After Death Romance-Kurzgeschichten & Marriage-Kurzromane

My wife's first love broke into our home and killed me. Yet my wife, one of the world's top defense attorneys, stood in court to secure his acquittal. She insisted that the entire incident was nothing more than an act I had staged myself—a desperate attempt to win her attention. She even appeared at my funeral. Pointing at my coffin with open disgust, she sneered, "You'd stoop this low just to get my sympathy? Stop pretending and come out right now to apologize to Marvin."

The day Ken Bowen and I finalized the divorce, I walked out wearing only the outfit I had worn on our wedding day. I let Ken keep the house, the cars, the money, and the kids. He looked genuinely surprised, then let out a mocking laugh. "Are you sure about this? You raised the girls yourself, and you're just giving them up? If you really don't want anything, then you won't need to pay child support either. That's fair, right?" I signed the papers without hesitation and said calmly, "Yeah. That's fair." Ken paused, then slowly signed his name. "If you regret this later, you…" I lifted a hand and cut him off. I didn't look back as I walked out. Ken used to say I married him for money and status, that I used our three daughters to tie him down. Whatever. The day he saw my dead body, he would finally understand.

My wife, Christine Leigh, forced me to the brink of death all for her first love, Henry Carson. To give him a liver transplant, she sent me to the surgery table. I told her I had cancer and that the doctors had advised against the surgery. She just looked at me with an undisguised contempt, "Jason Lowe, stop with your petty tricks. Don't forget, you owe our family your life!" I lowered my head and smiled bitterly. I never left the surgery table.

Three years after my death, my wife’s first love was hanging onto life by a thread, and only my system could save him. To force me to show up, she cut off my father’s medical payments. My sick mother was forced to beg her out in the summer heat until she collapsed. She even threw my beloved little sister into a bonfire to be eaten up by the flames. As she waited for me to show up, apologize to her, and use the system to save her first love, my sister finally stopped hiding the truth. “He died three years ago! Three years ago, he traded his life so you would survive that car crash!”

On the road, I met a woman unlike anyone I had ever seen before. Her name was Janet Smith. She seemed slow and almost childlike, yet she had been wandering alone for two years without ever going home. Even with one leg crippled, she had forced herself to climb the Highveil Mountains. This time, however, she was caught in a blizzard. Injured and stranded, she could no longer make her way down. As her vision blurred and her strength slipped away, tears covered her face. She placed a pair of small handmade clay dolls in my hands. "I'm probably going to die here," she murmured. "Please give these to my adoptive brother, Chester Graham." She was clearly at death's door, yet her smile was soft and unexpectedly serene. "Tell him I've seen enough of the world. I don't love him anymore. And tell him he doesn't need to worry. I'm not so foolish now. I won't cause trouble for anyone again." Chester? At the sound of his name, I stood rooted to the spot. In Riverton City, everyone who worked at the harbor knew him, the so-called Ship King. Right before I left for the mountains, news of his engagement had been everywhere.

Wendy Lloyd's first love, Hudson Clark, treats me like a walking blood bank. Because of that, I end up dying in the rented apartment Wendy has given to me out of contemptuous pity. Today is the third day of my death. My six-year-old son, Terry Heath, finally realizes that something is wrong with me. When he accidentally cuts his finger from playing with his toys, I don't coax him at all. When he tears open a pack of cookies and feeds one to me, I don't stop him at all. When he lies in my arms and grips me by the hem of my shirt while calling out to me softly, I don't respond to him at all. Feeling rather uneasy, Terry finds my phone and calls Wendy. "Mommy, why is Daddy still asleep?" Wendy responds by sending a photo of her and Hudson enjoying a holiday feast together. She then says coldly, "He's just asleep, not dead. Today is Christmas Eve, so I'm very busy right now. "Tell that arrogant father of yours that he's only free to visit me whenever he's ready to acknowledge his mistakes." After that, the call ends. Terry is left feeling stunned for a long time. Finally, he digs out the last cookie from the trash can and snaps it in half. Then, he feeds it to me again. "Daddy, let's eat."

To snatch a limited-edition piece of jewelry for his mistress, my blind brother was shoved down a flight of stairs. Ethan Sterling, one of the best surgeons in the country, refused to enter the operating room — all because of a tiny cut on his precious sweetheart's finger. He forged a forensic report and bought Daniel's life for a mere fifty thousand dollars. Even my own daughter turned against me: "You're a liar! Aunt Vivian is the best person in the whole world!" Later, in front of everyone, I stepped off the third-floor terrace and plunged into the void. Ethan Sterling lost his mind. He knelt by the river for three days and three nights, clawing his fingers raw against the stone. A year later, desperate to save his daughter from going blind, he knelt in a downpour begging that mysterious, world-renowned surgeon. I stood there holding my umbrella, utterly unmoved. "I'm afraid you have the wrong person, Mr. Sterling. Miss Holloway died a year ago." "I'm Mrs. Ashford. I'm here to acquire Sterling Medical."

On the day I found out I was dying, Evan Buck, my husband, came home with a “dating contract” he had signed with his assistant, Cherry Mello. “She threatened to kill herself if I didn’t agree to date her for three months.” He continued with a sincere gaze. “But don’t worry. It’s just indulging a young girl’s wish. You’re the one I love. I promise you, after three months, she’ll resign, and we’ll never hear from her again.” I knew that when Evan made up his mind, there was no talking him out of it. Just like how I had long seen the unmistakable longing in Cherry’s eyes when she looked at him. However, he said I was overthinking and refused to dismiss her. Looking at the man I had loved for ten years before me, I quietly slipped the terminal diagnosis behind my back. Three months. What a coincidence. That was exactly how much time I had left.

Three days before I got married, Evan Jones' claustrophobic ex-girlfriend cornered my car at the cliff of a winding road and rammed into me 12 times. When Evan arrived with the police, I was being rescued by the firefighters from my driver's seat, which had been smashed out of shape. However, Evan went to the limited-edition sports car, which had only lost some paint, and carried the trembling Nikki Shore in his arms. "Evan, Madison is bleeding on her forehead; she needs to get it stitched up at the hospital." However, Evan stopped my stretcher from getting into the car and glanced at my bleeding forehead and bruised arms. "These are just minor injuries, but Nikki has claustrophobia. Her condition will only get worse, and she has to go to the hospital first." As I was about to be left behind, I used the last of my strength to grab Evan by his pant leg. He frowned and pried off my fingers. "Nikki didn't crash into you on purpose. It's just her condition acting up. You're a lawyer, and you should know how some things are beyond our control, so stop making a fuss right now." With that, his assistant handed him a settlement agreement, and Evan grabbed my limp wrist to print my fingerprint on the papers. "Just bear with this. The ambulance will be coming soon."

After my dad's first love moved into our house and became my tutor, my mom never raised her voice at her again. She just coughed worse and worse, until one day I found the lab report she'd thrown out. Stage IV lung cancer. That afternoon, Dad came home with his arm around her, and walked right into Mom sitting on the couch. There was a flicker of guilt on his face. "Helena, if you've got something to say, just say it. Don't make a scene in front of the kid." Mom was eerily calm. She pointed at the woman and said, "She gets on her knees and apologizes to me three times. And you sign over half the company. Then we're done." Dad thought she'd lost it. But in the end he signed the share transfer. After that, Mom's pills kept multiplying and her appetite kept shrinking. But she hired the best lawyer in town, and over and over she taught me how to manage those shares once I was old enough. Dad never figured out the one thing that mattered. Mom was already on her way out.

At our high school reunion, my ex announced he was getting married. In the middle of the congratulations, someone piped up. “Hey, where’s Wren tonight? She didn’t show?” The whole room cracked up. “Wren? Probably still earning her keep in some rich guy’s bed.” “She dumped James for money, and now look at him. He’s the wealthiest guy in New York. Bet she’s kicking herself.” Someone snickered. “I heard the guy’s some fat old man. God, how does she even stomach it.” I broke up with James Thorne the year he loved me the most, and walked straight into the arms of another man, a man with money. Now he had a new girlfriend, he’d taken over Thorne Capital, and he was one of New York’s most talked-about young executives. He’d organized this reunion because he couldn’t wait to show off how good his life had turned out. “Enough. Drop it.” In the middle of the laughter, James spoke up. “I have a better life now. Whether Wren is dead or alive has nothing to do with me anymore.” “What if she really were dead?” The room went silent.

It was my son's engagement party. However, my husband stopped me from giving my soon-to-be daughter-in-law her gift. "His mother will do the honors. This is not your place." I thought he was joking until he put his arm around his childhood sweetheart and sat down together around the main table. "I know Bianca mishandled your baby, but she had postpartum depression, and it was an accident. "She gave you Jason to make up for her mistake. It's time for them to be a family again. She has atoned for her sins." My nails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. Just when I was on the brink of losing it, my son raised a toast to her. "Someone has stolen your place for 30 years, Mom, but you'll never have to suffer again." Right now, my husband and son were like strangers I'd never met instead of my family. A bitter smile curled my lips. We'd spent more than three decades together. Time had left its mark on my graying hair, yet I was treated as nothing more than an outsider in a place I was supposed to call home. Perhaps this home was too small to fit all of us. Since that was the case, someone had to bow out and that someone… was me.

Yvonne Foster, my wife from an arranged marriage, is a control freak who loves me to her core. From business operations to the smallest details of daily life, she takes charge of everything herself. If someone dares to target me in business, their company is shut down for investigation the very next day. Women who set their sights on me always disappear without a trace. Yvonne always acts as if she can't stand me, but I know she is the kind of person who acts tough on the outside but cares deeply on the inside. This goes on until my parents find their true biological son, and I turn out to be the fake heir. The real heir, Fabian Madden, has spent his whole life in the countryside. I hear that he has an honest, simple personality. But when every bone in my body is shattered, and I'm thrown into an abandoned factory with my mouth stuffed full of blood-soaked dirt, he stares down at me haughtily. "You darn parasite living off a woman! You stole more than 20 years of wealth and privilege that should have been mine. Die! Just die already!" He buries my body in the garden and uses it to nourish a vast bed of roses as a birthday gift for Yvonne. Pointing at the sea of roses, he says ingratiatingly, "Yvonne, do you like this field of roses?"

On Christmas Eve, I giddily wait for my husband, Hunter Gibson, to come home while nursing my eight-month pregnancy. Unexpectedly, Hunter bursts through the front door with his childhood friend, Winter Jones, in his arms. I attempt to help him out, only to get shoved to the floor instead. My belly bumps into a corner of the coffee table, causing pain to shoot up my nerves. Cold sweat soon beads on my forehead, and yet Hunter doesn't even spare me another glance. "Get out of my way! Someone drugged Winnie's drink at the bar! If I don't purge the poison out of her, she'll die!" As I shield my belly, I dig out my phone. "I'll call an ambulance for her—" But Hunter snatches my phone away before hurling it at the floor, breaking it into splinters. Then, he grabs me by the neck angrily. "Are you trying to ruin Winnie's reputation? If word gets out, how is she going to live with her head hung high?" In order to prevent me from "ruining his plan", Hunter decides to trap me on the balcony while disregarding my pleas and the fact that I'm only wearing thin pajamas. "You should take some time to cool off! Once you've finally learned your lesson, you're only permitted entry!" I can only slam my palms onto the glass door desperately with tears running down my face. There, I'm forced to watch as Hunter and Winter go at it like desperate rabbits on the carpet in the living room, with the Christmas songs serving as their ambiance. A heavy snowfall has occurred that night. At the crack of dawn the next morning, Hunter finally remembers that I exist. He calls my number, yet my phone was turned off. Furious, Hunter yells, "Where the hell did you go? Winnie's stomach is in discomfort! Get your ass back here right now and cook her some soup!" What he doesn't know is that I'm right outside the balcony door. The thing is, dead people are incapable of answering phone calls, not to mention Hunter has already broken my phone, to begin with.

My wife had such a compassionate heart that she brought the young homeless man outside our apartment home for dinner, then demanded I give up my room so he could stay there. She spent the entire down payment I had saved on designer clothes for him and took him to five-star restaurants. She said she was only helping him and told me not to be so petty. Then, I got sick and ended up in the hospital. I called my wife and asked her to use the emergency funds in our bank account to pay for my surgery. She agreed right away. Despite that, I waited an entire day and missed the surgery, and the doctor told me I had only one month left to live. She never brought the money. Instead, I saw the photos she had posted on social media during her travels. My wife leaned against the homeless man in front of a famous landmark, smiling like she had everything she wanted. The caption read, "Wyatt said he's never been to any famous landmarks, so even if I have to spend every last cent, I'm going to take him around the world so he won't have any regrets. Also, someone was so afraid I'd spend money on Wyatt that he lied about being sick. He has no compassion at all!" Only then did I realize her so-called sympathy was just an excuse for falling for someone else. In that case, I did not want her anymore.

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 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.

In the fifth year of our marriage, my firefighter husband, Mike Anderson, who never had the time to have a wedding ceremony with me, suddenly found time to do so. On the day of the ceremony, I could not contact Mike at all. It all became clear when I saw the video that had been sent into the firefighter family members’ group chat. His junior, Mia Scott was holding his arm as he received a heroic award from the mayor. Everyone in the group chat was making envious remarks. [Chief Anderson’s wife is so beautiful. She doesn’t look like a regular house wife like my husband claimed to be.] [That’s right, she looks so elegant and poised. She must be a great wife to Chief Anderson.] My rough hands were trembling. I was just about to tell them I was Mike’s wife, when I heard a loud explosion from my kitchen. As the searing heat consumed me, I called him for help. However, he interrupted me impatiently. “Why are you bothering me? I lied to you about the wedding ceremony because I was afraid of you coming up with such nonsense. “Mia’s father died because he saved me, so I let her accompany me to receive the award as my wife. Isn’t that reasonable?” I was stunned. Then, he hung up on me.

The year I die, my wife, Liana Chandler, despises me more than ever before. Unable to handle her endless emotional abuse, I choose to end my own life by swallowing pills. At the crematorium, she watches the roaring flames in the cremation chamber with a rare smile. "Filth like him doesn't deserve a proper burial," she comments. When the employee hands her my cremation urn, she swiftly overturns it, scattering my ashes all over the floor in an instant. All this time, she has believed that I'm the one who caused her first love's death. So, she took great pains to formulate a plan—all for this very moment. When everything is over, she walks away without looking back, trampling my ashes underfoot. But before long, she's on her knees, begging for the funeral parlor to give my ashes back to her.

A tsunami was coming. My wife was the captain of her ship, and she gave her true love the only chance at escaping, all to protect him. I begged her to save me first, or else I would die in this disaster. She told me impatiently, “Drop the act. Everyone knows you’re a first-rank seafarer. We’d be better off if selfish souls like you really do die!” She had forgotten one thing. I could no longer go into the sea. Not after I developed thalassophobia from saving her.