Tragic Love Romance Short Stories & Novels

I waited ten years to get married to Emily Stanton. We had applied for a marriage license seven times, and seven times it had been called off. In our circle, we were the golden couple. She had sold her own blood to help cover my hospital bills, and I had stood by her side as she built the Stanton family empire from nothing. On our tenth anniversary, I brought up the idea of finally having a wedding ceremony and making things official again. She just rubbed her temples and tossed her blazer aside. "We'll talk about it later. We've been together this long—why are you still hung up on something like this?" The words I wanted to say got stuck in my throat. Does every great love eventually fade into something ordinary? The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Then her phone buzzed with a notification. Against my better judgment, I picked it up. The contact name on the screen was impossible to miss: Honey. [Baby, when are you coming home? Jamie says she misses Mommy.] A storm of emotions crashed over me. That's when I discovered Emily Stanton had another WhatsApp account. The woman in those posts was nothing like the one I knew. At the top was a wedding photo—the two of them beaming, radiant. Tucked among the roses she'd received yesterday was a brand-new diamond ring, hidden between the petals. The water in the bathroom stopped. I clenched my fists. Then I forwarded the guy's WhatsApp info to my assistant. [Look into him.]

The day before my period, I found a note on my fiancé's phone. [Her period starts tomorrow. I already packed pads and painkillers in her bag.] I smiled. It was such a small thing, but it felt thoughtful. The next day, a dull ache twisted in my lower stomach. Pale and uncomfortable, I dug through my crossbody bag. Nothing. Dark red blood stained my pants. Students pointed behind me and whispered with awkward laughs. I figured he'd just forgotten at the last minute. Then the new intern teacher posted on social media. [Just started working, and my supervising teacher is literally the sweetest! He even got me pads and painkillers. This period has been pain-free!] The photo showed a pack of pads, an ibuprofen tablet, and a mug of ginger tea. The painkillers were mine—the ones I'd kept stocked at home for years because of my cramps. The pads were the only brand my skin could tolerate. I turned off my phone and stared at the engagement ring on my finger for a long time. Then I stood up and headed to the principal's office to apply for the overseas teacher exchange program. Seven years. He still couldn't remember my cycle. And now, he never would have to.

On the day of our wedding, all the guests take their seats, and the photographers and lighting crew are ready to go. The emcee announces, "Please welcome the bride, Lana Bowen!" Even though he has repeated himself three times, Lana is still nowhere to be seen. I call Lana, and she only picks up on my fifth try. I can hear the noisy bustle of a mall in the background. "Mark, Nick says he wants to be your groomsman. He's picking out a suit right now. Give me an hour. Once Nick gets changed and gets his hair done, we'll head over." My palms are getting clammy as I softly say, "Lana, this is our wedding day, not some casual get-together." She clicks her tongue. "Mark Waters, it's not like I said I wasn't going. Nick's going to be your groomsman. I can't exactly have him showing up in a T-shirt and shorts, can I?" My good friend Robert Decker is so mad that he's ready to give her a piece of his mind, but she hangs up the moment Nicholas Sampson calls her name. The emcee comes over and asks if we should postpone the ceremony. I turn to my parents, who are waiting expectantly, then to my future in-laws, who have looks of disdain on their faces. "Start on schedule, but change the bride's name." I tap Robert on the shoulder. "Get your sister to help me out and go through the wedding with me instead."

My fiancé, Everett Prescott, spent five whole years designing my wedding dress, and it finally arrived today. Except I couldn't zip it up. It stayed wide open until my best friend, Sienna Hart, slipped into the dress perfectly. The fabric hugged her curves like a second skin. She turned to my fiancé with an exasperated sigh. "Everett, are you serious? You got Leah’s size wrong. Again." My blood ran cold. Over the five years Everett and I had been together, this wasn't the first time he'd conveniently forgotten my measurements. When he bought me pajamas that were a size too small, he just blinked, flashing that easy grin of his. "Oh, wait. I think this is Sienna's size, right? Let's just give it to her. I'll buy you another set." When my engagement ring turned out to be too small, he scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. "My bad. Well, we already bought it, so we might as well give it to Sienna. Lucky her." Our wedding was in two days, and once again, he got the measurements dead wrong. Everett rubbed his nose, giving a weak laugh. "Totally my fault, babe. My bad. I'll just take it back to the shop and get it altered." "Everett, altering a custom wedding dress takes at least six months," I said, my voice barely a whisper. He offered a helpless smile. "Well, you can't exactly walk down the aisle without a dress, right? Don't worry about it. As soon as the dress is altered, we'll have the wedding immediately. We've already waited five years. What's another six months?" Right then, my phone buzzed in my palm. [Sweetheart, the guy you have an arranged marriage with is flying back into the country in two days. I don't care what excuse you have this time. You’re coming home and marrying him!] I stared at the screen for a long time before replying: [Got it. I'll be there.] I spent five long years waiting around for this wedding. I'm not waiting another six months.

When Sylvia Reed postponed our wedding for the fifth time, I found a pregnancy test report in her bag and decided to force the issue. Then I saw a trending local post. A woman rolled up her sleeves, baking cookies. Beside her, a man bent down to tease a child. One look was enough. I recognized the scar on her wrist. It was in the exact same spot as the one Sylvia got years ago when she took a knife for me. The scarf draped over the man's shoulders was one I'd custom-made for Sylvia. Our initials were stitched into it. The sight burned. I thought about how Sylvia had been glued to her phone lately, and how I'd heard a baby crying through it. Ten minutes ago, she'd sent me a voice message. "Luke, something urgent came up at the company. I can't make it back to try on the suit with you. Maybe we should postpone the wedding again? Next year. We'll definitely do it next year." But I'd already waited seven years for this wedding. I took off my groom's suit and cut it to pieces. Then I wiped my eyes, pulled out my phone, and dialed a number I hadn't called in seven years. "I'm short a bride for my wedding. Interested?"

The day I'm diagnosed with cancer happens to be the birthday of my wife's adopted son, Logan Smith. Before the party starts, I end up coughing up blood and ruining the cheerful atmosphere. My wife, Rosalie Smith, doesn't take me to the hospital. Instead, she locks me up in the basement. She looks down at me bleeding out on the ground and says coldly, "Xander Kastel, you really know how to pick your timing. Of all days, you had to cough up blood on Lolo's birthday. How dare you do it today?" I beg her to take me to the hospital, but she says she has already consulted the doctor and knows that early-stage cancer can't cause me to cough up blood. She's convinced I'm deliberately putting on an act to get back at Caleb Anderson, her first love. I pleaded desperately. "I am your husband! Rosalie, please take me to the hospital. I promise I'll never show up again." Rosalie's face darkens, and she grabs me by the throat. "Don't play these push-and-pull games with me. As long as you stay here quietly until midnight passes and Lolo's birthday is over, of course, I'll take you to the hospital. Once you've recovered, you'll still be the Smith family's live-in son-in-law." I keep screaming from the agonizing pain I'm in. Rosalie thinks I'm being annoying, so she takes Caleb and Logan to a hotel to celebrate instead. Some time later, she suddenly thinks of me, so she asks her secretary if my surgery has gone well. Her secretary's face pales as he answers in a trembling voice, "Mr. Kastel has… has left with Ms. Kastel."

On my birthday, my boyfriend Heath Merrick sent me a transfer of 200 dollars, same as always. The note read: [Birthday gift for Macy. Too busy lately, so I won't be around to celebrate with you.] A second later, I saw a message my best friend, Kyra Donnelly, had accidentally sent to our four-person group chat. [Fourth birthday we've spent together! Thank you, Brody and Heath, for the gifts!] The photo attached was a cake topper, a miniature figurine made of two ounces of solid gold. Less than a minute after the message appeared, my brother, Brody Lawton and also the group admin, deleted it for her. He tried to cover it up by flooding the chat with a string of GIFs, then casually typed a new message as if nothing had happened. [It's Kyra's and Macy's birthday today. Let's go eat at Sorelli's? Kyra's been wanting to try their food for ages, and I just managed to snag a reservation.] Before I could even respond, my boyfriend and my best friend had already sent back thumbs-up stickers in perfect sync. I quietly deleted the half-typed message that read: [Their food is too spicy for me.] I sent a thumbs-up sticker of my own. The front door opened, and all three of them appeared in the doorway together. Brody rushed me. "Hurry up, everyone's waiting for you!" Heath frowned. "Stop dawdling. We'll lose the reservation." No one mentioned the message Kyra had accidentally posted. I looked at the three of them, at how naturally my brother and my boyfriend stood on either side of Kyra. One of them was weighed down with shopping bags full of clothes she had bought. The other had both hands full of her snacks and drinks. The whole thing suddenly felt completely pointless. I unlocked my phone and sent a message to my advisor: [Professor, I've decided to accept the exchange program abroad.]

One month before my wedding to my boyfriend, he announced he wanted to have a child with his "first love." I refused, but he brought it up every single day. Two weeks before the ceremony, I received a prenatal checkup report. That’s when I discovered his so-called "first love" was already nearly a month pregnant. It turned out he’d never intended to seek my consent at all. In that moment, years of affection evaporated like smoke. So, I canceled the wedding, destroyed every trace of our memories, and on what should have been our wedding day, I walked into a closed-off research lab. From then on, he meant nothing to me.

In everyone's eyes, my husband, Jake Payton, was the perfect man. Three years have passed since the day of our wedding, but we have yet to have a child because he wanted an 'extended honeymoon'. One day, I chanced across a message he sent to his friend. [I'm not Mindy's first, and God knows whether she's had an abortion before! The thought of having a baby with her just makes me sick!] Unable to hold back my tears, I turned around and shelved my medical report.

In order to save his crush, Zach Clark bought a dismembered female torso from the black market. He personally removed the kidney from the torso for his crush’s kidney transplant. To prevent the police from chasing him down, he threw the torso into sulphuric acid to destroy the evidence. But he did not know that the torso belonged to me.

After divorcing my unfaithful husband, Yale Gibson, I end up completely miserable. So when we remarry, I become the perfect wife he always wanted. When rumors swirl about him and Willow Leeds, I step forward to clear his name. When Willow falsely accuses me, he turns a blind eye while I immediately take the blame and apologize. Even when I'm set up and brought to the police station, I refuse to call him to bail me out. I simply tell the officers I have no family, letting them lock me up for an entire week. Seven days later, the heavy gates of the police station clang open at dusk. A sleek black Cullinan screeches to a halt right in front of me. Yale strides over, his brow furrowed slightly. "Sarah, why didn't you call me when you ran into trouble?" he asked. I give a faint, distant smile. "It's nothing serious. I didn't want to bother you." A flicker of unease crosses Yale's eyes. He replies, "I was overseas with Willow the past couple of days and didn't check my messages." He pauses, then lowers his voice. "I'm sorry." "It's fine," I say smoothly. "I wasn't expecting you to come anyway. Just focus on what you have to do." Yale stares at me for a moment before suddenly grabbing my wrist. "Why aren't you upset?" he asks. He keeps his eyes on me, confusion flickering in them, along with a hint of unease. I find it almost funny and reply, "Why would I be upset? You gave me an explanation, and I accepted it. There's nothing to be upset about." "Yale…" I look at the man in front of me, completely confused. "Isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

The marriage between Wendy Walker and Felix Foster had been the talk of Harbour City’s high society for years. Wendy was the rebellious, unapologetically outspoken heiress of the Walker family, a stunning beauty with a bold, commanding presence. Felix, on the other hand, was the cold, disciplined head of the Foster family, a powerful billionaire known for his strict principles and almost monk-like restraint. They were complete opposites. Yet they'd been married for three years. In their first year of marriage, Wendy was expected to memorize and obey all three thousand rules of the Foster family.

On my wedding day, my sworn enemy, Kieran Steel, slams his foot on the gas and rams his car straight into my wedding car. If he can't have me, then he'd rather die with me. He ends up gravely injured, while I lose my memory. He limps over to me and pulls me into his arms. His face is alight with joy as he tells me he's the man I love. After tying the knot, Kieran cherishes and keeps me hidden away like his most prized treasure for five whole years until he finally grows tired of me. A young woman named Talulah Clive shows up at our friends' gathering. Both her appearance and personality are identical to the old me. With a cheeky grin, she insists we play "Never Have I Ever". "I've been with my boss. He even stole his wife's wedding ring and gave it to me. That's not all…" Her smile turns brazen and taunting. "I'm four months pregnant with his child. You lose, Kendall! So, as punishment, Mr. Steel belongs to me for the next six months, okay? He promised he'd be there for me when I bring our baby into the world." Everyone present holds their breath, not daring to make a sound. Kieran's the only one whose dark gaze shifts back and forth between Talulah and me. After a long while, he parts his lips, yet I can't be bothered to hear what he has to say. "Sure. He's all yours!" His expression changes drastically. He has no idea that I've regained my memories. Before he enters the picture, my lover's a man named Jasper Slate. He's drop-dead gorgeous, crazy as hell, and never lets a single slight go unpunished. And I'm cut from the same cloth. With that, Kieran's so done.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, my wife, who had struggled with fertility for years, suddenly felt nauseous. The college student we had been sponsoring panicked and rushed her to the hospital. Half an hour later, she called me. "I'm pregnant." I was thrilled, until her next words froze me in place. "The father's the college student, the one we've been supporting. He got sick that night and I felt bad for him, so I stayed over. I didn't think anything would happen. We have to keep this quiet. He's graduating soon and joining our company. We can't let this mess things up for him. "And you need to quit your job, so he can take your position. I'm going to need you home to take care of me." The sheer audacity left me speechless, but I kept my voice level. "Okay." She hung up, satisfied. What she did not know was that years ago, someone had made me a promise. If I turned 30 years old and still did not have a child, she would give me one. Today was my 30th birthday.

Melissa Mills, my wife, had allowed her lover to stay in our home for an entire week. Normally, I would've asked her to pay me for putting up with it. This time, I didn't. She must've thought I was finally learning how to be a good husband because she tossed me a check without me requesting one for the first time since… well, ever. "Nathan's moving out later. Pack his things for him. Do it, and the check is yours." That was how things had always worked between us. Every dollar Melissa gave me came at a cost. I would receive 50,000 when she wanted to parade me around as "Melissa Mills' husband." I'd be paid 100,000 to stand by and watch her flirt with Nathan Reid right in front of me. Finally, I was given 300,000 when she wanted the master bedroom for some alone time with Nathan. I'd swallowed my pride and put up with all of it because I needed her money for my mother's medical bills. However, that changed a week ago. My mother couldn't bear watching me humiliate myself for her, so she took her own life. Now, all I had left of her was nearly three pounds of ashes in an urn. There were no medical bills left to pay. So, I no longer had a reason to keep selling what remained of my dignity. Melissa knew none of this. Therefore, I wasn't really listening when she went on about Nathan moving out and told me to pack his things. Instead, I was sitting at a poker table with a few trust-fund guys, tossing another chip into the pot without even looking up. "I'm busy. If you need something, ask Nathan."

In their four years of marriage, Ethan Sterling had always refused to visit any romantic couple destinations with his wife, Pearl Whitmore. He said she was shallow and just chasing trends. However, when his first love came back from overseas, he could not wait to take her up the legendary mountain where it was said couples who climbed it successfully would grow old together. Pearl divorced him and moved abroad. However, Ethan followed her to the new country, sobbing as he searched for her in the ruins...

I broke up with my boyfriend the year he was at his poorest. A year later, he was famous, and he married a prettier, livelier girl than me. On a late-night show, a host asked him whether a grand slam of awards this early in his career left any regrets. He pulled Mia closer. "I want to know how she's been. Since she left me." The host paused. "She's been... not well at all." Adrian finally smiled. "Then I can stop thinking about her." "But Ms. Whitman left behind a box of tapes before she died." Adrian's smile locked into place. On the tapes were every day and every night of my life, from the day I walked away from him to the day I stopped breathing.

To Willa Fowler, I'm not her husband, but rather, a non-performing asset that awaits her handling. When I fall sick and ask her for help, she grows impatient with me. "This is a low-tier problem that you should be dealing with on your own. There's no need to report to me about it." When I burst into tears from an emotional breakdown, she berates me, "If you lose control of your emotions, you'll just show everyone else the vulnerability in our alliance. Next time, I'll have the PR team teach you how to manage your emotions." Even when I call her for help after getting into a car crash, she doesn't hesitate to hang up on me. "Everything concerning you isn't important enough for me to suspend the hundred-billion-dollar transaction I'm performing right now." I spend seven days in the ICU getting my life saved afterward. On the first day of getting home, I witness Willa bending down to gently coax another young man into taking his medication. She opens her mouth in an attempt to explain the situation to me. But I just chuckle bitterly before handing over the paperwork I've already prepared in advance to her. This time, I sound exactly like her. "Ms. Fowler, regarding our marriage project, after a comprehension evaluation, the return on the investment is deemed too low. Therefore, I'd like to officially propose a termination on this project. "This is the divorce agreement. Please leave your signature here."

Claire was known for her strong sense of principle and her strict adherence to rules and punctuality. Everyone knew she never made exceptions for anyone. Yet, when it came to getting married, she had stood Mark up eight separate times. The first time was because her friend from college, Ryan, returned after eight years living abroad, and she had to pick him up at the airport. The second time, Ryan slightly burned his finger while cooking, so she abandoned Mark on their way to the city hall just to check Ryan was all right. The third time, Ryan’s son fell ill, and she rushed over in a panic to drive the kid to the hospital. Now, this was the eighth time. Once again, she was a no-show. All she gave Mark was a rushed phone call, saying, “I have an emergency. I’ll be late.” Mark watched as everyone who came after him got married until the clerk behind the window tapped on the glass. “Son, where’s your fiancée? We’re closing soon.” Just as he was about to dial her number again, a text from Claire popped up on his screen. [I can’t make it to the city hall this afternoon. Let’s do this another day.] As Mark read the message, an indescribable pang of sadness hit him. He was about to put his phone away and leave when a new Instagram feed update caught his eye. It was a post from Ryan uploaded just moments ago. In the photo, Ryan was beaming at the camera. Right next to him stood Claire, holding his son in her arms and gazing up at Ryan with tender affection. The caption read, “Leo wanted to spend the day at the amusement park. A big thank you to Claire for keeping us company the whole time!”

My husband has a PhD in medicine. He's fair, just, and kind… until the day his true love kills someone in an accident. He uses all the medical knowledge he has to help her get off scot-free. He turns the corpse into preserved specimens and displays them in his lab. When he's dealing with the corpse, he sees that there's an embryo in the womb. He's always been calm and composed, but he can't stop his heart from racing at the sight. What he doesn't know is that the corpse is mine, and the embryo is his child…