Short Stories & Novels

I've gotten abandoned by my parents one week after my birth. In order to survive, I quickly call whoever picks me up "papa". The bigshots who are here for the gathering swap glances with each other. "Whose child is this? If no one wants her, then I'll adopt her." "Put her down! She called me 'papa' first!" Since then, I have 99 dads. Other than the fact that I have an extremely boisterous family, I make sure to keep to myself for the next dozen years or so. That is, until I get bullied during my high school times. Viola Mariani, the most popular girl in school, and her lackeys corner me in the washroom. Then, they start ripping my clothes off me. "So, you're the one seducing my boyfriend, hmm? Since you want to be a whore that badly, you might as well show everyone your nudes!" Since the beating I've received is a lot worse than I thought, I subconsciously shove Viola down the stairs just to protect myself. When I wake up in the infirmary, my teacher, Marianna Pagani, lashes out at me immediately. "So what if she berated you? Are you really going to kill her for that? I want you to call your parents here! I'd like to see who on earth is capable of raising an idiot like you!" Panic seizes me by the senses as I cry and plead to her, "Ms. Pagani, please don't tell my dad about this!"

The care center called. "Hi, just wanted to ask if you're happy with our service so far." Well, that was odd. I was only eight months along. My baby wasn't even born yet. I had no need for the care center at the moment. So I kept digging. I pressed my husband for answers. He was the one handling the talks with the care center. I wanted to know what was going on. He gave me an apologetic look. "This center costs 120 grand, honey. We can't afford that. They must've gotten the wrong number. You should stay at home instead. I'll give you the perfect care you need." That was it. I wasn't going to waste my time talking to him. My sister, Jessie Gibson, owned the care center, so I called her instead. "Jessie? Yeah, it's me. William sent another woman to your place and stole my spot. I want you to find out who. He's cheating on me, and I'm getting proof!"

All because of Leo Cullen’s words, I gave up a place at a top-tier university in Ceres and stayed behind to retake the entrance exams with him—three times. By the fourth year, a girl arrived at our cram school, and Leo forgot the promise we made. He started skipping class, picking fights, smoking—doing everything but studying. One day, I stood at the school gate, blocking his path with a textbook in hand as he tried to ditch class. He smirked, unimpressed, and blew a bubble with his gum, letting it stick to the ends of my hair. “Naomi…,” he began, “who still cares about studying these days?” So I stopped caring and avoided him entirely. When he fooled around in the classroom, I went to the library. When he played basketball, I sat in a quiet corner with my books. Even when I craved noodles from my favorite shop, I’d scan the room first to make sure he wasn’t there. “Are you avoiding me, Naomi?” he asked later, his face in a frown. I shook my head. “Why would you think that?”

My husband Marcus Ashford has severe social anxiety. In three years of marriage, he refused to meet a single one of my friends or family. Even our wedding was just the two of us, because he said a crowd would trigger a panic attack. Because it hurt me to see him like that, I put up with my parents' disappointment and my friends' confusion, made every excuse for him, and guarded his fragile little world with both hands. That changed tonight, when I stumbled onto the social media page of his first love, newly returned from overseas. In the photos, Marcus moved through the room with Chloe, working the toasts with total ease, laughing wide and unguarded. I opened the next live photo, and a snatch of conversation came out of it. "Marcus, isn't today your father-in-law's birthday too? You're not going to swing by?" Marcus answered as though it were nothing, "Going would just be pointless socializing. A waste of time. I'd rather stay here with Chloe." I went through those few photos over and over, more times than I could count, until my eyes were dry and stinging, and then I shut off the screen without a word. Then I called a lawyer and had the divorce papers drawn up. So his world was full of voices and noise after all. It simply refused to open for me, and for me alone. Fine. If the party wasn't mine, I wasn't going to keep forcing my way in.

Unable to take it anymore, I upload a photo of my husband, Johann Garner, holding hands with his secretary, Eva Ford, to the company's group chat. A long while later, Johann finally replies, "It's just something we do when we're working together. Those who are vile in nature will always view things differently from others." Messages from his colleagues begin flooding the group chat immediately. They all discuss whether or not I'm delusional. But I'm the only one who knows just how skilled Johann is at manipulating others as an expert manipulator. After muting the group chat, I look down at the ring Johann has slipped onto my finger when he first proposed to me. When exactly can I escape from the prison he has built around me?

My husband brought home a set of triplets and insisted they were mine. I rushed to get a DNA test done overnight, and the results proved that none of the three children were related to either of us. But my husband lost it. He slapped me, called me disgusting, and forced me to sign the divorce papers, leaving me with nothing. Furious and shaken, I went to my best friend to vent. But the second she saw those three children, she grabbed the fruit knife from the table and slashed my face. “If you dare say they aren’t yours again, next time, I won’t stop there.” My chest felt so tight I could barely breathe. That night, I bought a ticket and fled back to my parents’ house. I cried as I told them everything. But after hearing me out, they grabbed a garden hoe and beat me to death. Even as everything went dark, I still couldn’t understand why everyone was forcing me to accept three children I had never given birth to. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my husband first brought them home.

Cole Hartness has abandoned me in the snow mountain for a week. By the time the search-and-rescue team finds me, I'm practically on my deathbed. Cole remains high and mighty even when surrounded by the others. "Rach is kind enough to forgive you even though you almost killed her in the snow mountain. If it wasn't for her pleading for your sake, you'd be staying here for another week. "Our engagement banquet shall be delayed. We'll only proceed with it once Rach makes a full recovery." Cole is already prepared for my impending tantrum. After all, he knows that I've been looking forward to the engagement banquet for a long time. But I reply obediently, "Okay." For a few moments, Cole finds himself stunned. "You owe Rach this much! Once she's done recovering, we'll get engaged! Stop being so unreasonable—" "Cole, I'd like to rest for a while," I cut him off before closing my eyes tiredly. What Cole doesn't know is that I've already decided to leave him the moment he makes the decision to ditch me in the mountain. That is, if I can survive the avalanche.

On the day of my wedding anniversary, I was cleaning my house when I found a picture album. As it turned out, my husband had been religiously taking pictures with the girl of his dreams every year on this precise date. He had been doing it since he was forty years old and he was now sixty years old. His hair had progressed from a jet black to a faded white and yet, he kept up the tradition. There was a written message in his handwriting at the back of the picture that read, “Eternal Love.” Since he doesn't love me, I will no longer bother washing his clothes and cooking for him. I will no longer care for his children and grandchildren. I may have foolishly wasted half of my life, but it was not too late to make a change.

After an extreme dust storm swallowed half the mall, I was searching for my missing daughter when I received a call from Evelyn Mercer five years in the future. [Ryan, you have to do exactly what I say. I'm the only one who can save my little girl.] Without hesitating, I led the rescue team to the collapsed section she named. Sure enough, I heard a weak child's voice. I shouted in relief, "Thank God for you, Evelyn! I found her!" Evelyn laughed softly. [That's right. I came back to fix a regret.] But when the rescue crew lifted the concrete slab, the child they pulled out was not my daughter. It was the daughter of Evelyn's childhood sweetheart, Marcus Hale. I froze. Evelyn, however, sounded relieved. [Five years ago, Marcus lost his daughter and nearly broke. After that, he only had me. That night, we ended up together.] [I'm sorry, Ryan. I came back to fix Marcus's regret.] [Our daughter is buried on the other side of the mall. Hurry. Go save her.] When I rushed back, Evelyn's future voice was smug. [Well? Was she there?] I looked at my daughter's body, already cold and breathless. Then I clenched my fist and hung up.

I was a wedding planner, and I personally designed my husband's wedding to his mistress. I had been with Victor for five years. Three of those years were swallowed by the pandemic. The remaining two were spent married, pregnant, and raising a child. The wedding I had always dreamed of existed only as "next time" whenever it came out of his mouth, until the day I received a new wedding planning request. The client was a young woman, her eyes curved with laughter, her smile bright and full of hope. "This is the venue my boyfriend chose himself," she said softly. "He insisted the wedding had to be held here." I took the file from her, and my gaze stopped on the venue name. The church in Clairmont. The very church I had mentioned to my husband countless times, the place I had dreamed of more than anything else. I was just about to smile and marvel at how someone in this world shared my taste so perfectly when the groom's name leapt into view. Victor Langford. My fingers froze on the page. Across from me, the girl was still wrapped in her happiness. She added gently, "We've only been together for two months, but he said he wants to give me the best wedding possible." I curved my lips into a smile and fixed my eyes on that familiar face—the man I had lived with for five years. After all this time, the day I planned Victor's wedding had finally arrived. Too bad the bride wasn't me.

I was in the middle of revising my girlfriend, Gina Sullivan's doctoral dissertation, when I received her wedding invitation. In the acknowledgments, she thanked me as her brother. The next second, I received a voice message from her. "Ian, Mike and I are getting married so that it will be easier for his dad to arrange a faculty position for me. "Don't be upset. We've been together for seven years. Of all people, you should understand why I'm doing this." I stared at the screen, and my fingers stopped moving. I had paid her tuition for seven years. I even wrote her dissertation for her. She had promised that once she graduated, she would marry me. Now, she was about to graduate, but I wasn't the groom anymore. Our mutual friends immediately started chiming in in the group chat. [Come on, Ian. Be the bigger person. Gina didn't have it easy getting this far.] [The Fletcher family can give her opportunities you can't.] [You're a man. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you truly love her, you'll let her go.] That evening, Gina called again. "You have to come to our wedding. "I don't have any siblings, and Mrs. Jefferson already agreed to represent my family. "Besides, I'll only feel at ease if you're standing beside me." So, it wasn't that she was afraid I'd be heartbroken. She was simply certain that I loved her enough to forgo not only my dignity, but even my own mother, to make her wedding look respectable.

Sheila Jenkins was hit by a truck on the fifth anniversary of her wedding. The accident was devastating. Her legs were crushed beneath the vehicle, which rolled over them before finally coming to a stop. Her husband, Joshua Stewart, the man who had been her childhood sweetheart, was so frantic that he gave more than half the blood his body could safely spare, begging the doctors to save her life. When Sheila was finally wheeled out of the operating room, she had not even had the chance to thank him for everything he had done. Still drifting in and out of consciousness, she suddenly overheard a conversation between Joshua and his assistant. "Mr. Stewart, there's still time to save her legs. If the surgeons operate now, they can still treat the damage. Are you really going to give up and let Mrs. Stewart spend the rest of her life crippled?" Joshua's expression remained icy, and his voice was even colder. "I hired someone to hit her for that exact reason. The whole point was to make sure she ended up crippled." His assistant froze. "The only woman I have ever loved is Cecilia. If the Stewart family had not refused to accept her back then, and even threatened her life to force us apart, I never would have buried my feelings and pursued and married Sheila simply because she was the 'right' match. My greatest regret is that I could never give the woman I truly love the title of being my wife. Since I cannot give her my name, I will at least give her the wedding she deserves." He paused before continuing without a trace of emotion. "If Sheila finds out I'm holding a wedding for Cecilia, she'll definitely try to ruin it. This way, she'll be stuck at home, crippled and completely unaware of what's happening." Unable to stay silent any longer, the assistant let out a quiet sigh. "Mr. Stewart, I know the woman you love is Ms. Zeller. I just... don't think Mrs. Stewart deserves this. She hasn't done anything wrong. She has no idea your heart has always belonged to someone else. She doesn't even know that the baby she gave birth to was strangled to death by your own hands... and that the child she's been raising all these years is actually yours and Ms. Zeller's. That's already cruel enough. If she loses her legs too..." Before he could finish, Joshua cut him off, speaking with icy indifference. "What does her suffering have to do with me? The only person I care about is Cecilia. "From my perspective, even if Sheila loses both her legs and her own child... her suffering still isn’t worth a single one of Cecilia’s tears."

"If you offend Alpha Carlen, Luna Irene might plead for you. But if you cross Luna Irene, there won't even be a scrap of you left." That's a widely circulated saying in the werewolf upper circles. I'm Irene Chandler. Because of one game, I've decided to dissolve the mate bond with Carlen Alvarado. During the game, he says drunkenly, "I love resting my head on the belly of an expecting she-wolf and listening to the pup's heartbeat." The room falls silent. Every werewolf turns to look at me. There's no surprise in their eyes. What I see is their pity for me, the rightful Luna, and a flicker of panic that their secret has been exposed. At that moment, I understood everything. They all know Carlen has a pup with another woman. They've been helping him hide it from me. That's because they know I'm Carlen's everything. I'll leave him if I ever find out. And if I leave, he'll lose his mind. I have to admit that they know me well. After learning the truth, I plan to do three things. First, I toss the wedding ring Carlen designed for me into the furnace. Second, I save the video of Lily Chalvez flaunting her pregnancy to provoke me onto a flash drive. Third, I submit documents to the Pack Affairs Department, applying to become a researcher on the isolated Icebound Island. The day I leave the pack happens to be our seventh wedding anniversary. I'll vanish from his life like a wisp of smoke.

I married my Don husband, Ethan Solas, because of a family arrangement. What he didn’t know was that I’d harbored a long crush on him. He, on the other hand, had never sparked any interest in me. Today marked our third anniversary. After our usual, mechanical lovemaking, Ethan rolled onto his back, leaving me staring at the ceiling. He always treated it like a duty, nothing more. Then a sudden, intrusive voice pierced my mind: “Did Vivian reach her climax? Did I do well? Is it too soon for a second round? Am I desperate? She smells so good…I just want to devour her.” I froze, eyes turned and locked on Ethan’s bare back. Had I imagined it? Or had my icy, distant husband just confessed his wild, obsessive desire for me?

After receiving the news that her husband had died during a mission, my sister-in-law collapsed from the shock. When she woke up, she'd lost her memory. She clung to my husband and refused to let go. Our husbands were twin brothers. The doctor said she couldn't be triggered, so my husband and mother-in-law sat me down and begged me to play along until she got over this. Every time I brought it up again, they shut me down. "This is only until she gets her memory back!" So I watched as my husband and his widowed sister-in-law eat, sleep, and live under the same roof. Even our daughter could only stand by and watch her cousin call him "Daddy". One day, my daughter spiked a high fever and wouldn't wake up. I begged my husband to take us to the hospital. Unexpectedly, his sister-in-law went berserk over it and threatened to kill herself. In the chaos, I was stabbed in the heart by the scissors she swung around. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the day my husband agreed to play the role of a substitute husband.

I start dating Samuel Nelson, who's known for being a playboy. Everyone thinks I'm hopelessly in love with him. When he skips class to fight, I take notes for him. When he flirts with others, I cover for him. I spent three years as the pushover who grovels at his feet. I pour my heart and soul into helping him get into a top college, but just before the semester starts, he dumps me. He says haughtily, "I know you've liked me for a long time, but you always have your head buried in books. Compared to Anna, you're far too dull and uptight. "Let's break up. I want to be with Anna instead." Everyone waits to see me have an emotional meltdown. However, I simply check the 50 million that has been transferred to my bank account and reply earnestly, "Sure. I wish you two the best." No one knows that I only devoted myself fully to being Samuel's girlfriend because his mother offered me far too much money to refuse. Now that I have the money, even if he didn't dump me, I would've dumped him myself.

My best friend Caleb and I mated with the most beautiful and strongest female Alpha twins of the Creek Pack. Everyone said we were the luckiest guys in the territory. But the pack didn't know that Victor, their stepbrother, was the one the female Alpha twins truly loved. My best friend Caleb and I planned to sever the mate bond, but the night before we were due to leave, Caleb was poisoned with wolfsbane. I called his mate Selene, but she sneered, "Ryan, my sister says your and Caleb's little tricks are getting really old. Are you going to tell me tomorrow that Caleb accidentally fell off the cliff?"

At my wedding, a video of my fiancé cheating was exposed. I didn't make a scene; just turned around and walked away, left him to clean up the mess himself. I went back to my room and kissed my younger boyfriend. We were halfway through when we got interrupted. My fiancé stormed in, face red with shame and rage. "Is this really the time? All you can think about is kissing?" I smacked my lips, still savoring the moment. "Weren't you the one who introduced us?"

After going bankrupt, I do the unthinkable for my gravely ill younger brother, Ricky Ashford, and climb into the bed of Damien Blackwood, the notorious mafia boss. When his smoldering gaze sweeps over my shirtless body, I stay perfectly still. The reason is that I'm afraid to set off this infamous man in front of me. However, the next instant, his lips are everywhere on my skin, and the night dissolves into a wild, reckless blur. For three years, I endure every torment in his bed. Thoughts of escape and even suicide cross my mind, but the fact that my brother is fighting for his life in the ICU keeps me going. One day, I accidentally overhear him speaking with his childhood friend, Chloe Sterling. "How long do you plan to toy with your enemy's daughter? You're not falling for her, are you?" "Don't be absurd." "And what about her sickly brother?" "He died long ago." The last thread holding me together snaps. Now, there is no reason left to live. As I prepare to end my life by burning charcoal, tears well up in his eyes as he pleads for me not to leave.

I was about to confess to my online chat partner in person when a barrage of comments suddenly flashed across my mind. [Don't bother. Jedediah is avoiding her right now. He's regretting ever mixing her up with someone else.] [It's all her fault for using a profile picture so similar to Georgia's. Otherwise, Jedediah wouldn't have gotten confused.] [It's annoying to think that when Jedediah lost a game, it was the supporting role, Monica, who comforted him. All those sweet words he said were meant for the female lead, Georgia.] [Jedediah is grossed out by it, too. Georgia only added him as a friend yesterday. It's so frustrating.] [Monica is a bane!] Dazed, I ran into Jedediah Merritt, who had just finished playing basketball. He quickly averted his gaze, but I moved around him, shoving the love letter into his roommate's hands. Online chat partner? I had more than one, sending my goodnight voice messages to several people every night.