Feel Good Artinya

I lapse into unconsciousness for a few days after a high fever. When I wake up, I see my boyfriend and his best friend standing by my bed. I want to enliven the atmosphere, so I joke, "Who are you?" Eric Cobb, my boyfriend, is taken aback. I almost laugh at the look on his face. Then, he points at his friend, Jonah Mullen. "Don't you remember? Your boyfriend's been panicking over you. As his best friend, I have to be here with him." This time, I'm the one who's taken aback. Unexpectedly, Jonah steps forward and says, "That's right. I'm your boyfriend, Jonah Mullen."

On New Year’s Eve, I made a last-minute decision to get my claws done. The salon was packed, so I had to share a room. The moment I sat down, the woman beside me glanced at me with open disgust. “Get out. I’m allergic to poor people.” The attendant tried to smooth things over. “Ma’am, we’re fully booked today. Please—” But she cut her off coldly. “Do you know the pink diamond Sotheby’s auctioned on Christmas? Worth six hundred thousand.” “Today, I’m setting it into my claws.” She looked at me like I was filth. “With someone like her here, what if she swaps my diamond?” Sotheby’s? My hand froze over the magazine. She smirked and held it out. “Take a good look. Know the difference between you and me before you crawl away.” I glanced once. And recognized it instantly. That diamond… was mine. “I lost it recently,” I said calmly. “Interesting how it ended up with you.” She laughed. “Jealous? My mate gave it to me as a New Year gift.” “You wouldn’t even survive hearing his name.” I smiled faintly. “Try me.” She lifted her chin. “My mate is Kael.” My smile froze. What a coincidence. He’s my mate too. I raised my comm-stone and dialed the patrols. “Hello. I’d like to report a theft.”

After undergoing a gallbladder removal surgery, I get discharged while having to hunch over in pain. In fact, I have to go home while attached to a surgical drainage bag. Before I even reach the front door, I hear Rayne Randall, my sister who's ten years younger than me, wailing at the top of her lungs. "Dad, there's a splinter in my finger! It hurts so much!" "Let me blow your booboo away for you, Ray. It won't hurt anymore once I'm done." As soon as I open the front door, I see my dad rolling his eyes at me. His previously happy disposition quickly morphs into an annoyed one. "Why are you home this late? It's just a small surgery, isn't it? Look at how much of a wuss you're being! Ray wants to have fish for dinner, so you'd better take your ass to the market and buy a fresh one for her!" My surgical wound hurts so much that I keep trembling in pain. I can barely move an inch. Having noticed that I'm not moving at all, he chucks a slipper at me right away. "Just go! What's with that gloomy look of yours? It's all thanks to you that our luck is gone! Every time I see a jinx like you walking around, I feel even unluckier!" As far as I remember, my dad keeps calling me a jinx who has ruined his family. Now that I've had a close brush with death, I don't want to keep living in this world like a pathetic loser. In that case, I might as well let everyone in this family have a real dose of my misfortune.

My daughter, Tina, locked herself in her room, crying so hard her body shook. I pried the door open and saw that she was clutching a test paper that was torn to shreds and pieced back together. It was a math Olympiad selection test. She should have gotten a perfect score, but was given a score of zero instead. "Mom," she sobbed, "the teacher said 3x5 is not equal to 5x3; that it's taking shortcuts. She tore my paper up in front of everyone, revoked my eligibility for the competition, and told the whole class not to talk to me…" I looked at the deep red scratch marks on my daughter's wrist and immediately picked up the phone to call the principal. "What good does it do for your school's reputation to drive a kid who loves math to their breaking point?"

My mother-in-law, Barbara Morris, insisted that a load-bearing wall was blocking our home's good energy. She even hired someone to tear it down for a panoramic floor-to-ceiling window. The contractor, Peter Stone, kept refusing. "Ma'am, we really can't do this. If we take this wall down, the whole building will collapse." In my past life, I fought desperately to stop them, even getting on my knees and begging them not to touch this wall that held the entire building together. My husband, Tom Williams, thought I was embarrassing him. He slapped me so hard that my left ear went deaf, and he forced them to demolish the wall anyway. That night, the entire building suffered a catastrophic structural failure. I was trapped under the rubble for seven days and nights with ruptured internal organs. Right before I died, I heard Tom shouting at the rescue team. "Save my mom first! That other woman has insurance. If she dies, we'll get the payout and buy a new place!" At that moment, the resentment inside me hardened. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment when the construction crew had just arrived. Looking at that thick load-bearing wall and Tom's hand about to rise up and strike me, I smiled and handed him the eighty-pound sledgehammer nearby. I said, "Mom's absolutely right. Once we knock down this wall, our place will turn into a luxurious river-view apartment. Anyone who tries to stop us is a complete idiot."

On the day I get buried alive by the avalanche, my biological older sister, Whitney Linder, cuts off the safety rope wrapped around my waist in order to save Cameron Linder, the fake heir who has replaced me all these years. The snow is about to cover my head, and I can feel my warmth rapidly draining from my body. In despair, I begin screaming at Whitney. "Don't leave me behind, Whitney! Otherwise, my adoptive father's subordinates will settle the score with you by blasting the entire mountain into pieces!" Over the years since I get accepted back into the elite Linder family, I've been keeping up a cowardly and docile facade. Never have I ever mentioned my adoptive parents, who live abroad. Because of that, the Lindens have no idea that the married couple who have adopted me are actually the leaders of an international mercenary squad. My adoptive dad is a legendary sniper, whereas my adoptive mom is a demolitions expert. I'm the apple of the entire squad's eye. But Whitney pulls back the severed rope with a cold chuckle. "Keep dreaming, Skylar! You're just a country bumpkin who lies all the time, so you definitely don't have any powerful subordinates! You should be grateful to me for taking you here for a skiing trip without complaining about how much you embarrass me in public! "To think that you actually have the guts to fight for a chance of survival with Cameron! Don't you know that he mustn't suffer from any shock at all?" After that, Whitney leaves with Cameron in tow. "Since your adoptive parents are that amazing, why don't you get them to fly over in a helicopter to rescue you?" When the light above my head vanishes, I use what little strength I have to press the red button on the satellite-based GPS. What Whitney doesn't know is that she will die in the mountain once the signal is sent out.

Devan Williams, the richest man in the country, gets shot by an assailant when he's giving a speech. He's quickly sent to the hospital I work at to undergo a heart transplant surgery. But my girlfriend, Katie Wilder, insists that her childhood friend, Luke Rivera, has to become Devan's primary doctor. She even takes off Devan's oxygen mask just to coerce me into handing the position over. "Ashton Howard, if you don't get out of here once I count to three, you'll be facing imprisonment due to medicinal malpractice!" As I look at Devan, whose face has gone horribly crimson due to asphyxiation, all I feel is a strong sense of ridicule. So, I call the hospital's security guards on Katie and Luke with the intention to have them dragged out. But the security captain, Jason Wilder, is actually Katie's younger brother who relied on her just to get his hands on this job. He has me pinned on the floor instead. "From the way I see it, you're the criminal who wants Devan dead! Be honest with me; did you sneak into this hospital just so you can kill him behind everyone's backs?" I can't help but struggle against Jason. But that's when Luke tramples all over my fingers, causing them to fracture. At that moment, the vitals monitor begins beeping shrilly. I lift my head to glare at the culprits. "All of you can never escape your fate!"

As a low-income student who's specifically recruited by the elite college this year, I can still feel my hands trembling as I clutch the letter that tells me I get to study for free. Not only are my tuition and miscellaneous fees waived, but I also get to receive 30 thousand dollars' worth of student grant per year. I even get to have free access to the leather seats inside the library, the equipment inside the gym, as well as the aerial garden on the roof. The best surprise for me has to be the cafeteria. All low-income students get a 50% discount on their meals, but the quality of their food doesn't decrease at all. Best beef is used in the steak dinners offered by the cafeteria, whereas a seafood platter showcases the entire huge lobster. Even the most basic mac and cheese meal has different types of freshly grated cheese baked into it. As I sit in the brightly lit classroom and look at the rich students around me, who wear custom-made uniforms and have branded watches latched around their wrists, all I have is one thought. I must be on good terms with them. But my seatmate, who's also a low-income student, isn't as thrilled as me. In fact, she just looks at the people around her with disdain in her eyes. After the first lesson, a rich student arrives at our table. He might not sound polite at all, but at least he's not putting on airs. "Do any of you have time to head over to the cafeteria and buy me breakfast?" I'm about to respond to him when a shrill voice booms out next to me. "You're so annoying! What, you think you rule the campus since you're rich? Had I known that this classroom is filled with useless scions like you who just waste their lives away on nothing, I wouldn't have enrolled in this college in the first place!"

The wedding had reached the part where the groom kissed the bride. I closed my eyes and leaned in to kiss Stella Stafford, only to end up with a mouthful of fur. Her assistant held up the camera and burst out laughing. "The almighty Mr. Rowe can't even tell if he's kissing a person or a dog?" I stared at the Husky in front of me, its tongue lolling out, and felt my stomach churn. I was about to lay into him when Stella stepped in to block me. "It was just a joke. No hard feelings." Laurent Reilly smirked smugly, his tone dripping with arrogance. "And guess what? This Husky happens to be a female, so why don't you just marry her instead? You're not good enough for Stella anyway." The employees erupted in laughter. Mortified, I kicked him square in the chest, sending him sprawling. The next second, Stella smashed a wine bottle over my head and demanded an apology. I wiped the mix of wine and blood from my face, then dialed an overseas number with a cold grin. "The wedding is short one bride. You in?"

My husband sends me a photo of our obedient daughter holding a plate of food. He writes, "Thanks to my patient guidance, our sweetheart has finally made her first dish! We're waiting for you to come home and taste it!" The exhaustion I feel from work is swept away when I see that. No one expects that I'll reach home half an hour later and kill him.