Emotional Novels & Stories

While I'm in a bathroom stall, I overhear one of the new hires standing at the sink sharing some good news with his family excitedly. "I've passed probation. My salary is 12,000 dollars a month!" I sat there, swallowed by a heavy, resentful silence. I've been with this company for six years. In my first year, my salary is 6,000 dollars, and I didn't get a raise. In my second year, it's still 6,000 dollars. At the end of the year, I get a 5% raise, which is an extra 300 dollars. In my third, fourth, and fifth years, my salary stays exactly the same at 6,300 dollars. Currently, I'm in my sixth year. HR talks to me today and tells me that next year, I'll receive another 5% raise, bringing my salary to 6,615 dollars. At this point, I'm responsible for coordinating five separate projects. Because the workload is too much, the company hires three new employees for me to train. The newest one has just passed probation, and his salary is 12,000 dollars. It is nearly double of what I make after six years of working for this company. I walk out of the restroom and head straight for the HR office to submit my resignation. The HR manager is stunned as she asks, "Why?" I reply, "Because the pay sucks, and I'm tired of being miserable."

[The story about my son cutting ties with us is all an act. If I hadn’t done that, there’s no way my daughter would have willingly handed over the money!] During the long holiday weekend, I was killing time at my desk when I randomly clicked on a Reddit post. Maybe it was because I also had a younger brother who had cut ties with the family. The night he slammed the door and left, my parents seemed to age ten years overnight. From that day on, I became their only source of support. Every month, I send them five hundred dollars for living expenses. Even when I wasn’t feeling well, I forced myself to work. Meanwhile, the post kept updating. [I raised her for over ten years. What's wrong with spending some of her money? Her brother is still short of fifty thousand dollars for the down payment on his house. We need the money before the holiday ends.] I wanted to keep reading, but my manager called me into a meeting. That evening, while we were having dinner, Mom spoke up, her voice trembling slightly. “Your father and I need to discuss something with you, sweetheart…” My heart skipped a beat. For some reason, the last line from that post flashed through my mind. [I'll just tell her the business is in debt and that we need her money. She's always been a good child. She'll surely do what I ask.] “Mom… you and Dad aren’t in debt, are you?”

On Labor Day, my husband worked himself to death in another woman's bed. Halfway through the funeral, my mother-in-law said to me, "Malcolm's gone, but this family still doesn't have an heir. Clara, you're still young. Have a child with Vincent. The sooner the better." I stared at my brother-in-law in his wheelchair, my mind going blank. "But he's Malcolm's brother." "Better to keep it in the family," Nora Stroud said with a smile. "This is my decision. Even if Malcolm were still alive, he'd listen to me." Something in me snapped, and a quiet laugh slipped out. They wanted an heir, didn't they? Fine. Then my father-in-law could have one.

The day Dad brought my ashes home, Mom, who had claimed for years to be suffering from severe postpartum depression, suddenly told the truth. "Actually, I made the illness up. "We were never short on money, either. My company took off years ago. You never had to work six jobs a day until you nearly collapsed." Dad froze, then looked up at her in disbelief. Mom went on nonchalantly as if she were discussing nothing important. "And that day on the highway, it wasn't because my depression flared up and I lost control, leaving Caleb at the rest stop by himself. "He was spoiled by you. He actually dared to talk back to Adrian, so I left him there on purpose to teach him a lesson." Dad's eyes grew redder and redder. After a long moment, he forced one question through his locked throat. "Why?" Mom gave a light laugh. At the red light, she reached over and touched his earlobe, as if she were talking about a tiny, harmless joke. "Because you kept using my love for you as an excuse to bully Adrian. It was just a small punishment. "Now the punishment is over. Daniel, you really have suffered these past six years. I'll make it up to you from now on. "What about Caleb? Children recover quickly. He should be better by now, right? Why didn't he come home with you?" Dad looked at her through tears. Two seconds later, he suddenly laughed. With trembling fingers, he patted the urn in his arms. "He's here."

Mom is very biased. Every night, she will pour me a glass of milk before bedtime, simply because my grades are the best. My twin sister, Melody York, and my younger brother, Jason York, have never received this treatment before. On the night before my college entrance exam, Mom brings me a glass of milk before my bedtime as usual. But the next day, I end up collapsing in the exam venue even though I've always been healthy. Because of that, I miss out on the college entrance exam, causing me to fail. Meanwhile, Melody, whose grades have always been terrible, miraculously gets into an outstanding university. Mom consoles me, telling me that it's fine to just repeat the senior year. Every night, she prepares the same glass of milk for me as usual. Before the second college entrance exam, my cousin, Annie Wood, is staying over at my place temporarily. She wants to have a taste of my nighttime milk, only to get berated by Mom for being shameless. But halfway through the exam, I suffer from an intense stomachache all of a sudden. After that, I get sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. That year, I end up failing the exam again. But Annie, who comes from a vocational high school, gets into a pretty good university thanks to her scores. The entire family is elated, to say the least. But the fact that I have to repeat my senior year for the third time makes me the butt of everyone's jokes. I don't understand why all sorts of health problems will plague my body when it's time for my college entrance exam. When I'm taking the exam for the third time, I tell myself that this is my final chance, so I mustn't slack off no matter what. Three days before the exam, the only food I've ingested is the food offered by the school's cafeteria, just in case I run into more health problems on the day of the exam. But on the night before the exam, Mom brings me yet another glass of milk before bedtime.

My mother constantly berated me for being lazy and fragile, claiming I couldn't handle a single shred of hardship. Her resentment stemmed from a terrifying symptom I couldn't control. Without warning, my body would begin to convulse, and my mind would go entirely blank. I would collapse into pitch darkness. Yet, every time she took me to the hospital, the medical tests came back frustratingly normal. My teachers eventually noticed my frequent episodes of zoning out and fainting, and they desperately urged my mother to take me for a more thorough evaluation. But my mother, a respected doctor herself, brushed their concerns aside. To her, it was an open-and-shut case: I was a lazy child faking an illness to skip class. From then on, she strictly rationed my diet. Whenever I felt dizzy, grew drowsy, or began to convulse, her response was swift and cruel. I was subjected to sharp slaps across the face and hours of forced standing, while she towered over me, screaming that I was a disappointment who was intentionally trying to ruin her life. Everything came to a dead end on the day of our school-wide physical exams. My mother happened to be the doctor manning the blood-drawing station. When my turn arrived and I sat across from her, that familiar, agonizing tremor seized my limbs. The entire room began to spin, and my torso pitched forward, nearly crashing onto the examination table. Instead of checking my pulse, my mother violently yanked me upward by the arm and shoved me away. "Stop acting!" she hissed, her voice dripping with disgust. "Faking a faint over a routine blood draw? Can you be any more pathetic? Get out into the hallway and stand there. Stop humiliating me in front of my colleagues!" She shoved me out the door before turning back to her work. The moment my back hit the cold hallway wall, an icy chill enveloped my body. My consciousness began to splinter. For the first time in my life, I couldn't fight the weight. Half out of it, I thought to myself that this was good. If I passed out completely this time, she would finally believe that I wasn't lying.

I was making a delivery to a rural village when a mob of villagers suddenly swarmed my truck. They surrounded the vehicle, pried open the cargo hold, and started looting everything inside. “We hit the jackpot this time! A whole truckload of flour! This is enough to feed everyone for ages! Grab it!” The cargo door was forced open, and white sacks spilled all over the ground. The villagers went insane, snatching my cargo like starving wolves. They divided it up without the slightest hesitation. I was pinned to the ground, my mouth clamped shut by someone’s hand. All I could do was watch as they stripped the truck clean. But what I was transporting wasn’t flour at all. It was a highly restricted agricultural pesticide powder. The kind no one was supposed to touch.

After I graduate from college, my uncle, Malcolm Caldwell, convinces my family to chip in and open a seafood restaurant. Dad and I wholeheartedly agree with his suggestion. Since then, we work as the restaurant's cooks. Five years later, our seafood restaurant becomes the top restaurant on the city's Must-Eat List. Our monthly profits hit more than 200 grand. On the day the earnings are to be split among us, Uncle Malcolm pockets 150 grand. Then, he passes 150 grand each to my cousins, Maxwell and Melanie Caldwell. The remaining sum, which is less than eight grand, is handed over to Dad and me. When faced with our questions, Uncle Malcolm adapts a matter-of-fact tone. "Max is in charge of dealing with the customers. He has suffered a lot just by having to deal with so many fussy customers every day. "Mel is the one in charge of the finances. She's worked so hard calculating every cent in the profits that we've earned." Then, Uncle Malcolm turns to look at us. "As for you two, all you do is hide in the kitchen all day. I bet you two have secretly taken many bites out of the customers' food all these years, right? "Since we're relatives and all, I shall not hold you accountable. How about this? If you two work hard, I'll make sure to reward you well if our profits double again next month." Dad is so furious that he's practically shaking. But I just hold his hand calmly and accept the money. "Fine. You can split up the shares however you want, Uncle Malcolm. I'm fine with it." Soon, they will realize that Dad and I are the actual profit generators, not them.

My parents adopted an AI daughter. The day she came home, I suddenly became the most hated person in the family. Dad said I was a thorn in his side. Mom thought I couldn't hold a candle to Sophia, the AI. My brother Jack yelled at me, "All you do is make trouble!" I was so furious that I shoved Sophia to the floor. Mom's face went dark. She struck me hard across the face. "Sophia is your sister! If you were even half as good as her, I wouldn't be this angry!" "You're going to the Academy of Exemplary Obedience to learn how to be a proper, obedient daughter." I was sent away to "swap places" with an AI daughter. Three years later, my parents and brother came to pick me up. They called my name, but I didn't move. The headmaster smiled and said, "Mrs. Walker, you have to say 'Activate' before Unit EVA will respond."

My sister Iris almost died from anemia. The day she was hospitalized, my whole family started blaming me. I'd been frail since birth, so Mom and Dad had always poured all their attention into me. The new school supplies were mine, the new clothes were mine, and even on the birthdays we shared, the cream and chocolate part of the cake always went to me first. I used to hear Iris crying at night. But whenever I tried to comfort her, she just shoved me away. On my twelfth birthday, I came home from school with a perfect score on my test, beaming as I pushed the door open. Mom and Dad's eyes were red, and they looked at me as if I'd done something terrible. “Why can't you ever be nicer to Iris? We give you everything, and you should be thinking about her too.” “The doctor said her health problems are all because of how she feels.” “You're so spoiled, so selfish.” I lowered my head. They didn't know that I was frail because I'd made a deal to take Iris's death for her. Tomorrow, I was going to be erased.