Scumbag Feel-Good Story Short Stories & Novels

At a party hosted at our house, my husband sang a soul-stirring rendition of “Missing You Tonight". He poured his heart into it, his eyes misty and his voice raspy with emotion. I secretly recorded a video and posted it online. To my surprise, the video blew up. Hundreds of thousands of likes poured in, with the comment section overflowing with sympathy. Laughing, I handed my phone to my husband. “Jacob, you went viral.” The top-voted comment read: [Girl, I’m not one to stir up drama, but your husband looks like he’s nursing a broken heart.] I thought he’d just laugh it off with a half-hearted smile. Instead, he took the phone and looked me straight in the eye with dead seriousness. “You’re right, I am heartbroken. I fell for a younger girl, but she refuses to be my lover and is trying to break up with me.” The room fell silent. I didn’t cry or make a scene. I just took my phone back and spoke in a flat, even tone. “That works out then. Let’s get a divorce. The young guy I’ve been seeing on the side has been throwing a fit, too, demanding I make things official with him.”

My undercover mission goes wrong, and I'm captured, only to discover that the man I've loved for years is the heir to a powerful crime family. Desperate to keep me alive, Caspian hides me on a remote island. "Be good and stay here, Elowen. Once I convince my father to let you go, I'll come back for you." Only later do I learn the truth. The island is where the Hale family banishes its enemies and traitors. For an entire year, I fight to survive, coming close to death more times than I can count. When I finally escape, I return to the Hale residence to find my identical twin sister nestled in Caspian's arms. "Caspian, Elowen and I were both captured a year ago. Why did you save me and leave her behind?" He pauses, then looks at her with a tender smile. "My father only let me save one of you. You're too fragile. How could I ever leave you somewhere like that?" Something inside me goes cold. I turn to leave and walk straight into the arms of a stranger. "Ms. Vale, how would you feel about making a deal?" The man smiles lazily down at me. I recognize him immediately—Lucian Hale, Caspian's uncle and the man who rules the island. "Alright." Caspian, you're going to regret this.

I notice that the surveillance camera we bought when we got married keeps glitching. I casually open the accompanying video app while I request an on-site repair from customer service. I suddenly hear Edward Zucker, my husband who swore to love me for the rest of his life, wishing for my death. "Maddie treats me well and hasn't done anything wrong. She has lost her parents in the car accident, though, so she's of no use to me now." I then hear my seemingly gentle and kind in-laws, Victor Zucker and Mary Smith, thoughtfully toss out various suggestions. "You can just sneak something into her food since she's allergic to so many things. You can also claim she suffered from depression after losing her parents and jumped off a building, then cremate her body on the very same day. "Your cousin just got diagnosed with a psychiatric condition, so he won't face criminal charges for murder." Edward struggles to pick the best way for me to die. "It can't look suspicious. I have to secure the three-million-dollar inheritance her parents left her without a single slipup." I tremble violently with rage. If they want me dead, then let's see who ends up dying first!

When Derek Sloan's childhood sweetheart, Nina Graham, has another depressive episode, he hands me divorce papers. I calmly sign my name and tell him I'm leaving the country. He looks at me in surprise, then it dawns on him. "You're so well-behaved this time. Did you realize that throwing a fit won't work, so now you're trying a different way to win me back?" he asks. "Going abroad is fine, too. "That way, you won't upset Nina. Once she's better, I'll come get you." I return my wedding ring to him and look at the ugly scars on my wrist. I say calmly, "There's no need to. Let's let each other go and stop dragging this out."

The night before the Global Finals, my boyfriend, our team captain, handed my starting spot to an academy trainee just to indulge her. Every question I got wrong, I had to hand over a piece of gear that had carried me through championships. But every answer had been rigged from the start. In the end, he pulled my account key and gave my Finals seat to the trainee. "Just let her play one match. You're twenty-six, stop being so petty." I snapped my account card in half on the spot and signed the termination papers they'd drawn up. The whole team expected me to crawl back to base. But when the Finals lineups took the stage, I was wearing our rivals' starting jersey, standing on the other side. They still had no idea who had really been carrying whom to those three straight championships.

My avoidant fiance refused to talk to me about anything. Every time we fought, he would put on his earphones and turn the volume all the way up. This time, we were arguing over laundry detergent again. He impatiently slammed the earphones on me. "Are you seriously going to do this again, Jessica? You fight because of bad photos. You start a fight because I didn't take out the trash in time, and you start fights because I forgot our anniversaries. And now I can't even choose which detergent I use?" I stared at the red mark on my thigh and the broken earphones on the ground. I saved up most of my salary for that. It was a present, but now he was using it to vent. Yet he had kept the laundry detergent his childhood friend gave him for six whole years. Every time an important date was coming up, he would use a bit of it to wash all his clothes. The sickly sweet scent of that detergent filled the room. I looked up and held back my tears. "Let's break up, Zack."

My boyfriend's tablet, left behind at my place, suddenly lit up with a group chat notification. "Ron, that gold digger's totally hooked, right? When are you taking her to the luxury boutique so we can humiliate her in public?" "Everything's ready. We're just waiting to film her fawning over the designer goods like the greedy little gold digger she is. The guys are gonna love it!" The group chat was called "Exposing Gold Diggers." And my boyfriend Ron was the one who'd created it. I opened the tablet and scrolled through the message history. Screen after screen of vile, disgusting garbage. My blood boiled with every word. So that so-called love at first sight at the designer boutique had been a setup from the very start. He'd spent the better part of a year carefully worming his way into my life, showering me with attention, all while treating me like prey, waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate me for an audience. What a joke. I was the real deal, a genuine heiress from one of the wealthiest families in the country. The gifts he'd gone to such lengths to give me? I couldn't have cared less about any of them. If he was so obsessed with playing people, then I'd give him a taste of his own medicine! Let him see what it felt like to be the one getting played!

The new intern had a habit of calling my husband "Daddy." "Daddy, I am having the worst luck today. Could you please go buy me some feminine products?" "Daddy, I cannot get the zipper on my dress unstuck. Can you help me?" "Daddy, why do you not have my hair tie around your wrist? I think you deserve a punishment. Wear two. Pink ones, okay?" I frowned as irritation simmered beneath the surface. My husband waved it off with a casual smile. "She is just being playful. Do not take it seriously. She is young and enjoying the novelty. She will get over it soon enough." I said nothing. I waited until the night of the company’s annual gala. She suddenly stumbled in front of everyone and fell straight into my husband’s arms. Her eyes glistened with tears as she looked up at him. Her voice sounded soft and pitiful. "Daddy, my foot hurts so badly. I think I twisted my ankle." To my disbelief, my husband crouched down in front of the entire room, slipped off her high heels, and gently massaged her ankle. The room fell silent. No one seemed to know where to look. A few people turned toward me with clear sympathy in their eyes. I rose from my seat in a calm and unhurried manner. "Since everyone is here, I have an announcement to make." I looked around the room before I delivered the words that stopped every conversation. "As of tonight, the company will have a new CEO." The intern shot to her feet. "What?" She stared at me in disbelief. Her expression twisted with anger. "You are nothing but his wife. What makes you think you have the right to take Daddy’s position?" I smiled. I turned toward my husband, who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange. "Seth Hawkins. "Tell her. "Do I have the right?"

My ex-boyfriend was banished from his pack. He begged me to let him hide out at my neutral clinic for five days. We had been together for four years. For old times' sake, I gave him a temporary access code. The day I wrapped up an emergency house call for another pack and rushed back to the clinic overnight, I couldn't get the door open no matter what I tried. I rang the doorbell. Slippers shuffled inside, followed by a woman's impatient voice. "Who is it? Don't you know pregnant women need their rest at night?" The door cracked open, the chain lock still in place. A heavily pregnant stranger stood there wearing my white coat, glaring at me with undisguised contempt. "You must be Evelyn. "Ronan told me all about you. He already rejected you in front of everyone. How shameless can you be, chasing him all the way here to harass him?"

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.

The stray cat I adopted had recently started looking at my boyfriend, Logan Bennett, and his female best friend, Chloe Dawson, like they were complete idiots. Then one day, Chloe climbed into the passenger seat of Logan’s car again and shot me a provocative smile. A fierce little voice suddenly rang out in my head: “Human, that woman is calling you an idiot in her head! She’s also planning to get your man drunk tonight! Hurry up and slap her! If you do, I’ll make sure you find money on the street when you leave!” I froze and stared down at Mochi in my arms. So my cat could not only talk, but also read minds and predict the future? Fine. From today on, Mochi and I would make these two shameless cheaters pay—and make sure everyone knew exactly who they were!

The day I found out I was pregnant, my husband, Julian Calloway, told me he had been reborn and wanted a divorce. “Three months from now, I’ll go bankrupt. You’ll work yourself to death helping me pay off my debts, and you’ll die young. “This time, I absolutely refuse to drag you down with me. Take this $9,000,000. We’ll get divorced—” Before he could finish, I picked up the pen and signed. “Fine. Just transfer the money to my account.” That evening, while I was gathering my things from the living room, I overheard Julian’s secretary, Naomi Foster, speaking smugly through his phone. “I can’t believe she’s actually that stupid. How did she ever get into Harvard? “You made up some ridiculous story about being reborn and going bankrupt, and she actually believed you.” Julian chuckled. “Who cares? If she leaves quietly with the money, isn’t that better than having her make a scene?” I raised an eyebrow. Of course I knew he was lying. Because I really had been reborn. And in one month, Julian Calloway really would go bankrupt.

I had been able to see the labels above people's heads ever since I was little. When I was three, my grandpa held a family dinner at his house. Dad showed up with his secretary, Vivian Clarke. The moment she walked through the door, she went straight to Mom's seat. She rubbed her lower back and smiled sweetly. "Mrs. Lincoln, I hope you don't mind. Mr. Lincoln and I have been working on a project all day, and we're exhausted." I looked around the room. Above Eric's head was a glaring label. "Cheater." Above Mom's head was a dull gray label. "Loser." And above Vivian's head was a brightly shining label. "Ultimate gold digger." I immediately tugged on Eric's sleeve and asked loudly, "Dad, what do ‘cheater’ and ‘gold digger’ mean?"

On the day I returned to my alma mater for its centennial celebration, my assistant sent me a screenshot of a social media post. "I hope my girl's first time performing onstage at eighteen goes perfectly." In the photo, an unfamiliar girl stood backstage in my custom-made gown, looking as graceful as a white swan. The post was made by my husband, and he had hidden it from me alone. I was staring at the photo, about to message him and demand an explanation, when the girl appeared onstage at the celebration. I was seated in the front row. She looked exactly as she did in the photo, singing the song my husband had composed for me. After a moment's thought, I took out my phone, recorded her performance, and sent it straight to him. "Honey, what a coincidence. I just found my missing gown and necklace here at the school. "This girl is even singing the song you wrote for me. Anyone who didn't know better might think she was some obsessed fan trying to be me. "Tell me, if I call the police right now, how many years do you think she'd get?" The moment my message went through, a spotlight swept across the audience and landed squarely on my husband's face. He appeared on the big screen holding a banner covered with messages cheering the girl on. Without hesitation, I rose from my seat, turned to him, and smiled. "Fancy seeing you here, Honey."

My CEO husband, Martin Gentry, finds out I volunteered to donate some of my brainstem tissue to wake Evelyn Stout, the woman he's never gotten over. He finally leaves the monastery where he's spent the past seven years praying for her. For the first time, he comes to see me at the office and asks what I want in return. Everyone assumes I'll use the opportunity to ask him for a baby and secure my place as his wife. Instead, I hand him divorce papers. Everyone thinks I'm just playing hard to get. Martin's expression turns cold. He removes me from every position I hold at the company. Then he promotes Evelyn, gives her a raise, and tells me to think long and hard about what I've done. What Martin doesn't know is that the surgery wiped out seven years of my memories. I'm no longer the wife who put up with everything just to keep the peace. I'm the woman I was seven years ago, full of dreams and never afraid to stand up for myself. And this time, I'm done putting myself last for anyone.

Seven days after my husband’s funeral, I saw him at the airport, about to leave the country with my best friend. He was holding my best friend’s hand with one hand and pushing a suitcase with the other. My parents were right behind them, apparently there to see them off. When I stepped into their path, Adrian Shaw didn’t look the least bit guilty. Instead, his first instinct was to pull Chloe Bennett protectively behind him. “Hailey, faking my death was my idea. Chloe had nothing to do with it. “She’s pregnant. If you want to lose your mind over this, take it out on me.” My fingers tightened around the pregnancy test results in my pocket until my knuckles turned white. Adrian only frowned at me. “Don’t worry. I still love you. “I’ll spend summers with her in the Southern Hemisphere, then come back north to be with you in the winter. That way, neither of you gets neglected.” The people around us stared at me like I was the punch line to some cruel joke. Chloe’s eyes reddened as she tucked herself against his chest. “Hailey, I’m sorry. I’ve been in love with him for years. “I know this is wrong, but feelings aren’t something you can control. Not when three people are involved.” With that, she reached for the suitcase that had already cleared inspection and started to leave. But I’d worked in customs enforcement for five years. I’d learned to spot things most people would miss. And the heart-shaped stone inside her suitcase was giving off a faint, icy glow unlike anything I’d ever seen from an ordinary mineral. I hit the alarm button without hesitation. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You’re suspected of carrying an unidentified restricted item.” “You’ll need to submit to an inspection immediately.”

Three days until the Whitfield Scholarship exam. Out of nowhere, a neighbor from our old street called to ask how much the villa had sold for. "The way that mother and son throw money around, it must have gone for a fortune." I had no idea what she was talking about. The villa was the wedding gift my mother gave me. I would never have sold it. Three years ago, my son had just won a place at the best public high school in the city. My husband said Noah was coddled and had no idea how ordinary people lived. To break him of it, we moved out of the villa and into a cramped, aging walk-up. Three years of high school. I lived that lean life beside him, buying marked-down produce. Noah traded his phone for a cheap flip phone, and he grew quieter every year. He stopped asking for spending money, and he never dared ask for a review course. He worked through his textbooks and borrowed practice books from the boy at the next desk. I asked my husband whether we were being too hard on him. "Anyone destined for greatness can survive a little hardship," Daniel said. Then my neighbor sent me the photographs. My son had gone without for three years, treating one exam as the only road out. The son of Daniel's childhood sweetheart was living in the villa my family gave me, attending an elite prep school, dressed head to toe in designer labels. He would not even have to sit the exam. A large enough donation was buying him a place at a school overseas. Furious, I pulled every transfer my husband had made. I was going to find out exactly who had been spending the money my son went without for three years.

I put my six-year-old daughter in my mother-in-law’s hands as I was busy with an overseas project. Every month, I would send her 20,000 dollars in allowance, not including holiday cash gifts. My mother-in-law would always talk about how well my daughter ate and slept during every video call. In the video, a feast was always laid before my daughter. So when her teacher claimed that she had fainted out of hunger during class, my first thought was that she must have called the wrong number. I rushed back home and headed straight to the hospital. The doctor said that my daughter was suffering from long-term malnutrition and her weight was far below the average. She also had severe post-traumatic stress disorder with suspected autism. The homeroom teacher looked begrudgingly at me with furrowed brows. “Ms. Mason, this isn’t the first time Natalie fainted out of hunger during class. “She only brings one cold plain bun to school for lunch every day. Sometimes, she doesn’t even have that bun. “Each time I ask her about things at home, she refuses to speak.” I was utterly confused by the teacher’s questions. How could my child go hungry when I was sending over 20,000 dollars in allowance every month?

My husband, Harrison Knight, was a workaholic. When stomach pain landed me in the hospital, he had his assistant send me medication. When my mother underwent surgery, he was abroad negotiating an acquisition. In seven years of marriage, he'd missed three of my birthdays and five of our anniversaries. He always said, "The company's still getting off the ground. I can't afford to slow down." I understood. Years ago, his first love, Celeste Foster, had left him because he was poor. Afterward, he'd sworn he would make something of himself. He went on business trips, had late nights, and worked himself to the bone. For seven years, Harrison had pushed himself relentlessly, going from a penniless nobody to a CEO everyone looked up to. I'd grown used to him always being in a rush. I'd grown used to work coming before everything else. Until the day I returned from negotiating a billion-dollar deal and saw Celeste's latest post. In the photo, Harrison stood outside the airport terminal. He'd canceled his three o'clock board meeting to pick her up himself. He was even bent down in front of her, tying her loose shoelace. Her caption read: [After all these years, you're still the best.] I stared at the photo for a long time. Then suddenly, I almost laughed. So it wasn't that Harrison couldn't slow down. He just wouldn't do it for me. That night, he called. "Celeste just got back. I'm not coming home tonight. Don't read anything into it. She's just an old friend." "Okay," I said quietly. Then I opened my laptop and messaged my attorney: [Send me the divorce papers tonight.] If he could stop for an old love, then it was time I stopped too. After seven years of running myself ragged for him, I was done.

I have just disembarked from the plane when I receive a call from my sister, Sienna Miller's, manager. "Bad news! Sienna's role was stolen from her." I immediately rush to the set only to see Sienna surrounded by a group of people. Her cheeks are red and swollen from being slapped repeatedly. A mixture of fury and panic rages within me. I'm just about to step forward when a young woman, who looks no older than 16 years old and is wearing a dress that is covered in ruffles and frills, slaps me across my face. I'm stunned by the slap. A murderous glint flickers in my eyes. "Do you have any idea who I am?" I hiss. The young woman scoffs and sneers. "Who do you think you are? How dare you try to intimidate me? You'll be offending the only daughter of Deslano's Miller family, Quinn Miller. You'll also be facing a fate worse than death if you dare to fight me for this role." The director's arrogance from before has disappeared. He rubs his hands together as he tries to smooth the situation over. "She invested a significant amount of funds when she joined the crew. You're no match for her. If you know what's good for you, you'll accept whatever role that is assigned to you." The only daughter of the Miller family? What does that make me and Sienna then? I immediately call Dad and coldly demand answers from him. "It hasn't even been a week since Mom passed away. Are you in that much of a rush to bring your mistress and other children into the family?"