isn't it better to have me keep an eye on your girlfriend, rather than some random guy sitting next to her?" Just then, a smiling train attendant came over and handed them a matching set of luggage tags. "According to our system, you two have sat next to each other on all 16 round trips throughout your four years at college. We'd like to give you this souvenir to commemorate that." Only after she'd finished speaking did she notice me. She glanced down at the booking details again. "This is your friend who booked tickets with you, too, right? How come he's the one sitting alone every time, even though all three of you book your tickets together?" The entire train car fell silent. I looked at Charlotte's pale face, realizing something. They had never once been separated from each other. For four years, I'd been left out every single time.

My CEO fiancee, Lexi Wyndham, had no patience for incompetence, yet she repeatedly made excuses for her incompetent assistant, Lachlan Hayes. During the hiring process, she noticed that his profile looked remarkably similar to mine. Worried that our rivals might target me, she kept him on as my double, someone who could take my place whenever I was in danger. She bought him designer clothes, took him to exclusive events, and even put my projects under his name to build up his reputation. As time went on, she grew increasingly protective of him, insisting it was all so he would be willing to take my place when the time came. Then tensions with our rival company escalated. Lexi would rather send the bodyguards assigned to protect her to me than let Lachlan stand in for me. In the end, our rivals kidnapped me and locked me in a basement, where they tortured me for ten straight days. By the time I was rescued, there was not a part of me that was not badly injured. I had nearly died down there. The next day, Lachlan was diagnosed with liver disease. Lexi drugged me and forced me into the operating room to donate my liver to him. Her voice was gentle. "Lachlan has to be saved for the moment we truly need him to stand in for you. We can't use him too soon, or they'll get suspicious and everything we've done will be for nothing. "He has to stay alive until the day we need him. I'm making you donate your liver for your own good. Don't overthink it. Once you're discharged, I'll marry you." But she did not know how badly I had been injured. The liver donation only made my condition worse, and I was already dying. I would not live long enough to see the wedding she had promised me.

After remarrying Odette Fairbanks, Ezra Whitlock turns into the perfect husband, one who no longer checks up on her or gets jealous. He no longer wakes up early to make her a balanced breakfast, and he no longer shows up at the hospital right on time with a home-cooked lunch for her. Even when he finds a box of ultra-thin condoms on her passenger seat, he quietly puts it away for her and pretends he hasn't seen it. Odette, however, begins to panic and starts volunteering the very explanations she's always been too proud to give.

“Milana, did you secretly marry Miles Garrett while abroad? Does Ernest know about this?" Milana Orr was just touching up her lipstick and staring at her striking reflection in the mirror. Then, she remarked in an utterly unconcerned voice, "Oh, leave it already. I’ve got the call on speakerphone." Her best friend, Clarice Rivers, dropped her voice to a sharp whisper, "Is Ernest with you?" Milana smiled, then turned around to glance at Ernest, who was seated on the couch and waiting for her to finish getting ready. She smiled coyly, "Yeah, he’s sitting right behind me, but it's fine. It's not like he can hear us anyway." After a brief silence, Clarice spoke again, in a slightly sharper tone this time, "He lost his hearing and became disabled because he tried to save you when you tried to end it all by jumping into the river." "That’s exactly why I went and got married overseas instead." A complex look surfaced in Milana's voice as she cut Clarice off. "But I'm going to stay right here in the country, and we’re going to have a grand wedding together in a week. "That's my way of repaying him for taking care of me over the last five years. "As for the actual marriage license... Well, let’s just forget about that for now." Meanwhile, Ernest was clutching the edges of the magazine so tightly the paper crumpled.

After six years together, Isabella McCarthy proposed to Gabriel Hart six times. He accepted all six. But when she proposed for the seventh time, he didn't immediately offer his hand. She looked up at him with sincere eyes, wisps of black hair falling across her forehead as the lights gilded the fine contours of her face. Gabriel looked at her and suddenly gave a sardonic smile. "Does this proposal actually count?"

I was easy to fool. I believed almost everything that people said. During the worst year of my life, a girl in the grade above me tricked me out of my entire living allowance. Juno Halloran split hers with me and helped me get by. She was the only person who had never lied to me. "It's not that you're dumb. Other people are just rotten," she told me. "Stop trusting them. Trust me instead." Then, 1 hour before I was supposed to walk into my grad school entrance exam, she texted me. [I was in a car accident. I'm at the hospital. Get here now.] I rushed to the hospital and found her and her best friend, Brent Ostrow, sitting in the convenience store downstairs, eating nachos. Brent laughed so hard he slapped his thigh. "See? I told you he'd fall for it. One text and he ditches his exam to come running." Juno held a chip to his mouth. "Fine, a bet is a bet. I'll take you to Starfall Park today." I stared at them in disbelief. Juno pulled out a napkin and wiped the sweat from my face. "You're about to graduate, and the world is a nasty place. Consider this lesson number one." My voice shook. "Today's my grad school exam!" Brent rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, Cooper's about to cry. We'd better get him back before he flunks and blames us for it." When she saw my eyes reddening, Juno panicked too. She sped the entire way there and got me to the exam hall with only 1 minute to spare. I had barely breathed a sigh of relief when the proctor stopped me. "Excuse me, your admission ticket is fake. I need you to leave." I looked down at the paper in my hand. At some point, someone had switched out my admission ticket. In its place was a huge drawing of a pig's head with a message scrawled beside it. [Dumbass Cooper, I'm holding on to your ticket! Surprise!] Beneath that was another line. [Don't trip in the same spot twice. That's lesson number two.] It was Brent's handwriting. It was Juno's idea. I still could not tell truth from lies, but I could tell the difference between genuine care and fake concern. From that day forward, I never trusted anyone so easily again.