Scumbag Romance 단편 소설 & Regret 소설

My body matured faster than most girls my age. When I turned 18, my overprotective brother worried I’d be taken advantage of, so he asked his best friend to look after me. But the first time we met, that man's eyes never left my body. After I graduated from college, he kept crossing the line, again and again. By day, he was my boss, and by night, I was his "personal assistant." For four years, we kept our affair a secret. He molded me into exactly what he liked, and the worst part? I let him. One day, his ex-fiancée came back from overseas. He slipped out of my bed in the middle of the night and rushed to the airport to pick her up. Humiliated but unwilling to let go, I followed him there, only to watch him gently stroke another woman’s hair right in front of me. He turned to me and said, "Jennifer Huckabee, four years ago, you were the one who crawled into my bed while I was drunk. The way you're behaving now… it’s really pathetic." The way he looked at her was soft, and the way he mocked me was sharp and deliberate. I suddenly realized he was right. This was meaningless. So I lowered my head, texted my brother to tell him I’d accept the Sinclair family marriage proposal, then looked up at that man and smiled. "Alright then. Goodbye."

After saving money with Justin Pierre for five years, we finally went to view a house. My best friend, Maria Houston, came along too. "The master bedroom needs a walk-in closet. Can we knock down this wall?" she asked Justin while pointing at the floor plan I had been looking at for the past six months. "I'll get a designer to take a look tomorrow. You can change it however you want." The two of them discussed everything, from the direction the apartment faced to the tiles, from the floor-to-ceiling windows to the bathtub. Meanwhile, I stood in the corner, unable to get a word in. When it was time to sign the papers, he seemed to suddenly remember I was here and said, "We'll put this place under Maria's name for now. She's here all by herself, so consider it a company benefit. The company is a little tight on cash lately. You can keep renting for another two years." However, I had also left my hometown behind to build a life with him from nothing five years ago. Back then, we had squeezed into a tiny apartment without even air-conditioning, and he had made me a promise with absolute certainty. "Once the company takes off, the first thing I'll do is give you a home." Now that the company had finally succeeded, the first home he bought was for someone else. I stared at the two signatures side by side on the contract and realized there was no place for my name. Since he had already planned a future that did not include me, I was not going to wait for him anymore. Thinking about it, I opened the page to terminate my lease and confirmed it.

Samuel Blanton gave me a rare antique every time he asked me to do something or abandoned me. In just two months, I'd collected 94 antiques. Then, the 95th package arrived from the auction house, and with it, a message from his true love, Zara Hill. [Hey, should the invitations for my and Samuel's wedding have patterns or just a solid color? [By the way, the wedding's next month. I really hope you can make it.] I didn't argue or make a scene. I just got a wedding gift ready and sent it to Zara myself. That night, Samuel came into my room. He said he wanted to reward me for not making a scene by giving me a child. On the wedding day, when Zara found out I was pregnant, she ran to the cliff, screaming she was going to jump. The usually cold and proud Samuel groveled before me for the first time, begging me to terminate the pregnancy. Everyone around us was waiting to see my reaction. But I obeyed. That very day, I went to the hospital. Samuel held me tightly, saying, "Ophelia, I'm only marrying Zara out of obligation. Once we divorce in a few months, I promise I'll give you a child again, okay?" But he didn't know… I had decided to leave him.

It is the third year of my marriage when the video of my bodyguard, Julian Sutherland, holding an umbrella over me in a downpour goes viral. Overnight, the internet becomes obsessed with the "Icy Protector and his Forbidden Heiress." Netizens are relentless; they dig through the archives until they unearth a ten-year-old clip. In the video, a girl was holding a pair of high-heeled shoes while sprinting through the Folander airport. My friend teased, "No way, Ms. Serina Brown. Are you really flying back home to confess to that poor man? What could you possibly see in him?" The camera shakes, capturing my youthful face. I was just a reckless 20-year-old. "I love Julian. I love everything about him." That night, after seeing the video, Julian loses his composure and bursts into my room. "I didn't know you loved me back then. I thought… I thought… God, it was never supposed to end like this." I pull my coat around me and stand rooted on the spot, remaining silent. Suddenly, a mocking laugh echoes from behind me. Someone places their hand firmly on my waist and says, "Are you trying to reminisce about your love with my wife right in front of me? Do I look dead to you?"

My husband's adopted sister invited me out to dinner, and while we were eating, disaster struck—a violent earthquake shook the ground beneath us. My husband, a firefighter, rushed to the scene as quickly as he could. But fate had a cruel plan for us. We were trapped beneath a massive boulder, unable to move, and the rescuers could only save one of us. He made his choice. He chose her—the adopted sister who had always been frail and sickly—over me, his wife, who was five months pregnant with his child. I begged him, pleaded with him to save me. But he turned his back on me. The boulder pressed harder, and I felt the sickening crack of my arm breaking. He didn't even flinch. "Alice has always been weak," he said coldly. "If I leave her here, she'll die." But when I died, he lost his mind.

A few rounds into the night, when Ethan Brooks set his glass on the table and suggested a reverse game of Never Have I Ever. The rules were simple. Everyone took turns naming something they'd done. Anyone who hadn't done it put a finger down. The first person to put all five fingers down had to take a dare chosen by everyone else at the table. So when Ethan grinned and said, "I've dated a Grant," I laughed and raised my hand too. "What do you know? So have I." The whole table cracked up. When it was Claire Howard's turn, she lazily swirled the drink in her glass. She glanced at me, then looked at Noah. "Last month, Noah and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary." My smile slowly faded. "Don't joke about that." But Leah Collins, sitting next to her, burst out laughing. "Who says she's joking? We were all there for that 'wedding' of theirs." Seven years. Noah and I had only been together for five years. And our real wedding was still nine days away. I turned to Noah on instinct. He had his head down, fiddling with his phone as if he hadn't heard a thing. But the screen was still open to his text thread with Claire, and at the very bottom was a kissing-face emoji she'd just sent. I ended up with the dare. Ethan egged me on to use Noah's phone to call the third number on his recent-calls list and put the call on speaker. A woman's voice came through the speaker, warm with laughter. "Babe, you left your underwear in my bathroom when you showered here yesterday. Are you coming by tonight to pick it up?" The room went dead silent. I knew that voice. Leah. The others didn't even look shocked. Each of them had a piece of Noah's past: flirty jokes they'd once shared with him and secrets only his friends were in on. Some of them had even slept with him. And I, the woman who was marrying him in nine days, was the outsider. "You all win this game," I said, looking at him. "But him? I don't want him anymore."

On the first day of my husband's business trip, an unknown number calls me. It belongs to an employee of a pharmacy. The employee sounds very anxious over the phone. "Hello, are you related to Mr. Yates by any chance? He came to the pharmacy this afternoon to buy a box of morning-after pills, but he left right away without paying for the pills. Please pay the bill right now." My mind buzzes at the news. Morning-after pills? I suppress my emotions immediately before calling Zachary. I begin probing him afterward. "Where did you go this afternoon, honey? Your credit card statement shows that the payment you've made at a pharmacy has failed to go through." Zachary pauses for half a second before letting out a soft chuckle. "Ah, I bought the pills for a new intern in my department. She's a young woman who gets flustered easily, so I ran an errand for her." I just smile while saying "okay" to Zachary. After ending the call, I call the pharmacy once again, this time in a cold voice. "Send me your pharmacy's address. I'll head over and pay the bill in person."

The night the hurricane made landfall, the emergency alert had barely stopped sounding when my sister-in-law, Brielle Rourke, called again. I listened to her helpless sobbing, then calmly handed the phone to my husband, Caleb Rourke, who was busy boarding up the balcony doors. Whatever she said, he kept agreeing to it. He pulled on a rain jacket and gave me that practiced, guilty look. "Her window's broken, Lena. She's all alone over there. I'll patch it up and I'll be back before the worst of it hits, I promise." Once again, it wasn't a discussion. It was an announcement. Five years of marriage, and every storm had gone exactly the same way. The moment the thunder started, her call came right on schedule. I used to fight about it, but he always said, "My brother died young. Brielle's raising his son by herself. We help when we can." "You're a grown woman, and a strong one. You can look after yourself and our son, right?" The wind split the glass, and the shards opened my calf to the bone. I reached for the baby sweater I'd never finished knitting. Tonight, Caleb, I don't think your son or I need you anymore.

At an alumni gathering, our former class representative, Ryan Fletcher, suggests we play "I've Got Something You Don't". Madeline Rothsford, the class belle back in the day, lowers her gaze before shooting a quick glance at Theodore Crawford, who is picking the tomatoes off a pizza. Then, with reddened eyes, she says, "I once had someone crash my wedding and try to get me to run away with him. But I turned him down." The whole class erupts. "No wonder Theodore insisted on organizing this alumni gathering right after you got divorced! So this was all to rekindle an old flame!" Theodore looks up, but before he can say anything, his friends from another table call him over for a toast. Madeline picks up the slice of pizza Theodore has picked the tomatoes off and says wistfully, "He was heartbroken after I rejected him that day, but he still remembered to pick the tomatoes off my bruschetta because I'm allergic to tomatoes." Everyone lets out a collective sigh. Then, someone turns to me. "Natalie, weren't you Maddy's bridesmaid when she got married? Didn't you see the whole wedding-crashing scene?" I shake my head. Instead, I remember how, the day after our wedding, Theodore once shed a tear over a ring. Since he holds on so dearly to the past, and I've spent three years forcing myself into a marriage that is never truly mine, I suppose it is time for me to leave.

I spent seven years drafting divorce papers for other people. I never expected that the ninety-ninth agreement would be my own. That night, my husband, Carter, lost a tabletop game during a live stream with his childhood sweetheart, Chloe. The penalty was to give up the thing he treasured most. Chloe smiled at the camera, tapping his wedding ring. "Lend me your marriage for a day." The comment section blew up. Carter looked at me like he was giving orders to an assistant. "Evelyn, you know the drill. "Sign a temporary divorce agreement. I’ll cancel it with you tomorrow morning." Chloe lowered her eyes, her voice trembling. "Forget it. She won't let you. You always choose her over me anyway." I reached into my bag and touched the positive IVF result. Seven years of hormone shots. Four miscarriages. I didn't even have the energy to tell him anymore. As the camera zoomed in on my face, I pushed the papers back across the table. "Carter, this time, I’m putting down a bet, too. “I bet the thing you lose tonight isn't just me.”

When my fiance, Kai Vaughn, and my best friend, Eliana Sinclair, drug me and drag me into the penthouse suite of the richest man in the capital, I breathe a sigh of relief. "At long last, I'm home." Kai assumes I've lost my mind under the threat of impending doom and viciously grips my chin. "Our company's survival depends on this project, you bitch! I hear there's a woman Mr. Harlan has never gotten over, even after all these years, and your face just happens to look a little like hers. "You'd better serve him well. Once we secure the project, I might even be generous enough to give you some money!" Eliana covers her mouth and giggles beside him. "That's right. You should thank your lucky stars that you get to serve Mr. Harlan. Don't be ungrateful!" When the drug takes effect, I'm violently shoved through the gilded doors. No one notices that as I lean back against the leather couch, my eyes are filled with mockery. The ruthless, cold-blooded Mr. Harlan Kai and Eliana are talking about—the man who treats his substitute lovers as nothing more than playthings—is actually my biological father, Tristan Harlan. Today, they've personally delivered me right back to Dad's side. Tomorrow, they'll learn what it means to live a life worse than death.

After failing to get her fiance, Austin Langford, to sleep with her for the 99th time, Cara Reyes calls up her best friend, Jessica Hogan, and says, "Jess, I'm coming to Spark City to find you." Almost immediately, the sound of a chair slamming on the ground comes through from the other end of the line. Jessica's excited voice is then heard. "Cara! You've finally thought it through! I've told you a long time ago that Austin isn't good for you! He looks too weak!" Cara's red-rimmed eyes light up a little as she smiles. "Yeah. I've thought it through." "Don't be sad, Cara. Once you're in Spark City, I'll introduce you to a new foreign boyfriend with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and perfect body proportions. Their genes here are all top-notch, and you will definitely have a beautiful baby with them!" Nodding, Cara says, "Alright. Let me go and get my marriage certificate back first." After ending the call, Cara lies down in bed and falls asleep with a heavy heart. Sometime during midnight, someone pulls back the covers and slides in next to her, his warm body settling down just about an arm's length away from her. A short while later, Cara hears the rustling of clothes and the man panting softly beside her. Cara's body goes numb like she's just been electrocuted. However, she still slowly turns her head back to take a closer look.

I started calling my brother "Mr. Quinn" and my childhood friend "Mr. Webb". They frown and ask why I'm being so formal with them. I smile faintly in response. "Because I think you would rather be associated with Vanessa Quinn." They scold me for being unreasonable. "Vanessa is about to marry a man in a coma for you, and her whole life will be ruined. The only reason we treat her so well is because you owe her." But what they don't know is that the one marrying a man in a coma this time isn't Vanessa. It's me—Willow Quinn.

For eight years, I stayed by John Harlem's side, even without a title. I was there when he recovered and rose from his wheelchair, and I was there when he clawed his way out of depression. I thought that one day, if I endured long enough, he would see my sincerity and affection for him. And we might end up together. But when his first love returned to the country, all my hopes turned into delusions. He told me to put away feelings I should never have had and remain by his side as nothing more than his "sister". For her, he deceived me, humiliated me, and pushed me away. What he never knew was that in helping him heal, I had absorbed far too much of his darkness. The very day he stopped taking his medication, I was diagnosed with severe depression. In order to save myself, I chose to let him go… and married his uncle instead. But at my wedding, he set aside his pride and dignity, dropped to his knees before everyone, and begged me for nothing more than a single glance.

At her engagement party, my best friend, Hannah Sawyer, caught her fiancé cheating. Ryan Carter didn't apologize. Instead, right there in front of everyone, he sneered, "Who else would ever want you besides me?" Hannah was crying so hard she could barely stand. Without thinking, I grabbed my boyfriend Yates Grant's hand and placed it in hers. "Who says nobody wants you? "Starting now, he's your boyfriend." Yates froze for a second. Then he went along with it, taking off his jacket and draping it around Hannah's shoulders before leading her out by the hand in full view of everyone. That night, the three of us sat together drinking and laughing about the whole thing. It was only supposed to be an act, just this once. But Ryan kept harassing Hannah afterward. So Yates continued playing her fake boyfriend. He picked her up from work, walked her home, and helped convince her parents that she'd moved on. I never once doubted either of them. Not until I came across a post online. [I borrowed my best friend's boyfriend to make my cheating ex jealous. Now I don't want to give him back. What do I do?] The poster said her best friend had personally offered up her boyfriend. Their first time holding hands had been fake. Their first hug had been fake. But the first night he spent at her place had been real. People in the comments tore into her for betraying the friend who had helped her. She replied: [He said that since he slept with me that night, he'd take responsibility for me.] I stared at the photo of the three of us sitting in our living room, my hands and feet turning ice-cold. I'd only lent her my boyfriend for one night so she could save face. They'd turned that one night into the rest of their lives.

Brandon Hayes had too many enemies, so he asked Hannah Foster to be his public girlfriend until every last one of them was dealt with. "Eleanor, I know this isn't fair to you. I promise we'll get married after I've taken care of all my enemies." I looked at Hannah with concern. "But won't this put her in danger?" Brandon's expression darkened. "I saved her life. She owes me this." The day Brandon proposed to me, I was just about to slip the ring onto my finger when a bullet came flying toward me. Hannah threw herself in front of me. The bullet tore into her abdomen, and blood immediately poured from the wound. The man who had been looking at me with such tenderness shoved me aside without a second glance. He scooped Hannah into his arms and rushed her to the hospital. I looked down at the blood running between my legs. I gritted my teeth and endured the pain as I hailed a cab. "Take me to the hospital."

Colin Mathers did not show up to our daughter's viewing. I held her memorial portrait and called him 33 times. He did not answer once. Then I saw a video the real estate agent had posted. [The boy's godfather spoils him rotten. He might as well be his real dad.] In the video, Colin was holding the hand of Ariana Lisle's son as they looked over the balcony of a house in a top school district. Ariana asked him, "Colin, are you really giving this house to Noah?" He smiled and ruffled the boy's hair. "Of course. His schooling comes first." The video took me back to the night before my daughter passed. She had been in so much pain that her face had gone white, yet she still clung to my hand and asked, "Mommy, did Daddy go get my medicine?" I could not bring myself to look her in the eye. All I could do was nod. She gave me a sweet little smile. "Then I won't sleep. I'm scared that if Daddy comes back and sees me sleeping, he'll sneak away again. "Mommy, I'll be good and take all my medicine from now on. Then Daddy won't leave me." She waited until the very end, but her father never came. That was when a staff member from the funeral home walked in with an eye bank coordinator. "Mr. Mathers already signed the consent form, and we've found a match for your daughter's corneas. Before the cremation, we need confirmation from one more immediate family member."

Nolan Gallagher had taken a compulsive liar, Wendy Saunter, under his wing as his god-sister after she claimed she could bring him financial luck. No matter how outrageous Wendy's claims were, Nolan always went out of his way to make them come true. When Wendy publicly livestreamed to the entire internet that Nolan would abandon his wedding for her, he left me standing at the altar 99 times. When Wendy bragged in front of our friends and family that Nolan would divorce me for her, he married and divorced me eight times, turning me into the laughingstock of our social circle. Whenever I showed the slightest sign of displeasure, Nolan would dismiss casually, saying, "She's childish. She's just making up a few stories. Don't take it seriously." For the sake of the child in my womb, I had swallowed my anger and given in time and time again. But I never expected Wendy to make another boast while I was in labor, claiming she could hear the voice of the baby inside my belly. "The baby says he wants to come out at three in the morning." Just to fulfill a careless boast Wendy had made, Nolan had forcibly pushed my nearly full-term baby back inside me. When my child finally came out at three in the morning, his little body was blue and purple. He was already dead. That also happened to be the day our divorce was set to be finalized. What Nolan didn't know was that for my ninth marriage, the man I was going to marry would be his sworn enemy.

Before registering our marriage, Yale Grant and I stopped at the mall to try on the jewelry set for our wedding. Just as I reached for one of the pieces, he suddenly stopped me. "Willa has fairer skin than you, so the jewelry will stand out more on her. Let her try it on instead." Without waiting for my answer, he began putting the jewelry on my best friend, Willa Lawson. He carefully wiped down each piece, warmed it in his hands, and fastened it around her, looking so practiced and attentive that anyone would have thought he'd done it a thousand times before. A couple passing by smiled at them. "A boyfriend that thoughtful is hard to find, sweetheart. You'd better hold on to him!" Willa glanced shyly at Yale, her cheeks turning pink. He made no attempt to correct their misunderstanding. Instead, he quietly handed his card to the sales associate. "I'll take everything." Not once did he ask for my opinion. This was already the tenth time that day he'd had Willa take my place. When we got into the car, he'd insisted that Willa sit in the passenger seat because she was slimmer and wouldn't obstruct his view. He'd put her in charge of all the wedding preparations because she was more attentive to detail. He'd even let her choose my wedding dress, claiming she had better taste. Somehow, Yale always managed to find something wrong with me, another reason I should step aside for the supposedly perfect Willa. If he thought she was so much better than me, she could have this relationship that had gone nowhere, too. The clerks' office was our next stop. When Yale reached for my hand, I pulled away. "No, thanks. Willa is better than me in everything. Why don't you have her take my place and marry you?"

On the day I was supposed to get engaged to my childhood sweetheart, Noah Pratt, I escaped. As I flew out of the country, I deleted all forms of contact with him. Six years later, I had to return to oversee the moving of my parents’ graves. At the entrance to the cemetery, I bumped right into Noah. He gripped my wrist while gazing at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Why did you run away?” he asked. He had grown very thin. Heavy bags were under his eyes. It was as if haunting dreams had plagued his nights. “Because I didn’t want to marry someone I didn’t love,” I replied. He swayed on his feet as if the rug had been swept from under him. “Is there anything else?” I asked. But he remained silent. I waited patiently before walking past him. I had not lied. Indeed, I had burned out that love for him in the first three years I spent overseas.