Hypocrisy

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?"

The day my husband, Reece Malcolm, reached the pole for his polar expedition, his childhood sweetheart who was sent away reappeared in his bedroom. Everyone had kept it from me. Erica Lowell had been by his side day and night. Though Reece said he didn't want her there, he still allowed her to stay by his side for four years as his assistant. "You have to believe me, Lucy. There's nothing between Erica and me," he used to say. Always so sure. Always so convincing. But when he returned, it was with Erica in his arms—heavily pregnant. "She threatened to kill herself, Lucy. I didn't have a choice," he said. "The baby's coming. I need you to raise it. You know you're the only one I've ever loved." Four years. Four years of silence, of waiting alone in a house that never felt like home. Now, the lawyer is hired. The assets are tallied. The divorce papers are signed and sealed. I'm done.

Everyone is envious of me for having someone like Dominic Cruz, who's love-brained, as a husband-to-be. He's rich, handsome, and highly educated. I smile without saying anything, but I nod happily. However, on the day I'm misdiagnosed, he goes missing. He's so engrossed in his secret lover that he forgets all about me. So, I jilt him before he can do it to me. I turn him into the city's laughingstock. Later, I hear that he drinks the bar dry every night. He scours Marina City but fails to find his missing bride.

When I was four months pregnant, my fiance, who was a doctor, left me hanging when we were supposed to get married. This was not the first time; this was the sixteenth time. The first time, his nurse fainted at the sight of blood during an operation, and I waited for him for an entire day at the city hall. The second time, his nurse called, and he left me behind on a viaduct to buy daily necessities for her. Whenever we were about to get married, his nurse would call him for all sorts of problems. The final time was when he told me he was sick. Despite the rain, I rushed to the hospital, only to find that it was his nurse who was sick. He stayed by her side to care for her while he lied to me without batting an eye. At that moment, I began to hate him. I aborted our baby and left. But he chased after me and even traveled out of the country just to apologize.

After an accident and miscarriage, Hansel Saddler and I are so devastated that we're both diagnosed with depression. For the next five years, I try my best to act like I'm normal as I care for him and try to cheer him up. This lasts until I overhear him speaking to the psychologist at the clinic's door. "Work's been getting busy lately, and pretending to be depressed makes it inconvenient to deal with that. Can you change my diagnosis to manic disorder?" The psychologist giggles. "You have been quite manic lately, darling. You've been making me feel really sore down there." "I can make you feel even more sore now." Then, I hear moans and groans. It turns out everything I've done over the past five years is nothing but a joke. I pull up my conversation with Colin Foster. "I agree to undergo secluded treatment deep in the mountains abroad."

My husband sponsored a poor female college student. While I was being dragged into an alley by a criminal, he was helping her pick out lingerie. While I was hospitalized with serious injuries, he used the money my mother left me to buy her a limited-edition handbag. I confronted him in a heated argument, but he accused me of being unreasonable. "I thought your injuries were so serious, but look—you didn’t even die! Besides, your money is my money. I’ll spend it however I want!"

My fiancé's first love was taking photos on a cliff before the landslide. To save her, he actually left me behind on the crumbling edge. I pleaded with him to save me. "Lucy isn't physically strong—she can't handle this alone. You've always been resilient. I'll get Lucy to safety first, then come back for you." Their silhouettes vanished over the ridge. After a brief commotion, everything went silent. Including me, with my freshly sprained ankle. When he saw the news of my death, he completely fell apart.

I find cigarette ashes on the passenger seat of my wife's car. She brushes me off, saying, "My new assistant left it there. He's not the most sensible." When I ask for a divorce, she stares at me in disbelief. "Just because of that?" "Yeah. Just because of that!"

The yacht I'm steering crashes into a huge wave, scaring my husband's junior, who has a heart condition. So, my husband orders someone to tie me up and dangle me in the ocean by a rope. He even tells the captain to head straight into the waves. "You know Wren has a heart condition, yet you still scared her! How can you be so evil?" I beg him to let me go and tell him that I was following a charted path; I didn't mean for anything to happen. However, he just mocks me. "You've been a yacht driver for so long. Haven't you experienced anything like this before? I'll make you go through what Wren did! Let's see whether you'll pull this again!" After a day and night of this torment, he relents and decides to pull me back up. It's too bad he doesn't know that the waves have already torn me to shreds.

Edward Sterling is playing in his university's freshman basketball tournament when my parents banish me abroad. My biological sister and my fiancée are both on the sidelines, cheering for him. That spotlight should've been mine. The jersey he's wearing, with a star player's autograph on it, was supposed to be my 14th birthday gift. Edward and I have been rivals for most of our lives. It never matters whether I'm right or wrong—the moment he plays the victim, my parents rush to defend him and scold me without hesitation. But I am their biological son! It's not until I die alone and sick in a foreign country that I finally understand one thing. If I ever get a second chance, I'll never again fight Edward for love that was never mine to begin with.