เรื่องสั้นแนว Melodramatic Romance และนิยาย Male POV ในฉาก Cheating

My wife of three secretly married years, Izzy Presley, threw a welcome-home dinner for her childhood friend who'd just returned to the country. A sharp-eyed coworker noticed the wedding ring on her finger and teased her about it. "Izzy, does this mean there's a wedding on the way?" Izzy didn't deny it. Instead, she traded a smile with Sebastian Wood, the friend she'd grown up with, and made her answer loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Yes. Sebastian and I are getting engaged." She handed out cash gift cards to everyone in the room as she said it, me included. Someone who'd had a little too much to drink called out. "I've watched Stevie and Izzy come and go together for three years straight. Honestly, I thought you two were the real couple." I kept my head down and tightened my grip around the stem of my glass. On my phone, the chat thread with Izzy was still open. That 200-dollar cash gift, the exact same amount she'd given every other guest in the room, burned behind my eyes. Then her voice drifted over, light as air. "My assistant Stevie is good at his job. Work is work, and feelings are feelings. Let's not confuse the two." The teasing only got louder after that. Through the whole party, everyone celebrated for her. No one knew that Izzy and I had already been married for three years. This marriage was like a deal struck in the dark, the kind that could never see daylight. Because I loved her, I'd gritted my teeth and held on for three years. But now, I was ready to let go.

Gillian Chadwick, my fiancee, has always put her adoptive brother, Jude Chadwick, first. When a new romantic trend catches on, he gets the first gift, not me. When she buys her very first car, she gives him the first test drive. Even when a fire breaks out in our house in the middle of the night, she rushes into Jude's room first and drags him downstairs. She doesn't call to wake me until she has made sure he's safe. After getting burned in that fire, I finally lose my temper and demand Gillian choose between Jude and me. She looks at me in confusion. "Thomas, Jude is the only family I have in this world. Why are you competing with him? How about this? I promise to treat you both completely equally from now on, okay?" After a long hesitation, I finally agree. But later, Gillian gives the wedding ring she has custom-made to Jude, and she even lets him be the first to see her wedding dress. On the day we go to get our marriage certificate, Jude tags along. "Thomas, Gillian has never been married before. Let me try it out for you first," he said shamelessly.

Before our wedding, my fiancée, Sarah Hargrave—a professor of medieval history—held a private ceremony in a secluded chapel in the countryside. But not with me. Under the glow of candlelight, she cradled Benjamin Wheeler—her first love, his face gaunt from the cancer consuming him—in her arms. Her smile was soft, almost reverent, as she murmured, "In the eyes of God, vows made before the altar are the only ones that matter. Even if the law says I belong to Daniel, my soul was never his." And so, to the faint echo of hymns and the scent of old incense, they drank from the same silver cup, exchanged rings, and stepped together into the dimly lit sacristy—their makeshift bridal chamber. I watched. Silent. Motionless. No outbursts, no demands for explanation. Just the quiet dialing of a clinic to undo the vasectomy I'd gotten for our future. From fifteen to thirty, I had loved Sarah for fifteen long years. But in all that time, there'd never been room for me. That space had always belonged to Benjamin, my stepbrother. So I let her go. Afterward, I joined a geological research team bound for the isolation of Antarctica—a land cut off from the world, quiet and clean. Before I left, I handed Sarah a divorce agreement…and a final gift to mark the end. I never anticipated that Sarah, who'd always met my devotion with frosty detachment, who'd never once glanced back as I walked away, would look ten years older overnight.

My wife, Ivy Hart, is about to give birth to the baby she conceived with Toby Clayton, her first love. Her parents hire ten bodyguards to stand guard outside the delivery room. Cora Norris, Ivy's mother, takes Ivy's hand and remarks, "Don't worry, Ivy. We'll make sure he can't get within two feet of you! Your dad is standing guard outside with the bodyguards. If he dares to stop you from having the baby, we'll report him to the police!" Ivy nods, her complexion pale, but she instinctively looks toward the door anyway. She doesn't see why I can't be more understanding of her. All she wants to do is help Toby have a child to carry on his family name. The birth proceeds without me showing up to cause a scene. She smiles gladly when she sees the crying baby in the nurse's arms. She thinks to herself that if I visit her tomorrow, she is willing to forget all about our previous fights. She is even willing to let me be the baby's father. What she doesn't know is that I've already submitted my application to the Alliance of Nations. In seven days, I will be leaving the country to become a field doctor for the Frontline Medical Corp, a humanitarian organization. I won't be coming back ever again.

I have a habit. Whenever I eat, watch a movie, or ride the bus, I will always save an empty seat next to me. I believe that Cindy Newman will one day show up in my city and surprise me. But we've been in a long-distance relationship for three years, and not once has she ever visited me. In the end, I have no choice but to handle all the wedding preparations on my own. I try on countless suits to find the one. I look everywhere for the perfect venue. The exhaustion ultimately catches up to me. With trembling fingers, I text Cindy, "I'm running a 102-degree fever. No meds at home." It takes her 30 minutes to reply to me, "So? What do you want me to do? Learn how to fly and deliver you meds? I'm busy going over a proposal. Just order it online and have it delivered to your place." My high fever is so intense that I can barely lift a finger. Amid the haziness, I pass out. When I wake up, I see my best friend, Eugene Grant, by my side. He sighs and feeds me warm water and a tablet. "She's just taking advantage of the fact you're too kind to say anything. If I were you, I would've blown up already." Two weeks later, Eugene also comes down with a high fever. I've planned to rush over and take care of him, but I see his latest post online. The photo shows only a woman's hand holding a spoon. The caption reads, "The weather is getting colder, and I've unfortunately come down with a cold. Thank goodness for a superwoman who travels over 500 miles to deliver me soup." I know what I'm seeing. It's Cindy's hand. On Cindy's wrist is the bracelet I've spent six months saving up to buy for her. At long last, it dawns on me that the empty seat remains empty not because she can't make it, but because she simply doesn't want to. In that case, I'll stop saving a seat for a person who will never come.

My girlfriend, Loretta Summers, is an introvert and quiet by nature. Even our daily conversations are limited to things like, "Have you eaten?" or "Are you asleep?" Then, at a New Year's class reunion, I see her chatting animatedly with a guy, Ivan Lane. That is when I realize— it is time for us to break up.

At the World Rally Championship Final, my fiancee, Brielle Fuller, deliberately gave me the wrong turn call. Because of her, I lost the championship. Right there on the spot, she called off our engagement and ran straight into the arms of my rival, Chase Monroe. Just when I thought I'd lost everything, my childhood friend, Naomi Sutton, proposed to me. "It's okay. To me, you'll always be number one." Seven years later, I rebuilt my career and fought my way back to the top. Just as I was preparing to break Chase's championship record, a brake failure sent my car plunging off a mountainside. While drifting in and out of consciousness at the hospital, I overheard a conversation outside my room. "You're ruthless. You actually did something like this. Weren't you afraid he might die?" "If he dies, so be it. The only person I've ever loved is Chase. I only regret that you married him before I could. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to put myself through that all these years." I stared wide-eyed into the darkness. The love I thought was so deep was nothing more than wishful thinking. If they cared so much about Chase, then maybe I should disappear.

I was in the middle of revising my girlfriend, Gina Sullivan's doctoral dissertation, when I received her wedding invitation. In the acknowledgments, she thanked me as her brother. The next second, I received a voice message from her. "Ian, Mike and I are getting married so that it will be easier for his dad to arrange a faculty position for me. "Don't be upset. We've been together for seven years. Of all people, you should understand why I'm doing this." I stared at the screen, and my fingers stopped moving. I had paid her tuition for seven years. I even wrote her dissertation for her. She had promised that once she graduated, she would marry me. Now, she was about to graduate, but I wasn't the groom anymore. Our mutual friends immediately started chiming in in the group chat. [Come on, Ian. Be the bigger person. Gina didn't have it easy getting this far.] [The Fletcher family can give her opportunities you can't.] [You're a man. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you truly love her, you'll let her go.] That evening, Gina called again. "You have to come to our wedding. "I don't have any siblings, and Mrs. Jefferson already agreed to represent my family. "Besides, I'll only feel at ease if you're standing beside me." So, it wasn't that she was afraid I'd be heartbroken. She was simply certain that I loved her enough to forgo not only my dignity, but even my own mother, to make her wedding look respectable.

“Do you take this woman to be your wife? For richer or poorer, in sickness and health, will you remain faithful to her for the rest of your life?” I looked at Bridget with deep affection and was just about to speak. “Wait!” shouted someone urgently. I turned around in confusion and looked toward the audience. There stood a man holding a baby in his arms. He said pleadingly, “Bridget, our child is hungry… could we pause the wedding for a moment?” Hearing this, everyone erupted in an uproar. It felt like a bolt of lightning had struck me. Only then did I realize that Bridget had a child with another man. Bridget hurried off the stage, then turned to me coldly and said, “I only agreed to marry you out of obligation. But the moment Vernon appeared, I knew it. There’s no one else I want to marry but him.” So, she took off the ring and dragged the man away without looking back. I stood alone at the end of the aisle and clutched the undelivered ring in my hand, as a flood of bitterness crashed through every corner of my heart.

In Willow Creek, there is an unspoken rule about wedding processions: never retrace your route. But on the day we are supposed to get married, my fiancee, Emma Carter, orders our entire wedding procession to turn around and drive more than 12 miles back the way we've come—just to catch up with another wedding convoy. I am about to get out and demand an explanation when I overhear Emma talking to one of her bridesmaids, Lena Williams. "You drove more than 60 miles just to make it to Ryan's wedding," Lena says. "That's some serious dedication." Then she glances nervously in my direction. "And now you're making us turn around? Aren't you worried Nathan's going to be pissed?" Emma continues directing the drivers to turn the procession around. "Don't worry. He's waited ten years for me. No matter how angry he gets, he'll never actually call off the wedding. "If my family hadn't pressured me so much, I wouldn't have agreed to marry him this easily. "Ryan's biggest wish has always been to marry me, and that's not going to happen now. So turning back to see him off for part of the journey is the least I can do. It's a small way of making up for all those years he spent chasing after me." When the matching wedding bands slip from my hand and disappear beneath the seat, I let out a bitter laugh. So much for finally getting our happy ending after all those years of hardship. Apparently, that is only wishful thinking on my part. I pull out my phone, open my messaging app, and send a woman my location. "Are you still planning to marry me? I'm waiting for you here. Come. Now."

At the bachelor party on the eve of my wedding, everyone starts playing "Never Have I Ever". When it's Zander Carlson's turn, he bluntly declares, "I have a child." Before I can even recover from the shock, my fiancée, Clover Sorrell, chimes in, "So do I." As soon as she finishes speaking, she pushes the penalty drink toward me without batting an eye, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. She goes on, "Since we're already talking about this, I'll be straightforward. Drink up. I slept with Zander. He wanted a child, and as his best friend, I felt I should help him. He, my parents, and everyone else here already know about it. "The child is already three years old. I conceived him around the time your father passed away. As long as you can be mature and let this go, our wedding can still go ahead." The private room falls completely silent. Not a single person looks surprised. Even my best friend, Samson Silva, joins in to smooth things over. "Come on, Ezra. It's only natural. It's just one child. Everyone knew about it. We didn't dare tell you because we were afraid you'd get upset." At last, I understand. They all knew Clover was involved with Zander, and even my closest friend had been keeping it from me. After coming clean, Clover reaches out her hand with an outrageously confident expression. She expects me to swallow my grievances like I always have. But this time, I'm done putting up with it.

After five years together, Abby Young finally said she was ready to take me home to meet her parents. However, on the day of the visit, she asked my friend Gene Burke to pretend to be her boyfriend and told me to tag along for the free meal. “Abby, I’m your boyfriend! You’re supposed to introduce me to your parents today!” She did not even look up. “Gene just went through a breakup last month. He wants to know what it feels like to meet a girlfriend’s parents, so let him have this one.” I refused to move. Gene sighed. “Forget it. I was only joking. You two should go.” He started to get out of the car, but Abby held him back. “Stay where you are. You’re not going anywhere.” Then, she pulled me into the car and said to me in a persuasive tone, “Tony, it’s only one dinner. I’ll explain everything to my parents after this. Just this once.” Left with no real choice, I reluctantly agreed. When we arrived at her parents’ house, Mr. Young’s face lit up the moment he saw Gene. “Gene, you’re here! Come in! We’ve been looking forward to seeing you. I even made that dessert you love!” Abby went inside with a smile, leaving me alone on the doorstep as though I did not belong there. I turned to her. “How do your parents know Gene?” Abby rubbed her nose, looking guilty. “Actually, this is the third time I’ve brought him home. I was worried about him after his breakup, so I’ve been passing him off as my boyfriend whenever we visit my parents.” I laughed in disbelief. I threw everything I was holding at her feet and turned to leave. “You can enjoy your little family dinner without me.”

It was the seven year of our marriage. I found my wife's prenatal test report. She was three months pregnant. After seven childless years, I should have been overjoyed. Except I'd had a vasectomy. I confronted her with the report in hand. She barely reacted. "Is that all the grace you have? This child is innocent. If you choose me, you accept him too. Can't you even make room for one child? No wonder you'll never make anything of yourself." I saw the contempt in her eyes. And just like that, I gave up on her completely. Seven years of marriage, seven years of deferring to her in everything, and all I got in return was betrayal.

Three years after I died, Stella, my wife, decided to divorce me and marry her dying ex. She stormed into my old house like she owned the place, forcing me to sign the divorce agreement. Mom told her the truth—I was already gone. Stella rolled her eyes. "Why's he still pretending? Harvey's dying. I just wanna be there for him. What's so wrong about that? If he won't come out, I'm done paying your medical bills." She thought threatening Mom would shake something loose. But what Stella didn't get? Mom had already stopped treatment. She was just hanging on to watch her crack.

After being forced to give my wife's first love my heart, I died in the hallway of the private hospital she had personally founded. My six-year-old son, Ash, had already begged her thrice by the time I had drawn my last breath. The first time was when he tugged on her hand, saying I was coughing up blood. Sneering, she claimed, "So he's finally learned something—teaching his kid how to lie." Then, she had the bodyguards throw him out of the room. The second time was when he clung to her sleeve, insisting that I rambled nonsense due to the pain. "It's just a heart transplant," she opined with a frown. "The doctor already said he won't die." At that, the bodyguards stepped in again and dragged him away. The third time was when he fell to the ground, clutching her pant leg with all his strength, crying that I had already passed out. She finally lost her temper by this point, grabbing Ash by the throat and hurling him out of the room. "I have already said it—Howard isn't going to die. Dare to disturb Skye's rest again, and I'll throw both of you out of this hospital," she warned. To save me, my son pawned the most precious thing he owned—his St. Christopher medal—to a nurse. "Ma'am," he said. "I don't need to live a long life. I just want my dad to live." She accepted the medal and was about to arrange for me to be transferred to the last available room. However, my wife's first love, Skye Whitley, had someone block the doorway with his pet dog. He mentioned, "Sorry, kid. Your mom's worried I'll get bored if I can't see my dog. This room is reserved for him."

Weeks before our wedding, I discover that my fiancée, Renee Flores, is pregnant with Chad Patterson's child. He's a younger man she met in college. When I see the words "Four weeks pregnant" on the report, I finally give up on her. It turns out our six years together mean nothing compared to a single request from Chad. So I call off the wedding and join a national research facility where all outside contact is prohibited. On our wedding day, Renee arrives at the venue only to find it empty. She falls apart and desperately searches for me.

For seven years, my CEO girlfriend never once came home with me to see my parents. She told me that she hated social obligations, and that she didn't want to deal with the gossip and hassle that came with meeting my parents and relatives. Even in daily life, she treated me with cold professionalism, never spending any anniversaries with me in favor of working overtime. I'd always thought that it was just a simple matter of her being too rational and prideful, and I was fine with slowly teaching her how to nurture a relationship. That was, until Thanksgiving arrived. Once again, she stressed that holidays were just a capitalistic norm, and that she was going to work overtime instead of coming home with me. By chance, however, I accidentally stumbled upon my intern's social media. Inside a private room at a five-star hotel, he and his family sat at a table as my girlfriend sat beside him, carefully serving him food. [Yo, my boss secretly brought my parents into the city for Thanksgiving, and even gave me gifts! She told me that I was worth special gestures, too. Where can you even find a boss this romantic? My parents even told me to marry her as soon as I could! LOL!] So she knew better than anyone how to make people feel cherished. I just wasn't worth any of it. I commented: [How romantic.] Then, I messaged my girlfriend. [Let's break up.]

The 99th time I caught Sarah Burton cheating, she slept with my foster brother, Lucas, just to get back at me. When I walked in on them in bed, there wasn't a trace of guilt on her face. If anything, she looked unapologetically smug. "Jason," she said, "your brother's a hell of a lot better than you." In my past life, those words broke me completely. I lost my mind. I leaked their sex photos to the entire world. Sarah couldn't take the humiliation. She divorced me. My parents were so disgusted that they kicked me out for good. I thought I'd bounce back. I was wrong. I'd spent the first eighteen years of my life growing up wild in the countryside. Even after the Robinsons brought me back, I had no real-life skills. I didn't know how to survive in their world. Then Sarah's family came after me. I went years without a proper meal. By my early thirties, I died of cancer. Meanwhile, Lucas married Sarah and climbed straight into high society. And me? I was just the ex-husband who became a joke to everyone. Now, I open my eyes again. I'm back on the day she slept with him.

Jocelyn Nicols was celebrated as the police department's genius detective. I'd spent ten quiet years at her side as her assistant, unnoticed by anyone. By her eighth year on the force, she still hadn't cracked the decade-old cold case that had haunted her career. "You know the rule," she told me. "I won't marry until this case is solved." I didn't say anything back. I just packed her bags for another out-of-town assignment and wished her a safe trip. What she didn't know was that the moment she finally cracked the case and became a household name across the country, I'd just received a notice from the hospital. It told me I was going to die.

After saving up for five years with Cindy Labelle, we finally go house hunting. My best friend, Caleb Jarding, comes along too. He points to the floor plan I've been studying for the past six months and asks Cindy, "The second bedroom needs to be turned into a gaming room. Can we knock down the wall?" Cindy replies, "Let's get a designer to take a look tomorrow. You can change it however you want." The two of them talk about everything from the orientation to the tiles, and then from the floor-to-ceiling windows to the bathtub. I stand in the corner, unable to get a word in. Only when it's time to sign the contract does Cindy suddenly remember my existence. She says, "Let's put Cal's name on the deed for now. He's been working hard here on his own, so consider it a company perk. And since the company is a little tight on cash lately, you can keep renting for another two years, Zachary." But five years ago, I, too, traveled thousands of miles to be with her as she chased her dreams. We squeezed into a cramped partitioned room without air conditioning. Back then, Cindy was deeply moved and promised, "Once the company takes off, the first thing we'll do is get a home of our own." Now that the company is doing well, she gives someone else a home first. I stare at the two signatures side by side on the contract. There is no place for mine. Since she has already planned a future without me, I won't wait for her anymore. I open the webpage to terminate my lease and press confirm.