เรื่องสั้นแนว Feel-Good Story และนิยาย Scumbag Biological Family

My younger sister Avery Denning's fiance, Timothy Lane, is injured by a raging bull on the eve of their wedding. Timothy ends up impotent because of the incident. Refusing to marry an impotent man, Avery flees from the wedding. I gaze at Timothy, abandoned, along with my humiliated parents. My parents then beg me to marry Timothy instead, to which I agree. Since marrying Timothy, I've shouldered the burden of juggling household chores and outside work, working tirelessly from morning till night. He miraculously recovers from his impotence and even becomes the wealthiest man in town. But Avery suddenly returns on the day Timothy is officially announced as the wealthiest man in Greenwood Vale. She sobs as she explains that she didn't flee the wedding of her own will. Instead, Avery claims that I had tricked her into going into the mountains to search for a miraculous berry that could cure Timothy's impotence. She also claims that I had struck her unconscious on said mountain range. Timothy immediately believes Avery's lies. He angrily slaps me and even tosses me into a river to drown. My words fall on deaf ears, and I swiftly pull Timothy and Avery down into the river with me. When I next wake up, I am back to the day of my wedding to Timothy. This time, Avery shows up, too. But what they don't know is that without me, Timothy will never recover from his impotence nor become the wealthiest man in Greenwood Vale.

My father disappeared for seventeen years. The first time he surfaced, it was to offer me fifty thousand dollars for my bone marrow to save the daughter he'd had with his lover. My mother slapped me twice right there, demanding I refuse his dirty money. But I got into the car the Alpha had sent, handprints still burning on my face, and walked into his multimillion-dollar estate. They all thought I was so desperate I'd sell my own blood for cash. That changed when I pointed at the most expensive car in his garage and told my father, "Either restore my name to the Blackwood family registry or give me the car's value in cash: three hundred thousand dollars." "Your daughter needs my bone marrow to survive. My mother needs three hundred thousand dollars to stay alive." "If you can't part with the money, then watch her die." After that, everyone thought all I cared about was money. Only I knew the truth: I was selling my own blood to buy my mother a chance at life.

After my father, Peter Johnson, remarried, everyone told me that I had two nemeses. One was my biological mother, Lilian Reid, who had left me to live overseas. Another one was my stepmother, Gloria Black, who had basically taken my father away. Lilian would send me monthly text messages, though, asking if I had enough money. I never answered any of them. Gloria would also often come to my school to give me presents, but I never opened them. They both thought that I hated them. When I was expelled due to overdue school fees, both of them appeared at the same time. My homeroom teacher, Joanne Anderson, placed the overdue bill on the desk. “In order not to spend twenty dollars on her hearing aid’s batteries, your daughter was unable to focus on class for two years.” Lilian’s face fell. “I send her fifty grand every month!” Gloria was also stunned. “I saved up fifty grand for her, too! How is it possible that her school fees are overdue?” I stared at them for a long time without talking. Nancy Andrew, the nanny who took care of me, had told me that Lilian had a new family and that, because of that, she was unwilling to take care of me. Peter, my father, had also told me that Gloria was afraid that I would go after his money, so she was not willing to spend a single cent on me. However, Lilian took out twelve bank transaction slips, while Gloria pulled up a savings account with my name on it. The money that they gave every single month was clearly banked into that same account. But I did not have access to that bank account. I was just about to ask them about it when I suddenly heard Peter’s voice coming from outside. “Why are both of you here?”

My dad's company has gone bankrupt. Because of that, the debt collectors keep turning up on our doorstep for money. They claim that they will break one of Dad's legs if he doesn't cough up the payment in three days. I sink down to my knees and beg my ultra-rich boyfriend, Julian Luther, to lend me 500 thousand dollars for the time being just to resolve Dad's crisis. This is my first time asking for money from Julian. Julian's brows are drawn together in a frown, but in the end, he still agrees to my request. He tells me that the finance department will transfer me the money in the afternoon. My attention is glued to my phone the whole day. I keep refreshing my bank account's balance on my banking app. Just like that, I wait from morning till nightfall. But that's when Julian suddenly goes out of contact. He doesn't pick up any of my calls nor respond to any of my text messages. Anxiety floods my senses the whole time. I keep telling myself that maybe Julian has something urgent to deal with. But my need to save Dad's leg triumphs over everything else. Left without a choice, I can only take the jewelry my deceased mom has left for me to the auction house to get them auctioned away. Unexpectedly, I bump into Julian and his childhood friend, Rachel Bailey, at the auction house. Julian is quick to dump a huge sum of money just to bid for a painting Rachel wants. Ironically, the final bidding price of that painting is 500 thousand dollars. It turns out that he has never forgotten about my plight. It's just that my plight is nothing compared to his crush's love for a painting.