Short Stories & Novels

After finishing my meal, I went to the cashier counter to settle the bill as usual. It took me longer than usual because the signal was poor. By the time I settled the bill, I could not find Corbin, my boyfriend, or Mabel, my best friend, anywhere inside or outside the restaurant. I called over a dozen times before they finally answered. “You were taking too long, so we just went ahead. “We’re at the Perler bead craft store on the second floor. Hurry up and get over here. The mall was packed and even more crowded than usual for the holiday. The elevator came twice, and both times it was full. So, I gave up and took the escalator instead. By the time I got to the store, every seat at the craft table was already taken. Corbin and Mabel were sitting together, talking about starting at Northbridge University this September and planning out the next ten years of their lives, from graduate school all the way to their doctorates. It was this grand plan for their future, and I had no place in it. They had already made plans to enroll in prestigious universities as early as May. I, however, failed my PSATs and was still considering repeating a year to catch up. Seeing me standing frozen at the door, Corbin said in a helpless tone, “You’re always so slow. Just wait outside for now.” I watched their backs, and a sudden exhaustion washed over me. “Corbin, I’m done chasing you.”

Before my son entered university, he gave me a list of necessities he needed for school. Everything from a laptop costing 2,000 dollars to a phone at 1,000 dollars. Even the cost of traveling amounted to almost 10,000 dollars. My head pounded at the staggering figure. My mom had been hospitalized and was in urgent need of money. 10,000 dollars was a huge sum. I asked if I could give him 5,000 dollars first. My son’s face darkened in an instant, and he yelled at me for being stingy. He even wrote a lengthy post scolding his own family on social media. The next day, I read the post while at work. Someone even threatened to kill me. [A parent like you should die!] I read the latest post my son wrote, and my heart grew cold. In that case, there was no need for me to keep the truth a secret.

My boyfriend's assistant, who also came from the same university as him but a lower grade, has an incredibly similar name to mine. While mine is Marissa Parker, hers is Melissa Barker. At the party our colleagues are throwing to celebrate the end of my unmarried life with my boyfriend, Liam Yarrow, Melissa once again mixes up our names. Everyone is cheering and joking around as they unfurl the banner they had prepared, and one person reads the wording out loud. "Congratulations to Liam Yarrow and Melissa Barker! May you two be happy and blissful forever!" In an instant, the originally noisy room falls silent. Melissa's timid voice then rings out. "Sorry, Marissa. I accidentally made a mistake again." Instead of answering, I turn to look at Liam. Liam's brow doesn't even wrinkle in the slightest as he subconsciously assures her, "It's just a minor matter. She won't mind." Following that, he gets up, walks to Melissa, and stops in front of her, placing me opposite him. With this action, his figure completely blocks her from my sight, and like many times before, he shoots me a warning look. "Marissa, it's just a banner. Mel didn't mean to mess it up. At the end of the day, everyone already knows that you and I are the stars tonight, so don't dwell on this, okay?" He calls me by my full first name, while Melissa gets an affectionate nickname. Can his feelings be any more obvious? I slowly release my grip on the balloon I was holding. "Alright, I won't." I will never dwell on anything to do with him again.

My family got rich off mining. Like, stupid rich. The day I was born, Grandpa bought half a mountain to celebrate. When I turned three, my family did that birthday thing where you pick an object. I grabbed a gold calculator. By that night, I had my own trust fund. In elementary school, even the principal shot to his feet whenever my parents walked into a conference. Then, when I was ten, someone tried to kidnap me. My parents lost it. They moved me into a normal apartment complex, put me in cheap outlet clothes, and made me eat the cheapest stuff in the cafeteria. Honestly? I loved it. It was quiet. Easy. Then came our five-year class reunion. Dylan, my old crush, spotted me in a delivery uniform and laughed. Then he stuck me at the servers' table. Mandy Lawton, our class's former queen bee, gave me a fake-sweet smile. "Oh, don't say that. For Willow, supporting herself is already a huge accomplishment." Everyone lifted their glasses. "Good thing Dylan rejected her. Otherwise, he'd be crammed into some tiny apartment, eating boxed mac and cheese every night." I didn't even blink. I was too busy staring at the document on my phone. [Ms. Whitford, please confirm your acceptance of full ownership of Evermont Resources by 9:00 p.m. tonight.] I sighed. 'Seriously?' I wanted one quiet dinner. Instead, they had to go and blow up my whole broke-girl act.

Five years into my marriage to Camille York, her boy toy leans against her during our family Christmas dinner and smirks at me. "Sorry about last night, Mr. Fuller. Cami kept me up way too late." Everyone assumes I'll lose it, that I'll lunge at him and ruin the entire evening. But Camille just glances lazily at the love score hovering above my head, utterly sure of herself. "He won't do a thing. He's crazy about me." What she doesn't know is that the number she sees is frozen at its highest point.

Just because Tristan Whitfield wants to know how long I can hold my breath, Celine Harper kicks me straight into the pool. I go pale, screaming for help, but nobody pulls me out until I've already blacked out. Someone nearby whispers, "Don't you think Celine went a little too far?" But she just scoffs, not the least bit worried. "Relax. Gavin's a pushover. Give him a plane ticket to go somewhere fun, and he'll forget all about it." When I come to, I do exactly what she predicts. I get on the flight to Ridgemont and never return. Two weeks later, Celine can't stand it anymore and flies out after me, furious. "You're really holding a grudge over that?"

Sophia Wilson is the youngest chief of cardiothoracic surgery in Greenley. Everyone says she has the steadiest hands and a heart made of stone. But I know she isn't incapable of feeling. It's just that her tenderness is never reserved for me. The day after our engagement party, Dad suffers a sudden stroke and gets rushed into surgery. The nurse tells me I need a second person to sign off on the surgery, so I call Sophia right away. The phone rings for a long time before she finally answers. Through the line, I hear a man's weak, ragged breathing. It's her ex-boyfriend, Harrison Cross. Sophia drops her voice to a whisper. "Harrison's having a severe panic attack right now. I'm staying with him. Just tell the hospital staff to bypass the paperwork for now." I clutch the pen so tightly that my knuckles turn white. "The doctor says it's a massive emergency. You're the only person I have right now." She falls silent for a second, her voice remaining steady. "Don't be so dramatic. The hospital has procedures in place, but they aren't going to just let someone die." On her end of the line, Harrison murmurs, "Sophia, don't let me keep you from Conrad. Maybe you should just leave. I can handle this on my own." Sophia shoots back immediately, "Stop acting tough. I'm not leaving." The line goes dead just as the nurse presses me one more time. Looking down at my ring finger, I stare at the engagement band Sophia personally picked out. She tells me that it's always foggy at the dock, but if the diamond is bright enough, she'll always be able to find me at a glance. But that day, the harsh white lights outside the operating room are so blinding, and I'm standing alone in the fog, yet she doesn't show up. After Dad is finally out of danger, I spend the entire night sitting outside his room. As dawn breaks, a text from Sophia finally lights up my screen. "Harrison's asleep. How is your dad doing?" I look out the window at the ferry moored at the dock. The fog has completely cleared, and it's time for me to leave.

During an avalanche, I risk my life to save my girlfriend, Naomi Sutton. I end up losing a leg and an eye. On the day I'm discharged from the hospital, she tells me, "I've done my part by taking care of you this whole time. There's no way I'll spend the rest of my life with a cripple. You understand why I need to do this, right, Caleb?" I've already resigned myself to a life of constant darkness when Zoey Rivers shows up. She doesn't mind that I'm disabled. She gently heals all of my wounds. Following our decision to get married, I start going through our belongings to prepare for our upcoming move to our new marital home. Unexpectedly, I stumble across Zoey's backup phone in the house. I find a secondary social media account that Zoey has been using to track the moving journey of her sister's battle against a crippling illness. The latest update reads, "I'm about to get married. Once it's official, I'll get him to donate a kidney to my sister at once, and she'll be saved." Posted with the caption is a photo of Zoey with a woman lying on a hospital bed—Naomi. At that very moment, the door opens behind me. "What's the matter, Caleb? Since you're at home, why didn't you answer me when I called for you?"

My parents fly across the country for the tenth time to meet my girlfriend, Sienna Holloway, yet she's nowhere to be found. She doesn't answer my calls or reply to my texts. Somewhere between my third and fourth cup of coffee, I see a new post from my buddy, Nolan Prescott, on my feed. It features eight photos of snow-covered mountains, and the last photo shows two hands laced together. The caption reads, "She joined me for the tenth trip. A perfect ten." I nearly crush my phone in my fist, my veins standing out across my knuckles. After 27 unanswered calls, Sienna finally picks up. "Where are you?" Wind crackles through the speaker, and her voice comes back distracted and flat. "Out. Why?" "Why? This is the tenth time. My parents are too old to keep flying out here, and you—" She goes quiet for a second, then sighs. "God, relax. Nolan and I are having fun skiing up at Ridgeline Pass. I just forgot. "Tell them to wait three more days. I'll come see them when I'm done here." Before I can get another word out, she hangs up. My reflection stares back at me from the dark screen, my lips pressed into a thin line. After that, I smile at my parents and say, "Since she won't show, let's set me up with someone new."

When the tsunami came, ninety-five percent of the world's land disappeared beneath the ocean. I was just an ordinary graduate student in aquaculture when I was swept into the deep sea and unexpectedly awakened a god-tier talent: Dragon Lord. From then on, I could sense the emotions of marine life, issue simple commands, and even make elite sea beasts bow their heads and obey. While everyone else fought for a single mouthful of fresh water, I opened a ranch in the deep sea. With an army of sea beasts, I built a city of trade upon the sea!

In my past life, news from high society circulated about a single, wealthy heiress who searched for a single man who could complete 14 days of inedia. My roommate, Chad Kranz, was convinced that she secretly searched for her future husband. Chad wanted to become rich and powerful quickly, and he did not hesitate to shut himself inside our dorm room to fast. On the night of his 14th day, he went into shock and stopped breathing. The sight scared me so much that I forced half a bottle of glucose down his throat, and I carried him on my back to the emergency room late in the night. Chad survived, and he gained 300 pounds from imbalanced hormones and became paralyzed. His family vented their anger at me in front of the media. They shouted, "There was only half a night left! If you had not made him fail with that mouthful of glucose, my son would have become the son‑in‑law of a wealthy family! You stopped my family from becoming rich! We will make you pay with your life!" They forced me to give up my placement in postgraduate studies, and they seized my family's property. They even pushed me toward death by demanding millions in compensation. When I opened my eyes next, I had returned to the 14th day of Chad's inedia process. He sat cross‑legged on the bed while he mumbled with reddened eyes, "I'm about to achieve a breakthrough with a new life. Anyone who stops me from marrying into a wealthy family will be punished!" This time, I slowly chewed my hard‑boiled egg and said, "Do not worry, Chad. I'll be the first to stop anyone from preventing you from marrying into a wealthy family!"

After five years together, my fiancé, Michael Lynham, finally landed a promotion. I went all out. I hand-arranged his favorite champagne roses and spent my last $8,000 on a Rolex. Then his text popped up. [Eunice, work sent me on a last-minute business trip. No need to celebrate.] My heart squeezed. He was working this hard for us. I hit the video call. Declined. [I'm in a meeting. Try to understand.] Then a Porsche rolled up outside my shop. A woman rushed in, fixing her lipstick. "Do you have any ready-made bouquets for a guy? Something cute. I'm celebrating with my boyfriend." She started a video call. Michael picked up instantly. "Michael! I'm almost downstairs. Is our candlelight dinner ready?" "Babe, I skipped a work meeting to cook all your favorites." Their laughter poured through the screen. My stomach dropped. My ears rang. Everything went blurry. I stared at the guy who was supposedly "in a meeting." He wasn't on a business trip. He was spending the night with his new girlfriend. "Hello? Do you have one or not? I'm in a hurry." I swallowed the lump in my throat, turned away, slipped off my engagement ring, and dropped it in the trash. Then I pointed to the bouquet I'd arranged in the corner. "Yeah. That one's ready. 200 bucks."

A man by the name of Michael Burke shows up one day. He gathers four of us who had grown up in the orphanage and introduces himself as the secretary to John Ferguson, the richest man in town. According to him, John's real son had been mistakenly switched as a baby 20 years ago. Anyone who can prove that he's the long-lost son will get to inherit the Ferguson family's entire billion-dollar fortune. The first time around, Luke Carter, ever the manipulative schemer, tricks me into handing over the locket I've had since arriving at the orphanage. He uses it to prove his identity to the Fergusons, but they end up ripping him into pieces. "You're a fake!" Somehow, the four of us are reborn after that. This time, Simon Davis, whose friendship was superficial at best, gets a tattoo of my birthmark and uses that to claim that he's the Fergusons' long-lost son. They end up skinning him alive. "We know you're a fake!" Third time isn't the charm. Tom Egan, my archrival, takes out a loan and pays for plastic surgery to give himself a face that resembles Mrs. Ferguson's. However, the Fergusons throw him into a cage and let a ferocious dog maul him to death. In our fourth life, all three of them are too scared to usurp my identity. They immediately deliver me right to the Fergusons' doorstep. When everyone sees the DNA report that proves I'm the Fergusons' long-lost son, they think that their nightmare has finally ended. But on my very first night back home, the Fergusons push me off the balcony. "Anyone who tries to steal our son's identity deserves to die!" … My eyes open yet again. Michael is standing in front of us, smiling as he asks which one of us is the Fergusons' son. Everyone backs away in horror, insisting that it's not them. "But we've already looked into it. We know that the family's long-lost son grew up in this orphanage," Michael says, his voice strangely ominous.

Brandon Hayes had too many enemies, so he asked Hannah Foster to be his public girlfriend until every last one of them was dealt with. "Eleanor, I know this isn't fair to you. I promise we'll get married after I've taken care of all my enemies." I looked at Hannah with concern. "But won't this put her in danger?" Brandon's expression darkened. "I saved her life. She owes me this." The day Brandon proposed to me, I was just about to slip the ring onto my finger when a bullet came flying toward me. Hannah threw herself in front of me. The bullet tore into her abdomen, and blood immediately poured from the wound. The man who had been looking at me with such tenderness shoved me aside without a second glance. He scooped Hannah into his arms and rushed her to the hospital. I looked down at the blood running between my legs. I gritted my teeth and endured the pain as I hailed a cab. "Take me to the hospital."

My brother, Charles Raymond, said he wanted a family mountain climbing trip. So, Mom forced me to go, completely ignoring my raging fever. Halfway up the snowy peak, Charles and I got severe altitude sickness. But Mom didn't care if I lived or died. She insisted on giving the very last oxygen tank to him, even though his symptoms were mild. When the rescue team finally arrived, I begged her to save me first. Instead, she looked at me with pure disgust. "There isn't enough room in the vehicle," she snapped. "Stop faking sickness just to compete with your brother. You're delaying his medical treatment." In the end, I was left behind. I died a brutal death in the endless, freezing snow. And my unloved life finally came to an end.

When my dad, Jake Snow, is on his deathbed, his final wish is to meet my girlfriend of eight years. I call Nancy Miller 67 times, but she doesn't bother picking up. Only after Dad passed away did she finally send a half-hearted text message. "We're in lockdown mode for the project. I can't leave now. Once things ease up, I'll definitely visit Mr. Snow." I hold Dad's hand that has gone cold. My fingers tremble as I type, "Sure." That very night, I come across a video. Nancy is clad in a red dress at a riverside restaurant overlooking the river. She is holding a cake, standing beside another man. The caption reads, "Four years after graduation, I finally get to stand beside you again. Happy birthday, Sean." Everyone is busy congratulating them in the comment section. I even recognize some of the names. Someone asks, "Are Nancy and Sean finally getting their happy ending?" I stare at the screen, my heart clenching like someone's squeezing it from the inside. Then I reply, "Yeah, I guess so. I just didn't know I was the one left out until now."

Mom and Dad aren't bothered at all when I completely start slacking off. Kennedy Quinlan, my girlfriend's brother, who has established a reputation as a genius inventor, completely breaks down, while I slack off instead of conducting research in the lab. In my past life, Kennedy files an identical patent application just one day before I do, causing everyone to brand me as a fraud and accuse me of blatant plagiarism. I try to explain myself, but no one believes me. Kennedy eventually launches a live stream to blast me online, accusing me of trying to scam my way into their family's fortune. They run a massive cyberbullying campaign against my whole family. Mom and Dad only want to clear things up, but Kennedy's crazed fans push them off a high-rise building, leaving them to die in unresolved grief. Unable to handle the blow, I fall into a severe depression and end up slitting my wrists. I still can't wrap my head around the whole situation, even in my final moments. It is obviously the fruit of my own painstaking research, so why does someone else get to file the patent first? I suddenly open my eyes and find myself back on the day before my invention is stolen.

On the day we succeed in securing a project worth a billion dollars, my girlfriend, the CEO, Vanessa Oswald, throws a celebration party. Amid the festivities, I hear Cameron Ingall, the project manager that Vanessa recently brought in, smugly tell everyone else, "There's no way he can be made the vice president. Ms. Oswald has told me she'll be sending him off to Fennoria to start a new branch there…" Snickering, I turn to Vanessa, who has arrived late, and tell her what I just heard. "Who knows where he heard that rumor from. How can I leave when we just closed the deal? I guess he doesn't know that we've been dating for ten years and are about to announce our engagement this evening!" However, with a remorseful expression, Vanessa takes my hand and says gently, "What he said is true, Shane. Now that the company is growing, it's the perfect time for us to expand into new markets. I know it'll be tough for you in Fennoria, but you're the only one in the company who can take the mantle. "You can let Cam handle the project we just won the bid for. He only recently joined the company and needs an achievement like this to bolster himself. You're already a well-known project manager in the industry anyway. What difference would just one little project make to you?" When she notices my unpleasant expression, she tries to placate me. "Relax. Once you come back, I'll make you a vice president and have a baby with you, okay?" I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. After tossing the ring I was going to use to propose to Vanessa this evening into the fountain, I call up Vanessa's business rival. "I hear you're a charitable woman, Ms. Stewart. Would you be willing to take me in, along with a one-billion-dollar project?"

On Valentine's Day, Mason Hamilton turned our wedding into a spectacle. He bought up every major screen in the city and put my name on all of them. I cried when I saw it. I turned down a guaranteed spot in a top graduate program overseas without a second thought. That was before the address verification today. The staff member couldn't hide the sympathy in her eyes. "According to our system, the registered owner of this unit is Stella Wallace. She's also listed as Mr. Hamilton's legal wife. You're recorded here as a temporary occupant." I pushed open the door to Mason's office and found him bent over Stella's hand, pressing a kiss to her ring finger. When I confronted him, he frowned, impatience already showing on his face. "Stella didn't have parents growing up, so she's always felt insecure. It's just a property title and a marriage certificate. I gave her the title to make her feel better. You had the wedding every woman wanted. I made sure the whole world knew you were my wife. What more do you want?" Stella rested against him, her smile light and easy. "Come on, Paige. Don't be mad. I only care about the title. He still goes home to you every night." I looked down at the ring on my finger. It felt wrong all of a sudden, like it didn't belong there. I took it off and placed it on his desk. Then I left, sending my dad a message as I walked out. [I'm coming home.]

In the eight years since my wife handed our daughter over to her widowed brother-in-law, I went to court eight times. This time, the judge asked me the same question she always did: was I here to sue for custody again? I corrected her. "I'm here to withdraw the suit. I'm giving up custody. I'm agreeing to the divorce." Ten years married to my wife, Vivian Simpson, and eight of those years spent in courtrooms. I'd become the whole city of Northbridge's favorite joke. Now, I'd finally endured enough to let go. From now on, the most spineless man in Northbridge would never have to show his face in front of them again.