Scumbag Romance Short Stories & Awakening Novels

I spent twenty hours on a train in coach, traveling more than 1,800 miles to see Harry Berger. I texted him to vent. "I'm so tired. My back feels like it’s about to break." It took him more than ten minutes to reply. "So? Do you want me to praise you for it, or feel sorry for you? "I didn’t make you come. You bought the ticket yourself, too. Don’t act like everyone owes you something." I stared at those words. The "I miss you" sticker I had intended to send remained unsent. Then he sent me an airport location. "Gemma heard you were coming and bought a ticket at the last minute. She wants to meet up with us. She has a lot of luggage, so I’m going to pick her up first since I’ll be passing by. Take a cab over yourself." After that, he transferred me twenty dollars for the cab. But the train station and the airport were on opposite ends of Westhaven. Then the notification sound for my starred contact went off. Gemma had posted on social media. In the photo, Harry was pulling her suitcase, one hand protectively resting at her waist. She proudly held up her first-class ticket. "Thanks to Mr. Berger for the first-class ticket! Five-star service. Definitely recommended!" I zoomed in on the picture and looked at the $2,000 ticket. Then I sent the twenty dollars for the cab back. I struggled to drag my suitcase down the steps and headed toward the airport. This time, I knew I wasn't going there to see him. I was going there to say goodbye to the version of myself who was always running toward him.

Moments after leading his team to win the Cup, my superstar hockey boyfriend, Grayson, announced an indefinite leave of absence on live TV. Twitter exploded instantly. The team's group chat was in absolute chaos. The captain sent a dozen furious voice memos, chewing Grayson out for treating the team's blood, sweat, and tears like a cheap joke just for some girl. Yet, in stark contrast to his teammates' blinding rage, Grayson's private PR team chat was celebrating. "Let's see how Blair, his glorified babysitter, cleans up this mess." "She spent ten years busting her ass for his career, and Grayson just drops it all for Cici. True devotion." A new junior assistant chimed in quietly: "But if he quits, don't we lose our jobs? I heard the captain just smashed a locker in rage..." Grayson's childhood friend and personal trainer sent a smirking emoji: "You're new. Blair is a top agent who's willingly played our nanny for a decade. No matter what Grayson does, she bails him out. She'll just go groveling to the sponsors and vets as usual." "Bet Blair is smashing her phone in a rage right now, hahaha." Amidst the rapid-fire texts, a voice memo suddenly popped up. It was Grayson's lazy, breathless voice. There was the sound of a party in the background: "Shut up, all of you. I'm busy. You guys are too loud." The group got even more riled up and started to egg Grayson on. "Cici adores you. Just kick Blair and her controlling vibe to the curb. She's thirty now anyway. Probably going deaf and blind in her old age." The chat erupted in laughter. I stared blankly at the screen. I logged directly into the agency's official Twitter account, typed up a statement, and hit send. "Our agency respects Grayson's decision to take an indefinite leave of absence. " "To compensate our brand partners, we are opening a dedicated refund portal today. We will unconditionally refund all prepaid endorsement and cancellation fees incurred during his leave."

On our third wedding anniversary, Kent gave me a gift. A black metal wristband. Cold. Sleek. He called it a new product from his company—a pain-sharing system. The other user was Violet. His "girl bro." The person he was closer to than his own sister. Kent brushed a hand over my cheek, his gaze soft. "Clara, you're too coddled. You should learn from Violet. She's tough." Then he snapped the wristband onto my wrist. So while Violet got a full-back tattoo and an entire sleeve, I felt every single needle. When Violet went wingsuit flying, I collapsed at home. Every bone in my body felt shattered. I threw up blood. While she soaked up attention online as the "extreme sports queen," I was drowning in nonstop pain. Kent sat beside me, holding my hand as he cared. "Just hang in there. Violet's just being herself. As my wife, you should be more understanding." To finally push me over the edge, Violet decided to livestream herself jumping into the ocean to make me die in her place. Their friends couldn't wait to watch. Later, I watched calmly from a hospital room as the system slowly drained the life out of her. Kent looked deranged as he demanded to know why I wasn't dead. Because I had already reversed the system. All her vitality had become the nourishment that sustained me.

Victoria Blackwood was a completely different person after being reborn. She no longer woke up before sunrise to make breakfast for Sebastian Blackwood and deliver it to his military unit so he could enjoy a home-cooked meal. She no longer picked up their son from daycare every evening, holding his little hand as he excitedly told her about the new songs he had learned that day. Even after their son, Ethan Blackwood, was injured in a car accident and rushed to the hospital, Victoria ignored Sebastian's repeated calls. It wasn't until his 38th call that she finally answered, taking her time as if nothing were wrong. Sebastian's voice was filled with worry, but he was clearly holding back his anger. "Do you even know Ethan was in a car accident?" Victoria held the phone to her ear while looking over the documents in front of her. She replied calmly, "I know. Haven't you already called me dozens of times?"

When the Carter family went bankrupt, Zoe Carter sold herself to the Tanners to save her mother. She became the bride of Yale Tanner, the man everyone in Gerton feared and avoided like the devil himself. Their marriage was supposed to bring him good fortune and save his life. Three days after the wedding, Yale, who had been on the brink of death from a gunshot wound, made a miraculous recovery. From then on, he treated Zoe like the most precious thing in his world. Now, however, Zoe sat bound at the wrists and ankles with coarse hemp rope, less than two feet from the open door of a helicopter. Freezing water jolted her awake. At thirty-three thousand feet, the icy wind rushing through the open doorway chilled her to the bone. She struggled instinctively, but the ropes only tightened, digging into her flesh until blood began to seep from her wrists and ankles. "Don't be scared, Zoe. Look at your mother! She's putting on quite the kite show!" Yale seized her trembling head and forced her to look at the screen beside her. There, suspended from a rope outside the helicopter, her mother dangled helplessly in the wind, her eyes vacant as she swayed like a kite. "Mom! Mom!" Her fear for her mother overwhelmed her own terror. Frantically, Zoe tried to crawl toward the screen, struggling forward on her bound hands and feet. Yale caught her by the back of her neck and held her firmly in place. His warm breath brushed her ear as he spoke, his voice cold and menacing. "Have you learned to behave yourself yet, Zoe? Now tell me, who do the data and research papers on precision-targeted therapies and antibody-drug conjugates really belong to?"

After taking care of my mother's ashes, I rushed overseas to attend my fiance's wedding to another woman. Preston Wallace had developed retrograde amnesia during a secret mission. He remembered everyone and everything—except me. His doctor said the most effective way to recover his lost memories was to continue the life he'd come to accept after losing them. In other words, he had to keep playing husband and wife with his female partner. So, for the sake of my unborn child, I personally handed Preston the wedding vows. That night, I came across a trending post online. "I feel awful about what I've put her through. For the past three years, whether she had a fever, caught a cold, or got into a car accident, she had to handle it all alone. How can I make up for what I owe her and still enjoy my life now without feeling guilty?" Someone replied in the comments, "You can't have it both ways. But you could switch from retrograde amnesia to situational amnesia—where you remember whoever you're with." Not long after, Preston messaged me. "Madeline, it's been three years. How have you and your mom been?" I stared at his message without replying. Preston had no idea that after what happened to him, his enemies came by our home, wanting to retaliate against my mother and me. My mother was stabbed 12 times while protecting me. After three years in a vegetative state, she finally regained consciousness. But when she heard that Preston had lost his memory and was going to marry another woman, she couldn't handle the news and died.

My boyfriend returned from his volunteer teacher post with a quiet girl. She wore bleached clothes and always spoke timidly, calling my boyfriend's name intimately. Since then, everything in our house had an extra copy for her. Winona Chaucer had everything I had and didn't have. I could put up with that, but then came the day of the proposal. My boyfriend knelt on one knee and pulled out a ring box with two rings inside. He looked at me and softened his voice to the point I thought he was convincing a child to accept an unreasonable request. "Winona said she wanted one too. Don't take it to heart, alright? Will you marry me, Liliana Davis" I looked at the identical diamond rings but took neither of them. Chris Samson, my boyfriend, had no idea that the one thing I couldn't stand was sharing anything with someone else, not even the person who was supposed to stand by my side for the rest of my life.

Olivia Hall was 18 when her parents died in a bloody gang war. Henry West, the city's most powerful crime boss, took her captive and forced her into a relationship. He kept her at his side, never letting her leave. Olivia fought him every step of the way, willing to risk her life rather than give in. But no matter how much she hated him or how hard she pushed him away, Henry lavished her with affection and made sure no one could hurt her. Over time, his relentless devotion wore down her defenses. Against her better judgment, Olivia fell in love with him. Everyone said she was Henry's greatest strength and the one weakness that could destroy him. The day Olivia agreed to marry him, Henry wiped out half the city's criminal world to make sure no one left could threaten her. Then he announced he was retiring. "Olivia, you're the only woman I'll ever love. There'll never be anyone else. I promise." Years later, Olivia discovered that Henry was secretly looking after another woman, someone he treated like she was too precious for the world to touch. "Olivia, I still love you more than anyone, but Grace is sweet and innocent. She reminds me of you when we first met, and I can't just walk away from her. Once this is over, I'll make it up to you. I swear." Olivia wasn't going to give him another chance. He had ruined what they had, and she had no interest in holding on to what was left. She burned every keepsake from their relationship and boarded a flight overseas, determined to leave Henry behind for good.

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."

For ten years, I was the messenger between Gabriel Moretti and my sister, Vivian. Every time he and Vivian fought, he trashed the whole studio. As the kid sister who tagged along, I was the one running around the neighborhood at midnight for bandages and hangover pills. They couldn't stand each other's stubbornness. And yet, whenever the mood struck, they kissed like they never wanted to stop. Then, no matter what he did to stop her, my sister got on a plane to California for grad school. Gabriel caught me outside the airport security checkpoint. His eyes were red as he gripped my chin. "She thinks she's the only one who gets to walk away from me? Vera, I know you've been in love with me for years. We're going to City Hall." It was how he got back at my sister. For me, it was a pit I couldn't climb out of. In three years of marriage, he never once held my hand in public. But late every night, he pressed me down into the bed in the master suite and wouldn't let me go. I thought he'd finally accepted me as his wife. Then, last night, my sister posted a boarding pass on Instagram. Gabriel told me to move out of my own home that same night. "Gabriel, I'm your wife." He looked at me like I'd said something ridiculous and gave a thin smile. "You know better than anyone why we got married. Greed doesn't suit you, Vera." I didn't say a word. I just took the unopened box and, right in front of him, dropped it in the trash by the door. "You're right." I smiled at him. "I'm done being greedy." What Gabriel didn't know was that just this morning, I'd signed up for an exchange program in Switzerland. By next week, that little tagalong who did nothing but carry messages would be gone from this city.

It all started because my daughter, Joy Harrell, threw a tantrum wanting to go to the amusement park. On the way there, we got into an accident that left my wealthy husband, Brian Harrell, paralyzed in both legs, unable to ever stand again. As punishment, he slashes our daily allowance to a mere ten cents, and Joy and I are forced to survive by scavenging through trash and even fighting wild dogs for food. One day, dizzy with hunger, Joy eats some cookie crumbs that the family doctor, Aurora Bradley, drops on the floor. She does so out of sheer hunger and desperation. However, Brian immediately berates her for "stealing" and forces her to kneel outside in the pouring rain for ten hours before being allowed back inside the villa. Furious, I go to confront him, but instead I see his crippled legs standing tall, holding hands with Aurora as they waltz to the music. Brian's friend looks out the window and feels sorry for us, saying, "Look, Brian, your daughter's tantrum might have caused you to miss your last chance to see your first love ever again, but don't you think that you've already punished her and your wife long enough for that? "You even hired a stand-in to pose as a doctor in the house. Surely your anger has cooled off by now, right?" Brian scoffs and replies coldly, "They were thoughtless enough to ruin the seven-year pact I had with Dorothy. This punishment is nothing—in fact, it's way too light for them. "Don't you ever bring this up again. Only two more years of their punishment remain. Once it's over, I'll make it up to them properly." However, Brian doesn't know that I've been saving all of the good food I can ever get for Joy, and thus, I've developed terminal stomach cancer. In other words, I will never live to see the future. But I will also never let Joy stay by his side to suffer any longer.

Dorian Keller hated hassle more than anything—so much that he kept a "standard schedule." Every gift was bought in bulk and shipped to arrive on the birthday itself. We always went to the same date spot. Trying a new restaurant took a written request a month in advance. Even intimacy had an alarm set for it. "Life's about keeping things simple. Let's not make trouble for each other." For seven years, I thought he was like that with everyone. Then, at a get-together with friends, the server brought out a plate of pomegranate. He took it and peeled it seed by seed into a glass bowl, picking away every bit of white pith. I was sitting right next to him. I reached for it. He paused and looked at me. Then he set the bowl in front of Arabella Crane. The girl who used to bully me. In high school, she tore up my homework, poured glue on my chair, and locked me in a bathroom through an entire class. Back then, Dorian pointed in her face and told her she'd die a miserable death. Now he sat beside me, slid the only bowl of pomegranate over to her, and said softly, "Slow down." I pulled my hand back. In that moment, I didn't want to stay there a second longer. And I didn't want him anymore either.

Every time Austin Cole cheats on me, I'm quick to show up. I take photos, record videos, call the police on the mistress, and sometimes even make a public spectacle of her humiliation. On the 13th time he cheats on me, I'm rushing to the hotel when a message from my boss suddenly pops up, saying he needs me in Ardendale immediately to handle an urgent project. I've been working on that project for over a year. My entire career is practically betting on it. I stare at the screen. The next second, I turn the car around. After a month of nonstop work, when I finally drag my exhausted body home, Austin is lounging on the couch, casually watching TV. The moment he sees me walk in, a smile tugs at his lips. "Why didn't you come catch me last time? Ellie and I waited for you at the hotel for ages." I'm so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open. "My boss urgently needed me. I was working overtime in Ardendale all month, so I couldn't make it." A flicker of disbelief crosses his face. I turn to look at him and suddenly realize I don't have any energy left to keep acting in this ridiculous love-hate drama with him. "Austin, I want a divorce."

I had been dating Sean Barnes for three years, and during all that time, I never once asked him to dine at a fancy restaurant. He kept a strictly balanced ledger for all our romantic spendings. If a meal crossed the budget, he would go out of his way to earn back the extra amount. Before heading off to work, he would always plant a kiss on me. “Gotta save up for that wedding, baby.” While away on those business trips, he never failed to report every detail of his itinerary, so I never once doubted him. One night before Thanksgiving, Sean claimed the cost of the gifts he got for my parents had gone way over budget, prompting yet another trip out of town. “You wouldn’t want our wedding date to keep getting pushed back time and again, would you? I’ll be back on Thanksgiving. You have my word.” Gazing at the exhaustion in his eyes, my heart softened, and I yielded. Came Thanksgiving Day, and my parents and I waited in vain late into the night, while Sean’s phone rang on without being picked up. Faced with the worried looks in my parents’ eyes, I forced a smile, then drove through the night to the place where Sean was supposed to be working out of town. When I arrived at the hotel, however, I found him holding a wedding ceremony with my best friend, Michelle Hudson. They were kissing amidst the loud cheers of the crowd. At that exact moment, a message popped up on my phone from Sean. “Sorry babe, just wrapped up with the emergency surgery.” Watching Sean put away his phone on stage with a face full of tenderness, I dialed the number of my friend, the CEO of an entertainment agency. “How much for a trending hashtag? I want the whole world to know about a certain wedding.”

House Ashbourne had a rule for marrying off its daughters: a suitor had to shoot down the ceremonial orb hung high in the family chapel, blindfolded, before he could come to claim his bride. I'd been foretold at birth to become queen. My parents didn't want me to suffer in the palace, so they promised me as a child to the heir of House Hawthorne. But Cedric Hawthorne, an archer who never missed and was hailed as the army's rising star, failed to hit the orb for five straight years after I came of age. I went from the most envied girl in the capital to its laughingstock. When word reached the palace, the Crown Prince came to our house himself and said he'd like to try. I hurried to my father's study, only to hear Cedric's voice, low and hushed. "Next month Rosamund leaves to marry far away in the south. I don't want to spend the little time we have left as nothing more than her sister's fiance." My sister threw herself into his arms, her voice thick with tears. "If only you weren't Evelina's fiance." Even my parents, who'd always doted on me, sighed and went along with it. "He's already missed five times. What's the harm in making Evelina wait one more year?" My heart lurched as it finally hit me: every hurt I'd suffered these five years had come from the people closest to me. Fighting back the sting of tears, I turned to the man who'd followed me there. "Then, Your Highness, I'd ask you to come to the family chapel and try."

My boyfriend, Yale Carter, was famously frugal. Everyone knew him as a world-class cheapskate. A five-cent price hike was enough to get my favorite chicken legs permanently crossed off the grocery list. If I got sick, his solution was hot water. And when we decided to get married, he refused to pay the small fee for our marriage license because it was apparently money we couldn't afford to waste. So we waited. When the fee was finally waived, I put on the dress he'd bought me only because it was on sale and showed up at City Hall two hours early, ridiculously excited to finally make things official. That excitement lasted until I saw him by the lake with Yvonne Chandler, the assistant he'd hired six months earlier. They'd been stopped by a street photographer charging $20 a picture, which should have ended the conversation immediately. This was a man who'd stopped buying me chicken over five cents. I fully expected him to tell her the price was insane and walk off. Instead, he turned to Yvonne. "You know, we never took any pictures together back in school. Want to get one?" "At $20?" Yvonne waved a hand. "Forget it." When the photographer mentioned a discount for multiple shots, my boyfriend took out his phone and made a transfer of $2,000. "No discount necessary. Just take a hundred pictures of us. We'll make an album." I watched the whole photo shoot from a distance. A hundred pictures of the two of them standing close, posing together, completely at ease with each other. By the time they were done, the two hours I'd spent waiting were up. It was officially the time my boyfriend and I had agreed to meet. My phone lit up with a message from him. [I checked. The license is free, but there are still ten bucks in processing fees. Why waste the money? We could put that toward dinner. Getting married is just a formality anyway. We don't need a license to spend the rest of our lives together.] I quietly typed out a reply and hit send. [Okay. Then let's not get married.] I didn't want him anymore, either.

Graham Whitlock was leaving for the remote Northreach Research Station to work on a long-term research project. Before he left, he told me: “Audrey, the conditions out there are harsh, and the regulations don’t allow family members to come along. Our family needs you here, too. Please wait for me for three years. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” But three years became another three years. I waited for Graham for seven years. He still never came home. One phone call every five days. One video call a month. We saw each other only during the few precious days of leave he was allowed each year. Yet I never complained, not even once. I was afraid of getting in the way of his career. Then I became pregnant. Only then was my emergency family-visit request finally approved. After a grueling journey of thousands of miles, I arrived at the station and excitedly knocked on the door of his residence. A little girl answered. “Daddy, someone’s here! I don’t know her!” I thought I had the wrong room. But the next second, Graham’s indulgent voice came from inside. “Sweetheart, Daddy’s busy right now. I’ll have Mommy go see who it is.” His assistant, Mara Collins, came to answer the door. The moment she saw me, she froze, too shocked to speak. “Mrs. Whitlock, why are you here...?” I held a hand over my pregnant belly. After seven years of waiting, the heart I had kept suspended all this time finally died. It turned out Graham Whitlock hadn’t stopped caring about his family. He simply wasn’t caring about our family.

On the day I sold my house, my best friend asked me. “Aren’t you getting married soon? Why are you selling your new home?” I signed the transfer agreement and replied, “Because I’m breaking up with him.” We were supposed to buy a particular couch for our new home. Caleb Graham said he had not managed to snag it yet, so he asked me to wait a little longer. Then, I saw that very couch in Claire Silva’s Stories. She had specifically tagged Caleb. [It’s the one I’ve been waiting for so long! He still knows me so well!] In the comments section, Caleb simply replied, [Don’t mention it.] That was followed by a bunch of trivial chatter between the two of them. I stared at that Stories post for a long time. Then, I canceled the order for the matching pajamas. I scrolled back through my order history. I had ordered over a hundred packages. They were all for furnishing our new home. At first, Caleb would enthusiastically pick things out with me. Later on, he did not even bother to reply to my messages. It was because Claire, his first love, had gotten divorced. His attention toward me and our new home had shifted elsewhere. “If a buyer contacts us, I’ll let you know right away.” The real estate agent slid his business card across the table. I reached out to take it. Then, I cast one last glance at this place. ‘Caleb, I admit that I regret it,’ I thought. Seven years had passed, and I no longer wanted to build a home with him.

Five years ago, I threw Jase Prescott out of my mansion like a dog. Five years later, he'd become a renowned professor, while I'd been told my illness was incurable. He swirled the red wine in his glass, his gaze icy. "Why aren't you out making the big bucks, Audrey? What made you switch careers and start drinking with men for money?" Bitterness rose in my throat. I forced a smile. "Can't be helped. I'm buried in debt. Jase, would you be generous enough to lend me a hundred thousand?" He splashed the red wine across my face. "Same old story." His voice was as sharp as a blade. "You're still rotten with greed." Looking at the way he hated me to the core, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God. He had no idea that the heart beating in his chest was mine.

It was common knowledge that the Marsh family was the family with the strictest household rules in upper-class society. They adhered to the rules unyieldingly, and there were so many of them that the rulebook was thicker than ten legal codices. One of the rules was: If any woman wanted a divorce, she had to roll on a bed of nails for half an hour before she was allowed to leave. In the past, Violet Stane insisted on marrying River Marsh and never thought about getting a divorce. After all, she had spent ten years pursuing this aloof ice prince. Once she married him, she gave up on her flourishing career, stopped being so aggressive, obeyed the ridiculous number of house rules, and became the perfect wife for River. But she no longer wanted to do that.