เรื่องสั้นแนวMale POV Romance และนิยาย Cheating

As the coaster climbed toward the top, I opened my eyes and reached over for my girlfriend's hand. What I saw was her fingers laced through my best friend's. Her thumb moved slowly across the back of his hand. A signal. Steady. I've got you. "Avery, I'm scared," I said quietly. She didn't answer me. She only held on to him tighter. Avery has a hearing impairment. Her left ear doesn't pick things up clearly. But every time the three of us went anywhere, she kept him on her right, tilting her head up to catch him, answering every single thing he said. I stood on her left, and it was like standing on the other side of a galaxy. The coaster started down again, and I closed my eyes, and my heart dropped with it. Avery, if somebody else is living at the very center of your heart, then so be it. It's time I took my own heart back and went looking for stars of my own.

After my wife, April Carter, gives birth to my child, I'm forced to quit my job and become a full-time stay-at-home dad. Before long, I spiral into severe depression. Countless times, I press a knife to my wrist, only for her to desperately throw her arms around me as I break down in hysterics. "Don't do this! Think about the baby and me! We're right here with you!" My brother, Lucas Getz, and my best buddy, Thomas Balfour, each grab a knife and press it against their own wrists. "If you want to die, we'll die with you," they declare. "Are two lives enough for you?" After that day, I fully commit to my treatment, determined not to let anyone else get hurt because of me. But just when I think I'm finally about to see the light, Lucas drags me to a wedding. Standing on the stage as newlyweds are none other than April and Thomas. My mind goes blank with a deafening buzz, and my blood runs cold. Lucas gazes up at the couple on stage with envy. "This wedding should have happened five years ago. But your depression has kept the two of them trapped in guilt." Then he turns toward me. "Do you understand now? The truth is, you're the one keeping us trapped in misery. It's time to let go."

My fiancée is beautiful and has a steady job. She's into drones, and she joined a group chat. I hinted to her, carefully, that the people in that group weren't right, and that if anything went wrong she'd be on the hook too. Then I joined the group myself on a burner account, and saw the way Alyssa carried herself in there. Several men who were obviously close with her kept posting flirty stickers. Alyssa's voice messages came back all bashful. “Stop it! You're all married men, and you're picking on me like this!” “Next flight, let's all go camping together.” Their plan was five men and one woman, two days and one night. And a drone taking photographs at twenty-six thousand feet. You'd have to have something wrong with your head to do that.

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.

I didn't come from money, so everyone around my rich girlfriend decided I had to be a gold digger. Nobody more than Tristan Reed, her male best friend. He told them he'd been kept by rich women himself, so he understood men like me better than anyone. To prove I wasn't that kind of man, I never accepted a single expensive gift from Vivian Ford during the three years I spent with her. Tristan had an explanation for that too. "He says no out loud, but he's waiting for her to offer something better on her own. It's called playing hard-to-get." Then came Vivian's birthday. I'd saved six months of my salary and bought her a necklace. I was almost at the door of the private room when I heard Tristan laughing. "See? I told you he'd buy something expensive. "That's the oldest trick a gold digger has. Pretend you're not after the money, then trade a little of it for a lot." Vivian sat beside him filing her nails. She didn't contradict him. Someone egged him on. "Vivian, your boyfriend's not just a gold digger, he's a professional." Then somebody spotted me and made a hushing gesture. "Quiet, he's here." Tristan just scoffed. "Some men ought to be honest like me. That's what rich women actually want. Am I wrong?" Vivian was quiet for a long moment. Then she looked up at me. "After all this time pretending in front of me, were you really just waiting for one big payout?" I stood in the doorway, and the necklace in my hand suddenly felt too heavy to hold. I didn't answer. I just turned around and left. A heart that's doubted every single time is one I'm taking back for good.

As I was rummaging through the trash for leftovers, my wife, who had died three years ago, suddenly showed up. She stepped out of the Voyce and looked down at me from above. “Honey, you really did pass my test.” I was holding some moldy stale bread. I stared at her in bewilderment. It turned out that three years ago, at a class reunion, the school heartthrob she had once dated had suggested it. “I wanted to see if your love is real.”

The day my daughter was fighting for her life, my wife, Shirley Hartley, was busy helping her childhood friend Oliver Burke get married. I called seventeen times. On my eighteenth try, she finally picked up. "Shirley, Nyssa's getting worse. The doctor says she needs life support now. They want twenty grand upfront. Where's the money?" Her voice turned ice-cold. "I used it. Oliver's wedding is coming up, and that stuff costs money. I'm not letting his fiancée's family look down on him. "Nyssa just has asthma, right? She coughs a little and suddenly they want twenty grand? Sounds like a scam." Nyssa lay in the hospital bed, her tiny face ghost-pale. Her eyes slowly opened. "Daddy, I want Mommy." I turned away, biting my lip hard so she wouldn't see me cry. "Mommy'll be here soon." But over the phone, Shirley snapped, "Oliver still hasn't picked out his wedding suit. I don't have time for you freaking out over this." Then she hung up. By the time I scraped together the twenty grand, forty minutes were gone. Half an hour later, the doctor came out of the ER. He pulled off his mask and shook his head. "If we'd started treatment thirty minutes earlier, she might've had a chance." Then my phone buzzed. A transaction alert. Shirley had taken the money that could've saved Nyssa and bought Oliver a $220,000 Maybach. I looked at Nyssa's blue-tinged face and called my lawyer. "Draw up the divorce papers. "And pull the records for every expense Shirley ever covered for Oliver. "I want every cent of our money back."

Sandra's ex-boyfriend had cancer, yet he still found the energy to keep pestering her. So I anonymously sent him a sum of money to make him leave her alone. But when Sandra found what I'd done, she threw the bank card in my face and shouted, "Why would you humiliate a dying man with money? He's already pitiful enough!" I looked at her calmly. "You're my wife. You shouldn't be worrying about another man."

On my wedding day, my fiancee, Alisson Poole, never shows up. Neither do her bridesmaids. I stand alone at the altar all day, enduring a roomful of pitying and contemptuous stares. After 999 rejected calls, I finally accept that she has fled the wedding. Back in our empty home, I see a post from her first love, Rhett Barker. "The art I want to explore with you goes beyond the soul. It includes the body, too." In the photo, Alisson wears the million-dollar custom wedding dress I bought her. She and her six bridesmaids kneel commando at his feet. Their eyes are dazed, burning with raw desire. They look at him like he's their deity, eager to be his most devoted followers. I stare at the picture for a long time, then leave a quick like and a comment. "May your noble art stay locked together forever." I screenshot the post and send it to the six bridesmaids' boyfriends. A masterpiece like this deserves a proper audience.

Mandy York, my girlfriend, was practically a migratory bird that always flew away during summer. Every year, during July and August, which were the hottest months of the year, she would fly off and disappear from the face of the earth. She said that it was because her company gave her a special project abroad that required absolute secrecy from her. She was also not to contact anyone during that period of time. Even when I got into a car accident last year and lay in the ICU for two months, she never called to ask about me. Plenty of times, I had comforted myself and endured the harsh summer alone. One day, I accidentally saw the social media account of a friend of mine living abroad. It was his alternate account. Every year, during July and August, this alternate account would get really active. It would be full of videos and photos about his daily life with his daughter and a “mother” who always had her face hidden with stickers. In the videos, the mother accompanied the daughter to watch fireworks at Disneyland and pick up shells at the beach. Sometimes, I could see the side of her face. There was a mole at the corner of her eyes. I could even see a clear scar at the back of her hand. They were so familiar to me that my blood ran cold. It was Mandy. During the summer holidays, she would vanish for sixty days, and this had lasted for five years. So, she had never been flying off to work. She had gone to her other family. I sat stupefied on the couch and stared at the blinding sun outside. Suddenly, this year’s upcoming summer did not feel so difficult any longer. I picked up my phone and agreed to the marriage my family had arranged for me. Since Mandy refused to stay with me during summer, I was not going to waste my time on her.

My girlfriend, Eliana Hodson, and my so-called best friend, Austin Brock, had this thing for bets. And somehow, I was always the joke. They'd bet on how long I'd wait for them, which puddle I'd slip in when it rained, even whether the crazy-hot pepper Austin snuck into my food would make my nose run. Then Austin went overseas. Eliana and I got married, and I figured their stupid little game was finally over. Yeah. Nope. One night, I was working at a fancy lounge when I walked in on a group playing a betting game called Time Bomb. I set down their drinks just as I heard Eliana. "I lost." Her friends started yelling. "A bet's a bet! Pick a guy and dance with him!" Then Eliana—my wife, who had supposedly been paralyzed for three years—stood up and went straight to Austin. They spun across the dance floor as everyone clapped. One friend laughed. "Eliana, you're seriously messed up. Fake marriage, fake paralysis—you've kept Rafael as our entertainment for three years." Eliana laced her fingers with Austin's. "I lost the bet. Had to do it." Austin doubled over laughing. "We bet on whether Rafael would spend six years taking care of her. Eliana said no. I said yes. "Guess who's winning? "All it took was one fake marriage certificate. Even when Eliana pretended she couldn't walk, Rafael bought the whole thing. Dude carried her up and down the stairs for three years! "I know Rafael way better than she does. I'm gonna win." I stood in the shadows and smiled. 'So the bets never stopped. 'Fine. 'I'm done being part of their stupid game.'

Jewel Rivers hated nothing more than having to turn back. If she left something behind, she would move on without it. If she took a wrong turn, she kept going. She said, "Turning back is a waste of time. The only way is forward." She even drove right past me without stopping one night after I had worked late. I texted her, "I just saw your car drive by. Can you turn around and pick me up?" Three minutes later, she replied, "Rules are rules. I don't turn back. Take a cab home yourself." - The next day was our eighth anniversary. We had planned to go to the nearby theme park together. Twenty minutes after we set out, my close friend, Jason Smith, sent a message in the group chat the three of us shared: [Jewel, you left your hair clip on my couch when you drove me home last night!] I froze for a moment. "You picked him up from work last night?" "It was on the way," she said casually. Jason sent another voice message, his tone cheerful. "Jewel, Beau, you two are going to the theme park today, right? I want to go, too. Can we all go together?" We were already halfway there, and I was about to tell Jason to take a cab and meet us at the entrance. Before I could, Jewel replied, "Sure. I'll come pick you up." My throat tightened. "Didn't you say you never turned back?" She turned her car around without hesitation. "Rules aren't set in stone. We can adapt." When we reached Jason's apartment building, I got out and gave him the front passenger seat. "You two have fun. I'm not going. Jewel, I'll follow your example for once. I'm not turning back either." I had walked this road for eight years, and I had no intention of taking a single step back.

I give relationship advice online, helping the lovesick and heartbroken work through their problems. One night a young man called into my livestream. A wealthy woman had been keeping him for seven years. Now he wanted to go home and get married, but she'd threatened to kill herself if he left. I gave him the standard advice. "You want out? Go to her husband. Tell him the truth. Give everything back." Three days later a property deed arrived, along with dozens of luxury-car keys and more than a hundred designer bags. Then my phone lit up with a transfer notification. Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The note read: "Thanks for the advice. Returning everything to its rightful owner." I looked at my wife's name on the deed. That night I went live. "Tonight, I'm telling you a joke about myself."

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.”

Hallie Shaw lived her life judging everyone with a rigid scorecard. When we were dating, she used to say that any person or event scoring below ninety points wasn't worth a second of her time. After marriage, every single thing I did was evaluated. On our wedding anniversary, I prepared a full spread of her favorite dishes. She took one bite and said, "Eighty-nine points." Then she set down her utensils and left to share a meal with Miles, who allegedly had a poor appetite. For the company's anniversary party, I tried on twenty-seven suits, only for her to glance at me and say, "Eighty-eight points. Not suitable to bring along." That very night, she walked into the celebration with Miles, who was wearing nothing more than a simple white shirt. To earn that perfect score, I quit my dream job, earned seven professional certifications, and learned four foreign languages. Yet no matter how hard I tried, my score remained forever stuck at eighty-nine. Meanwhile, Miles didn't have to lift a finger. Just by standing there, he was automatically a perfect hundred. I asked her once, "What does it actually take to get a ninety?" She glanced over at Miles and offered no answer. In that moment, a sudden, bitter laugh escaped my lips. Her scoring criteria had only ever had one rule from start to finish, and it wasn't me. I pulled off my wedding ring and dropped it straight into the wine glass in front of her. "Hallie, this time, I'm the one giving out the scores. Your loyalty: zero points. Your marriage: zero points. And as a person, you fail."

My wife, Claire, wanted our son to give up a kidney to save her childhood sweetheart's daughter. I refused. I fought her so hard that I thought she'd finally let it go. Then our son vanished, and Claire stopped answering my calls. I went to the hospital to find her. There, I learned that the little girl had finally found a donor. Claire would perform the transplant herself. She'd promised to keep her safe. Then I saw the name listed under deceased organ donor. It was my son's.

I waited half an hour for a cab in the pouring rain. When one finally arrived, Claire held the door open and spoke to the driver. "My friend has been through something traumatic. Could you take him home first?" Her so-called friend was Adrian Cole, her ex. The driver glanced past her at me, uneasy. "But this gentleman booked the ride." Only then did Claire seem to remember that I was standing there — her actual boyfriend. "He won't mind. I'll pay extra." Once Adrian was inside, she took a picture of the license plate, the way she always had, and reminded the driver—twice—to get him home safely. She didn't ask what I would do. She got into her own car and left. She never drove me to or from work. People might get the wrong idea. I stood alone in the storm for another two hours. Not a single driver accepted my request. Then I saw Adrian's post: a whole gallery of license-plate photos. "All these years, and she still hasn't broken the habit." I zoomed in on the screenshots. From the time they'd been together until now, Claire had taken more than thirteen hundred of those pictures. She was so careful about appearances with me. Yet as Adrian's "friend," she could make sure he got home safely every day. She said she'd forgotten him. But the habit was in her bones, and that hadn't gone anywhere. And suddenly, I knew. I didn't want a relationship where even my safety came second.

Everyone in our circle knew me as Violet Gilman's devoted lapdog of a boyfriend. If she told me to jump into a river, I jumped. If she wanted me kneeling in the rain all night, I knelt through the night. I was so obedient that when she kept a boy toy on the side, I'd even volunteer to bring him condoms. People in our circle praised her for raising such a good lapdog, and sneered at me, certain I'd stoop to anything just to marry into money. But when she brought up marriage herself at a family dinner, I shook my head and turned her down. "I've already done everything there is to do. Marriage, though? That, we can skip."

On the 1,001st day, Ruby Anderson still hadn't shown up at the city hall. The staff member tapped on the rejected application form and laughed at me mockingly. "Mr. Scott, this makes a thousand times, You should set a time with Ms. Anderson before coming back. "Stop wasting everyone's time." Everyone knew that Ruby was the richest person in this city. She had very limited time. When she was happy, everyone would respectfully address me as "Mr. Scott". However, when she was upset, I would be treated even worse than her nanny. Everyone would take a dig at me. They seemed to have forgotten that she was the one who proposed to me 99 times with roses. She had told the whole world that I was the only man she wanted to marry. I naively believed that she was always too busy. Until I found 997 used condoms locked inside her safe. Each one was labeled with the time and place, along with the name of her first love. This time, I didn't ask her again when we were going to register our marriage. Instead, I called that number, my voice calm. "Please reserve one application form for the memory-erasure experiment for me."

As the iron gates of the mental institute swing open, my wife, Serena Seacrest, walks in with her childhood sweetheart, Adrian Cross, beside her. She looks at me with utter disgust. I am strapped tightly to the bed, unable to move. She sneers, "Damian, you've been subjected to electroshock treatments for an entire month. Is your mania any better? You pushed Adrian down the stairs and nearly broke his leg, so I sent you here to teach you how to be a normal person." Serena tosses a worn-out pink comfort bunny onto the floor and speaks as though she is granting me a favor. "Get down on your knees and apologize to Adrian. If you do, I'll be kind enough to let you see Lila next month." I stare blankly at the dusty bunny, but I am unable to make a sound. Serena frowns and curses, "What a complete nutjob." Then, she turns around and closes the door. What she doesn't know is that a month ago, on the day she forcibly dragged me onto the mental institute's transport van, our daughter, Delilah Vale, ran after me and was run over by a truck at an intersection, her body mangled beyond recognition. Delilah is dead now, and she will never hold her bunny again. And everything between Serena and me had ended that same night.