Cerita Pendek Melodramatic Romance & Novel Marriage

After we got married, Lucy Xander and I maintained a shared expense ledger. Every expense went into it. Nothing was spared, be it big expenses like houses and cars, to little things like condoms. We split everything 50-50. When I did not have enough money to pay for my mom’s funeral, I had asked Lucy to lend me some. She made me sign an IOU and charged me interest at the bank rate. We got into a car accident. I shielded Lucy with my body and suffered severe burns. We were three dollars short for the surgery. Lucy flipped through our ledger and frowned. “I gave you 1,314.50 this morning. I’ve already paid my half.” My face went pale. “Then, treat the rest as a loan.” “You still haven’t paid off your last loan. Your credit is already overdue.” I lowered my head and saw a link in our chat. [Dream Guy Loans] “Try this site. You can get the money within ten minutes, and the interest rate is low.” The next second, Lucy’s childhood friend, Yale Lawson, posted something on social media. [Thank you, Lucy, for helping me out.] The screenshot showed a three million transfer. The note on the payment said: Voluntary Gift. When he was worried that he might lose money, she reassured him. [Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.] She was willing to cover someone else’s losses, but with me, she kept track of every penny. I looked down and booked a ticket for three days later. I was done with a marriage where everything had to be counted down to the last penny.

At the height of my career, I became the youngest law professor in the field and married my childhood sweetheart, Daisy Reid. We were known as the "golden couple of the legal world," and in the eyes of many, we were the perfect loving couple. In the tenth year of our marriage, my mother took my son, Caleb Davis, out, and they were involved in a car accident. The driver had been speeding while intoxicated. My mother only had enough time to shield Caleb in her arms before she died on the spot. To my surprise, my wife, Daisy, appeared and sat next to the murderer, James Benton, as his defense attorney in the courtroom. "Our client was just driving normally when the deceased suddenly rushed out in an attempt to stage an accident, which ultimately led to the accident. The deceased party should bear the main responsibility for the accident." Upon hearing that, I stared at her in disbelief. Soon after, anger surged within me. My eyes bloodshot, I growled, "My mom would never stage an accident! I have a witness!" However, the ten-year-old Caleb, who was to testify as a witness, grabbed James' arm and said, "I testify that Grandma was trying to fake an accident by purposely crashing into Mr. Benton's car. Dad even tried to make me lie. I would never hurt Mr. Benton." The moment those words left his mouth, my heart sank completely.

At the welcome-home party for Geoffrey Flaig’s childhood sweetheart, Melinda Sommer, his friends started a game of Spin the Bottle. The first few rounds were harmless. They were only changing their profile pictures into ugly photos of themselves, kissing the person next to them, or confessing to the person they hated the most. When the bottle landed on Selena Brodie, they pulled out the divorce papers between her and Geoffrey and dared her to sign them. “Selena, we dare you to sign it!” She stayed motionless for a long time. She just stared at the line where he had already signed his name. The signature looked bold and flamboyant, and the ink had long since dried. Seeing this, Melinda stood up and pointed at the bottle of strong liquor on the table. “Selena, if you’re too chicken, chug this bottle.” Everyone at the table knew that Selena was allergic to alcohol. Even Geoffrey, who had always been protective of her and had never let her touch a single drop, looked at her with a frown and said, “It’s just a game. Don’t be a spoilsport.”

For three years, I was the only one allowed inside my husband, Matthew Carter's, secret room on the top floor. Until that day—when I walked in and found his young assistant there. "Matthew asked me to get things ready for his dinner party," she said, all confidence and no shame. I smiled. It turned out this was what it felt like to have my privileges as his wife trampled on. Fine. If the rules of the game had changed, then I would show everyone who the real player was. One by one, I dismantled the Carter family's most prized projects. That was when Matthew finally panicked. He demanded, "Why? We're husband and wife!" "Exactly," I said, tossing the divorce papers onto his desk. "And that's why betrayal comes with a steeper price, doesn't it?"

The biggest gossip in Nashford lately is that Silas Fitzroy, the town fool, is trying to divorce his wife again. When he takes Nadine Larson to court once more, she once again fails to show up. He pulls his phone, takes a deep breath, and dials her number with practised ease, never expecting her to actually answer this time. "Where are you?" "What are you trying to pull now?" Nadine demands, her voice cold. "Same trick again. How many more times are you going to make a fool of yourself?" Silas tightens his grip on the phone. "So you know I did it again. Then what about the 39 times I called you a month ago? Why didn't you answer a single one of them?"

On Valentine's Day, my wife gave her late sister's widower a fifty-two-thousand-dollar Rolex. "Marcus, my sister may be gone, but that does not mean you should go without the things other men have." Marcus took the watch with barely hidden excitement. "From now on, my son and I will depend on you." My wife thumped her chest and promised she would be his and his son's support from now on. I watched the two of them cling to each other and said calmly, "Ines Sutherland, I want a divorce." She frowned at me. "It is just a watch. What are you jealous about this time?" I smiled faintly and handed over the divorce agreement. "Sign it. Then you can take care of Marcus with a clear conscience."

Grandma lay bedridden, her dementia taking hold as she repeated Scarlett Hayes's name over and over. Tears streamed down my face as I dialed my wife's number. When she picked up, Scarlett sounded irritated. She said she was working late tonight and would call me back when she was free. I could clearly hear the sound of a man's laughter in the background. The moment I hung up, Grandma gasped sharply. She called out my wife's name. It was her last breath. While I sat drowning in grief, Scarlett's male best friend Chase Morrison posted a video update, geotagged at a couples' hotel. In the video, their fingers were laced together. The woman's arm bore a distinctive black mole I recognized instantly. The caption read: "When two hearts become one, why care what anyone else thinks?" In that moment, my heart turned to ash. I gritted my teeth and left a comment. "Let's file for divorce tomorrow. Then you two can be together openly and legally. You'll even save on the hotel fees. Win-win, right?"

Among the wealthy elite, there was a saying: Any man in the world might cheat on his wife, but Yates Prescott never would. Reserved, disciplined, and unfailingly proper, he carried himself with an air of cool sophistication. He had eyes only for his wife, the girl he'd loved since high school and eventually married. Yet five years into their marriage, Yvette Chandler received word that Yates had been secretly keeping a mistress. The moment she received the photos, she froze.

During a parent-child activity at kindergarten, the teacher asks the children to draw what they want to be when they grow up. The other kids draw princesses, dinosaurs, and astronauts, but my five-year-old son, Evan Jepsen, draws a cell phone. Across its screen, he's written a message in crooked letters. "Incoming call from Annette." "Why do you want to be a phone?" the teacher asks, puzzled. "Because Daddy loves his phone more than anything," Evan replies earnestly. "When Mommy asks him to come to dinner, he gets annoyed. But whenever Annette calls, he smiles right away." The classroom falls silent, and I stand frozen in place. "Once, Mommy had a fever of 102°F, but Daddy said he was busy and couldn't take her to the hospital," Evan continues. "But when Annette said her stomach hurt, he canceled a really important meeting and carried her to the car himself. "One day it was raining, and Daddy promised to pick me up. But then Annette called, and he made Mommy and me get out of the car. "Daddy said Annette's brother saved his life a long time ago, so he promised to take care of her forever." Evan looks up at me, his voice growing softer. "If Daddy wants to repay Annette's brother, why are we always the ones he leaves behind? "If I become Daddy's phone… would he hold me all the time too? Would he listen to me when I talk, just like he always listens to Annette on the phone?" I pull him into my arms and wipe away my tears. "Sweetheart, you don't have to become a phone," I choke out. "I'll take you away from your daddy, who never seems to notice us anyway."

Susie Chance always claimed to value fairness above all else. Because of that, she ordered a specially designed chip implanted into my body. Whenever her childhood sweetheart suffered bouts of stomach cancer, all his suffering would be transferred onto me. On the day he underwent tumor-removal surgery, I collapsed in agony in the hospital corridor. Meanwhile, Susie gently comforted him in the ward. “So? It didn’t hurt at all, right?” Later, she said she wanted to hold a wedding with her childhood sweetheart, so he could experience being a groom as well. “Even though the one marrying me is Mark, the one I’ll register with in the future will still be you. I told you… I’ve always treated you both equally.” I said nothing, simply returning the wedding ring she had once placed in my hands. However, when the wedding march finally began to play, I boarded a one-way flight far away.

When I returned from a five-year overseas assignment, I walked out of the airport expecting Dan Hill to finally keep his promise and propose to me. Instead, he stood there with a distant expression. “Stella, I’m sorry.” Before I could even process the apology, he continued, “I was the one who arranged your transfer order. I deliberately had you reassigned to that remote project out in the desert because I needed space for Hayley and myself. She was pregnant back then, and I didn’t have any other choice.” A long silence followed, and I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. Five years of scorching heat, endless dust storms, and sixteen-hour workdays in a place that felt forgotten by the rest of the world… I finally learned it had all been a carefully constructed prison of his making. “You’re overbearing and confrontational. I was afraid you’d go after her. I’m telling you the truth now not because I expect forgiveness, but because I hope you’ll stay calm and not make this uglier than it needs to be.” His voice carried an air of weary resignation. I took a step back to avoid him as he reached out toward me. I was smiling through my tears. “Dan, this could’ve been a clean break, but you’ve ruined that.”

The birthday gift I gave my husband was found in a doghouse by the side of the road. I spent the next five years as the butt of all jokes made by Cascade City's high society wives. Every year when Julian Carter's birthday came around, they would bring it up again, teasing that the gift I bought him was surely the most expensive one of all. "That's nouveau riche taste for you. She thinks the more expensive it is, the better." "Yeah, but I wonder where they'll find it this year. Another doghouse, maybe?" The women burst into laughter. Then, they realized something was different. This year, I had not given Julian anything at all. In fact, as his birthday drew to a close, I still had not shown up. "Laura, where's my birthday present? And what kind of behavior is this? You disappeared for the entire day. Do you have any idea how unhappy everyone in the family has been?" Julian's eyes were dark with irritation. I pushed back my sleep-mussed hair, only then remembering that it seemed to be Julian's birthday. "Oh, sorry. I forgot." After a brief pause, I added casually, "I'll have my assistant pick something out tomorrow and send it over." For a moment, he simply stared at me, as if he could not believe what he had just heard. "What did you just say?"

When Mom was seven months pregnant, a speeding car hit hers. Not only did she suffer multiple fractures, but she lost her child as well. Dad was heartbroken. As a top lawyer in his field, he promised Mom that he would seek justice for her. Yet on the day of the court hearing, when Dad saw that the defendant was his childhood sweetheart, he denied being the lawyer for Mom. He turned around and abandoned Mom, who was still in her wheelchair. Subsequently, Mom found her own lawyer. However, during the appeal of the second instance, Dad stood at the place of the defendant, taking on the role of the defense lawyer. Mom’s lawyer lost the case completely. She was charged for falsely accusing the innocent for selfish gain and had to pay a compensation for mental damage of $100,000. Mom’s entire body shook when she received the sentence. Ignoring the pain on her body, she went looking for Dad to question him, only to see him standing with his childhood sweetheart. “Gerald, your wife will surely get mad at you for doing this. What if she asks for a divorce?” Dad draped his jacket over her shoulders and assured her. “Megan, I would never accept this case had I known you were the defendant. You weren’t in a clear mental state during your pregnancy. We just aren’t fated to see our baby alive. Tina was just acting in a moment of spite. She loves me so much, she won’t make things difficult for me.” Mom felt all her energy drain from her body. She released her clenched fists, and the written court judgment fluttered to the ground. Using the remaining dollar in her account, she printed two copies of a divorce agreement.

On our wedding night, my wife, Corinne, suddenly said, "Emmett, let Silas take your place with me tonight." I froze, sure I'd heard her wrong. Then she said, "I don't want this either, but Silas is dying. The only thing he wants before he dies is to find out what it's like to be with a woman. "You two are twins anyway. You look exactly alike. Just let him stand in for you tonight. "Don't worry. I'll be thinking of you the whole time." My parents were standing at the bedroom door too, their eyes full of tears as they begged me. "Emmett, just say yes! It's Silas's last wish!" In that moment, a flood of memories came rushing back.

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.

After I fail my mission, the system grants me three days to say goodbye. For the first time, I become the perfect husband in Kristen Snowe's eyes. I stop waiting up for her when she doesn't come home. I stop fighting with her over the money she keeps giving to her childhood friend, Jake Leigh. On the first day, she scoffs at me. "If you'd acted like this from the beginning, I wouldn't feel so sick and tired of you!" On the second day, she starts to get suspicious. "That's it? You're not mad? You're not up to something, are you?" By the third day, she's the one falling apart. "Honey… Why aren't you jealous anymore?" I smile. "Isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

To save my daughter, I collected 50,000 plastic bottles. Day after day, I dug through trash, carried them home, and traded them for scraps of hope. However, when I finally hauled them all to the recycling center, I learned their selling price had dropped. The 50,000 bottles were worth only enough to buy my daughter a better urn. Desperate, I held my feverish daughter in my arms as she suffered a seizure. I called my actress wife for help. Her answer was ice-cold. “$5,000 for a fever? Do you think I’m some kind of charity?” The irony was that she had spent $50 million building a private hospital for her screen partner’s dog just hours earlier.

My husband, Shawn Payne, goes bankrupt overnight. That very night, he ships me and our son, Tommy Payne, off to a deserted island, claiming it's the only way to keep us safe from his creditors. Worried sick about leaving him to face the danger alone, I sneak back home halfway there, only to find him throwing a wild party, his arms wrapped tightly around a beautiful woman. His best friend, Ryan Foster, needles him. "You dumped your wife and son in the middle of nowhere. How are they going to survive out there?" Shawn shrugs like it's no big deal. "Yvonne's closing down her dog food factory anyway. I had all the surplus kibble repackaged and shipped to the island. It's more than enough to keep them fed for a few years." The woman, Yvonne Sullivan, purrs and snuggles deeper into his chest. "Oh, babe, you're so good to me and the baby," she coos, gently stroking her belly, which isn't even showing yet. He taps the tip of her nose affectionately. "You're so innocent and soft-hearted. If I don't look out for you, who will?" He pulls Yvonne closer and continues, "For your sake, I had to ship that shrew off to some godforsaken island. If she ever found out you were pregnant, she'd tear you apart. Once you have the baby and she turns two, I'll bring them back. By then, it'll be a done deal. There's nothing she can do about it." His words hit me like a ton of bricks. A cold sweat soaks me to the skin. Three years later, right on schedule, he calls. "Hey honey, how are you and Tommy doing? I'm ready to come pick you guys up." I glance at the man beside me, and a rush of satisfaction washes over me. "We're doing great," I reply. "My new husband treats both me and your son incredibly well."

When we try to get our marriage registered for the 18th time, Derek Hubbard has forgotten to bring his ID again. The thing is, I reminded him to bring his ID three times last night. He told me, "Got it. This time, I'm definitely marrying you. There won't be a problem throughout the registration." But as soon as we arrive at the city hall, Derek searches through his pockets. In the end, he calls Lessie Davenport with a frown. "Lessie, did I leave my ID with you?" As I sit in the waiting area, I suddenly let out a soft chuckle. Half an hour later, Lessie arrives at the city hall. She hands the ID over to Derek with red-rimmed eyes. "My stomach hurts a lot, Derek…" Derek's expression changes drastically. He quickly supports her and steers her toward the exit. "Wait for me here, Celine. I'll be back soon." I nod in response while watching Derek walk away from me, just like how he did for the past 17 times. When Derek's silhouette disappears, I dig out my phone and send a text message to someone else. "Are you here yet?" Three minutes later, a man walks into the city hall. He hands both of our IDs through the hole in the counter. "Hi, we're here to register our marriage."

The battery in my artificial heart is about to run out, yet no matter where I look, I can't find the spare battery. When I turn around, I realize that my wife, Tracy Maddox, has installed it in a streaming camera. She is using it to livestream a fundraiser for her sick first love, Gavin Spade, who has a cold. "Come on, everyone. Send more gifts! Gavin feels terrible because of his cold. Once we raise enough money, I'll take him to get the most expensive imported cold injection available!" I am so enraged that my vision darkens for a moment, like I'm about to pass out. I shout, "Tracy, you know exactly what happens if my heart loses power. Are you going to just watch as I die?" Covering the microphone, Tracy turns to me and shouts back, "Gavin has a fever of 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit! Your heart is just out of power. Can't you just wait a little while? Once the livestream is over and we've raised enough money for his injection, I'll give the battery back to you!" Using the last of my strength, I activate the emergency communication system inside my artificial heart and contact the R&D center. "The artificial heart is about to stop permanently. Activating the black box... Uploading evidence of murder in real time..."