Scumbag Melodramatic Short Stories & Novels

For three years of marriage, August Cross had perfected the art of managing our marriage. "I can only walk a thousand steps with you each day. Every additional step will cost you $50." At first, I thought he simply hated walking and was using this ridiculous rule as an excuse to avoid walking. Then came this year's Thanksgiving holiday. August, his childhood friend Jolie Allen, and I traveled to Fairmont together. As soon as we arrived, I pulled out the itinerary I'd prepared in advance, ready to visit Crownspire Palace. But Jolie insisted that August accompany her to the theater district instead. "Gemma, you've already used up 999 of your steps for today. I can't walk with you anymore. Go wherever you want on your own." Before I could respond, he turned and walked off with Jolie, chatting and laughing with her as they went. He left me, his wife, alone in the crowd. At the end of the day, Jolie posted a photo dump on her social media. "Having a childhood best friend is the best! He walked 30,000 steps with me today and even fought to carry my bag..." If I was only allowed a thousand steps of his time each day, then I didn't need him for the rest of this trip, either. I transferred the money to him, called myself a car, and then canceled both of their return flights on a whim. "$49,950. Keep it. Consider today's steps together paid for. Once the holiday's over, you two can walk home..."

On the day of our graduation photo, the class started sorting everyone into groups. I'd barely taken my place beside my boyfriend, Evan Brooks, when someone started shouting. "Put Claire next to Evan!" "Right? Claire's the prettiest girl on campus. She belongs beside the campus heartthrob!" Before I could react, my childhood friend Liam took my arm and gently traded our positions. "Nina, switch with Claire. "It's only a graduation photo. Don't be petty." Evan smiled and didn't refuse. He only stepped half a step aside, opening a space for Claire. I froze where I stood and touched the barrette in my hair without thinking. It was the first gift he'd ever given me. I'd stood in front of the mirror for ages getting it right, because I wanted one proper photograph with him. Right before the shutter, Evan called to me. "Nina." My heart lurched. The next second, he reached up and took the barrette out of my hair. "Claire's hair is a mess. Let her borrow this." The teasing started up again. Claire lowered her head and smiled. Evan didn't explain. The photographer called out. "All right—happy graduation!" When everyone shouted it together, I was standing at the very edge. At that moment, I finally understood that I had never belonged there. Since I had no place in your graduation photograph, you would have no place in my future.

I canceled my ticket to Iceland. Even the customer service agent sounded confused. “There are only two seats left on this flight. Are you sure you want to cancel?” “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.” We had been together for four years. Every February, he flew to Iceland. He always said it was for a photography project. On social media, he only posted glaciers and the northern lights. Whenever I said I wanted to see the aurora too, he would tell me, “It’s too cold there. You wouldn’t be able to handle it.” Then yesterday, I helped him organize an old hard drive. Inside was an encrypted folder named **February**. When I opened it, every photo was of the same girl standing beneath the same northern lights. The light was soft around her. Even the strands of her hair glowed clearly in the frame. The only photo he had ever taken of me was outside our apartment complex. Backlit. Out of focus. My eyes were squinting, and my entire face was blurred. At the time, he had even laughed and said, “As long as you can tell it’s you, it’s fine.” So it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to take good photos. He just never wanted to take them of me. For four years, he chased the northern lights. And every time, the same person stood beside him. The farthest light I had ever seen was nothing more than an Iceland photo he had posted carelessly online. While I was packing my things, he called me. His voice was rushed. “Weren’t you the one who kept saying you wanted to see the northern lights? Why did you cancel the ticket?” I hung up without answering. Iceland was too far. The aurora was too cold. Since he was never willing to come toward me, I would walk toward the light on my own.

Lena Chapman and Shane Steele are the two most notorious troublemakers in Jerandale. Lena has smashed up bars, torched yachts, dumped a glass of red wine right over her ex's face, and rammed paparazzi cameras with her sports car. Shane has street-raced, flipped poker tables, and driven enemies straight to bankruptcy, forcing them to beg on their knees and even pour him drinks with a smile. Nobody ever expected these two handfuls to end up in a commercial marriage. When the news breaks, the entire social scene gasps. With those two living under the same roof, won't they tear the place apart?

My sister, Lily, was torn to pieces by Rogues. I sobbed, begging my Fated Mate, Alpha Ethan, to find her killers. He never did. A year later, on the anniversary of her death. I went to find Ethan, ready to tell him I was pregnant. Instead, I found him holding another omega, Bella, in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he soothed her. “No one will find out you dropped the pack's mental shield and got Lily killed. Once Harper gives up her title as Luna at the ceremony, you will be my one and only.” My heart shattered. So that was it. He never marked me, never rejected me… he wanted me to step down on my own. He was protecting my sister’s murderer. He wanted to make her Luna. I stormed in, screaming, but Bella suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed. Wolfsbane poisoning, she claimed. "She was poisoned saving me! Give me your heart's blood! It's the only thing that can save her!" Ethan looked at me with more disgust than if I were trash. “I’m pregnant! It’ll kill the baby!” I pleaded. But his Alpha Command crashed down. My body was no longer my own. I could only watch as the thick needle pierced my chest, right over my heart. Golden blood flowed out. A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my stomach… He had killed my baby. My wolf shattered inside me. I closed my eyes, reaching for a forbidden connection in the werewolf world. "Lycan King Rogan. Tomorrow, I need you to help me destroy everything in the Blackwood Pack. Including Alpha Ethan."

Three months pregnant, Gwyneth Stone spotted a little boy's suit while browsing an upscale maternity and baby store. She rubbed her belly, her face glowing with happiness. "Excuse me, could you wrap this suit up for me?" Her husband, Preston Gallagher, hadn't had time to come with her, but he'd given her a black card and told her to buy whatever she wanted. "I'm sorry, miss, but we're closing early today. A VIP customer will be arriving shortly, and she's bought out everything in the store." Gwyneth froze, clutching the suit and reluctant to let it go. "Her husband personally bought out the entire store for her. I heard she just found out she's pregnant, and he's already spending this much on her. Who knows how much he'll spoil her from now on?" The clerk looked troubled. "So, about this suit—" Before she could finish, a familiar woman's voice came from behind Gwyneth. "Let her have it. My best friend is having a girl anyway, so she might as well take the boy's clothes." Gwyneth turned around, stunned to find her best friend, Rebecca Lynch, standing there. "Becca, what are you doing here?" she asked. Rebecca clearly hadn't expected to see her either. Her face instantly went pale. "What a coincidence, Gwen. I came... to buy something for your baby." "But I'm having a son." Rebecca had been right beside her at the prenatal checkup when the private doctor told Gwyneth she was having a boy. There was no way she could have forgotten. "I—" Before Rebecca could explain, another familiar voice echoed. "Honey, the baby's not even born yet, and you've already bought out the whole store for her?" It was their friend, Selene Somerset. And the man standing beside her was Gwyneth's husband.

My six-year-old son, Zac Quest, deliberately fed me almond cake, which I was allergic to, to make me miscarry. Standing in front of the hospital bed, he hid behind my husband, Sterling Quest, with a long face and refused to admit his mistakes, "Grandma said you won't ever divorce Dad once you give birth to my sister. I don't want you as my mom anymore. I prefer Ms. White!" Sterling said indifferently, "We'll have other children. Winona... is indeed more fit to raise Zac than you." Hearing those words, I gave up completely. The day I was discharged from the hospital, I went back home and cleared out all my belongings. All I left behind was a divorce agreement and a letter disowning Zac.

When my dad was diagnosed with cirrhosis, my husband was indifferent. "That illness is a bottomless money pit. We'll end up broke with nothing to show for it." My dad happened to hear every word. That night, he quietly left behind his entire life savings and bought a one-way train ticket back to his hometown alone. A week later, at the dinner table, my husband suddenly pushed a medical report in front of me, his voice tight with panic. "My dad has liver problems, too! Hurry and get him in to see the best specialist in the city!" I stared at him, my heart turning to ice. But on the surface, I showed nothing, nodding without hesitation. "Of course. If he's sick, we should get him the best doctor and make sure he receives the best care possible."

After the car accident, one of the Johnson sons was dead and the other gravely injured. When my devout, devoted husband woke up in the hospital, he called out, "Dorothy." He claimed that his body then held the soul of his brother, Elias Johnson. I went mad, calling doctors, priests, anyone I could, desperate to bring my husband back. It was not until that night that I overheard his conversation with our son: "Father, you've loved aunt for years. You even kept yourself chaste in your private prayer room, waiting. Now, finally, you can be with her openly." The man in the bed reached out to stroke our son's hair. "If it weren't to stop your mother from destroying her relationship, I wouldn't have married her." I hid in the shadows, still reeling from their words, when I saw what happened after our son left. The husband I had always known, icy, composed, and ascetic to maintain his devout faith for seven years, was then holding his sister-in-law close on that tiny hospital bed, sharing a warmth meant for lovers. The next day, I applied for Jim Johnson's death certificate and burned our marriage certificate. At his grand wedding, I climbed aboard the helicopter sent to fetch me. However, my once-cold husband went mad, chasing after us down several streets, desperate and unhinged.

When I remarried Thomas Quinn, Stacie Browning, the fake heiress, showed up in funeral clothes to make a scene. Instead of getting angry, Thomas turned to me, still in my wedding gown, and said offhandedly, "Rose, Stacie has been delicate ever since she was little. She can't wear scratchy burlap like this. "You're thick-skinned anyway. Swap clothes with her." Stacie stared at my slightly rounded belly with jealous eyes, then pouted and whined at Thomas, "The wedding dress has to be disinfected first, or it'll be all stinky, and I won't wear it!" I was trading my wedding gown for funeral clothes, and she still turned her nose up at it. Snickers rippled through the crowd. But I didn't scream or throw a fit the way I used to. Instead, with stiff fingers, I peeled off the ill-fitting wedding gown layer by layer. It felt like flaying away more than ten years of love between Thomas and me, skin and flesh together. Just as I was about to strip completely bare, Thomas suddenly yanked off his suit jacket and hurled it at me. "Rose, do you have any shame left at all?!" The jacket still held the warmth of his body, even warmer than the day we first met. Yet draped over me now, it felt bone-chillingly cold. The truth was, the wedding gown didn't matter. Neither did my pride. What mattered was that I could save my daughter, Poppy. And soon, I would be flying far away from here, taking the little life growing inside me with me.

By the third year of my marriage to Daniel Hawthorne, the war had already taken more than it ever returned, and this time it took his younger brother, Thomas Hawthorne. My sister-in-law, Eleanor, collapsed, and in the weeks that followed she tried to follow her husband into death— once with sleeping pills, once by the river beyond the officers’ quarters— only to be dragged back both times, each time clinging to me afterward as though I were the last thing keeping her grounded. I stayed with her, wiped her tears, and whispered that Thomas would want her to live, until the day she received the test results confirming she was three months pregnant, and the grief of losing her husband was slowly softened by the arrival of new life. I smiled too, believing grief had finally loosened its grip. That night, holding my own pregnancy test in my hand and thinking it was finally time to tell Daniel, I passed the study and heard his friend say quietly, “She’s carrying your child. You convinced the doctors to adjust the timeline so everyone would believe the baby belonged to your brother. Aren’t you afraid Margaret will find out?” Daniel didn’t hesitate. “She won’t,” he said calmly. “She loves me. She wouldn’t leave. I won’t let her know.” I didn’t step inside. I didn’t confront him. Instead, I opened the letter I had received weeks earlier— an official deployment order from the international medical corps, assigning me to a frontline war zone— and tapped Accept.

After my family goes bankrupt, my father uses dirt on the Holt family to blackmail Sebastian Holt into marrying me. Because of this, Sebastian hates me with every fiber of his being and kicks off a whole new era of creative cruelty once we're married. He makes me wait on him while he hooks up with other women. He lets his buddies mess with me however they want. He even tried to get me killed for the sake of his precious true love. When I finally reach my limit and ask for a divorce, Sebastian tosses a stack of photos of Isaac Stark and me in my face and flips the . "You were keeping a pretty boy while you were married. If you want out, then you walk away with nothing," he snarls. He's certain I won't have the guts to leave him, but he's wrong. I don't even hesitate before signing the divorce papers. Sebastian stares at me in disbelief, then snorts, his tone dripping with contempt. "That broke college kid isn't in the same league as a spoiled young lady like you, Calista. Don't come crawling back to me in tears when you can't even afford to put food on the table." A month later, Isaac pulls up to the courthouse in a Maserati with me in the passenger seat. The second I walk out with my divorce certificate, he drops to one knee and holds out a Pink Star diamond ring worth a fortune. Sebastian watches in shock, completely shattered.

A blizzard had buried the mountain, turning every road into a death trap. Locals called it Deadman's Pass—seventy-two icy switchbacks with zero room for error. As the only person who had ever made it through without a scratch, I'd just gotten a million-dollar rescue call from beyond the final curve. Ten years ago, I went there once. My seventeen-year-old daughter, Maya, was skydiving with her classmates when a violent air current forced an emergency landing. The rescue came too late. She died there. Later, I learned my husband, Jayden Boone, had ignored Maya's safety. He poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the rescue effort and redirected every team to save his ex's daughter instead. The girl had only sprained her ankle on a hiking trip. The day Maya died, I walked away from my career as a professor and stayed here, living as a broke driver. I risked my life running Deadman's Pass again and again until I knew every turn by heart. In the ten years since, no one else had died on that road. Today, a friend shoved a million-dollar rescue job in front of me and told me to leave right away. I looked at the face in the photo—the one I could never forget. Then I smiled and tossed my keys onto the table. "I can't take this job."

Ten years into my marriage to Joshua Ford, heir to the largest fortune in Kingsbury, I receive a video. The footage is shot inside a car. The video is shaky, and the sounds coming from it are vile. When I hold up my phone to confront him, the moaning is still echoing through the living room. Joshua's expression remains calm. He just shrugs like it's nothing. "Younger women are just fresher. Your health isn't great, so I wouldn't dare push you to try anything wild. But everyone craves a little excitement, right?" I freeze in place, my arm going numb from holding up the phone. "That's your explanation?" Joshua doesn't answer me. His gaze drifts over me with casual indifference. "The truth is, all these years, you've never exactly been someone I could take out in public." I look at him, and my heart goes cold. So, the forever we promised each other turns out to be just ten short years.

My husband, Ryan Costa, is one of the most renowned scientists in the apocalypse. To retrieve a reagent, he goes deep into the high-risk zone with his secretary, Clara Gibson. I, Alice Ashford, lead an elite squad to protect him all the way. But when a zombie horde besieges us, he refuses to retreat. "With the reagent Clara brings back, I can develop a serum that saves all of humanity! Just ten more minutes! Ten minutes, please!" Ryan insists. I feel torn as I see the zombies closing in. I can't gamble with the lives of my squad on a vague, uncertain sliver of hope. In that split second, I knock Ryan out and drag him onto the helicopter. As a result, Clara dies being torn apart by the zombies. When Ryan wakes up, the first thing he does is slap me hard across the face. He rages, "How can you be so selfish? You've doomed all of humanity!" I am sentenced to be burned at the stake. I die in unbearable pain as the crowd curses me relentlessly. When I open my eyes again, I am back at the moment when Ryan stands in front of the helicopter, blocking our retreat. I am just about to speak when I suddenly hear his inner voice, "Clara should have grabbed her makeup bag by now. Hopefully, she brings something back with her. Otherwise, I'll have a hard time explaining myself to Alice." My mind goes blank, and I stare at him in shock. He smiles at me just like he did in my previous life and asks, "Darling, don't you think we should wait?"

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."

While shopping at the mall, a child suddenly slams into my five-month pregnant belly. Blood immediately pools on the floor. With trembling hands, I call my boyfriend, Garrett Holloway, and beg him to come get me as quickly as possible. But even after I am rushed into surgery and finally pulled back from the brink, he never shows up. But through the glass, I see him helping another woman into the hospital for a prenatal checkup. "She only stumbled a little, and her husband got so worried. He brought her to the hospital right away. Some people are just luckier than others. Not everyone gets a man who cares for them so attentively." Listening to the nurses whisper among themselves, I tighten my grip on the miscarriage report in my hand. Then, I send a message to my family. I write, "Mom, I'll go with your arrangement. I'm not marrying Garrett anymore."

The day before our engagement, my fiancé told me he wanted to take me on a trip around the world first. Yet the moment we landed in northern Manchernius, he and the woman he'd always been in love with tied me up and shoved me into a car. As we drove farther on, the surroundings became increasingly familiar. I started trembling uncontrollably and begged them to stop the car and let me go home. Yale Zane only sneered at my pleas. "Stop wasting your breath. Once we sell you off to one of the compounds, there'll be no one left to stand between me and her." I burst into tears. The problem was, I wasn't the one who was doomed. They were. This was my childhood friend's turf! I'd spent years trying everything I could think of to escape him. After finally making it back home, the last thing I'd expected was to be delivered right back into his hands.

When my best friend and I realized we had been reborn and traveled back several decades, we locked eyes, collapsed into each other's arms, and sobbed, shouting that we wanted to break off our engagements. The entire neighborhood whispered that we had lost our minds. But only we knew the truth. In our past lives, this was the day everything was sealed: she married a battalion commander, Ned Stark, and I became the wife of a high school teacher, Robbie Stark. My husband betrayed me. For the sake of that pretentious whore, Scarlett Wheaton, he stole my university admission letter and let her take my place on campus. The world mocked me as a failure, and Robbie stood by in silence. After we married, every time he touched me, he would immediately write another love letter to Scarlett—atoning for his supposed guilt. "Scarlett, even if I can't be with you in this life, my soul will always belong to you alone." Even my own child despised me, calling me an ignorant village woman, urging me again and again to divorce so that his father could be with his "true love," Scarlett. And my best friend, Rachel Croft—born the daughter of a factory director—was tricked by her husband, Ned, under the pretense of buying a house. He drained her savings and her wages for twenty long years. It wasn't until she fell gravely ill and went to sell the house that she discovered the deed he had given her was a forgery. The real house—the one paid in full—was in Scarlett's name. One of Scarlett's dresses cost more than my friend's entire monthly salary. When Rachel begged to reclaim what rightfully belonged to her, she was met only with contempt from Ned and her child. "All you ever care about is money. You're nothing like Scarlett, who isn't materialistic at all. Your illness is retribution," Ned had said. "Exactly. Only someone as noble and kind as Scarlett deserves to be my mother!" her child had said. Rachel and I both spent our lives working ourselves to the bone, only to end with nothing—dying bitter and broken from the injustice. But this time, fate has given us another chance. I will go to university. Rachel will become a wealthy woman. This time, without us paving the way, those shameless men and that wretched woman think they can still live happily ever after? Dream on.

After a car accident left Vincent Holt, head of the powerful Holt family, disabled, he stunned high society by publicly seeking a wife. My father immediately submitted my profile. “Since you’re so determined to break up with Cole, let’s see if you can land someone from the Holt family instead.” I refused, only to get slapped hard across the face as I tried to grab his phone. “You have no choice in this.” With nowhere else to turn, I went to ask Cole Brody for help. He was the only one who could change my father’s mind. However, I overheard their conversation. “Don’t worry, Mr. Brody. Vincent Holt is just a cripple. Bethany’s too proud to accept him. Just give it some time. She’ll come crawling back to you.” Cole chuckled. “Lulu wants a baby. I’m just helping her out by sleeping with her a few times. It’s not a big deal, yet Bethany just won’t leave it alone. I knew you got a way to keep her in check.” My body went cold. It turned out that I had been standing alone in a ruin of lies all along. However, when the Holt family really picked me, they panicked.