I Chose Novels & Stories

“Because I chose you.” My breath hitched, the words sinking into me like venom. “For what?” I roared, my voice ricocheting through the endless void. “What the fuck did you choose me for?!”

After saving money with Justin Pierre for five years, we finally went to view a house. My best friend, Maria Houston, came along too. "The master bedroom needs a walk-in closet. Can we knock down this wall?" she asked Justin while pointing at the floor plan I had been looking at for the past six months. "I'll get a designer to take a look tomorrow. You can change it however you want." The two of them discussed everything, from the direction the apartment faced to the tiles, from the floor-to-ceiling windows to the bathtub. Meanwhile, I stood in the corner, unable to get a word in. When it was time to sign the papers, he seemed to suddenly remember I was here and said, "We'll put this pla

Nivia POV. "What?" Mateo and Justin both blinked, looking surprised. "What did you just say?" Justin asked. "I choose none," I repeated, the words leaving my lips in a rush. Shocked gasps echoed around the crowd. I was torn and at a loss on who to choose, so I decided to plead the fifth. To remove myself from this complex situation. It was the safest choice. How could I betray my friend, the only one who has always stood by me, and choose another?

I looked at each of them: at Ronan, whose gaze was a desperate, burning lock on mine; at Finn, who leaned forward slightly; at Bastien, who just watched, steady as a mountain. I took a deep breath, the words feeling both like a betrayal and the first true, free choice I’d ever made. “I choose Bastien.”

she said firmly. “Choose.” That word. Choose. Not command. Not override. Not submission. Choice. Something inside me cracked open. And I saw it. Both versions of me. One created. One original. And in between… Me. Now. Here. With her. I exhaled slowly. And for the first time since the pulses started…. I didn’t fight it. “I choose here,” I said. Silence. The pressure inside me paused. Not gone. But listening. Zara didn’t move.

But after marrying Tyler, this was what I got? I lifted my gaze, straight to the hidden camera tucked away in the corner of the room. "Tyler, don't regret this."

She asked, beaming with pride. “I have to put it on sooner or later, right?” I giggled. “Did you decide on which of the undergarments you would wear underneath?” She quizzed me. “Yes, I picked the brown with pink ribbon.” I chose the ugliest pair to shove my disdain down Ahiga’s throat. “Not the black with red lace?” She eyed me. I rolled my eyes. “Mommmm….” “Alright, alright. Come here, let me get you dressed.”

Their heads swiveled toward my shadowed corner in unison. I held up my phone, the screen glowing. For three years in this city, I had stayed in the background, in the closed-off corners. This was the first time I walked from the shadows into their direct line of sight. Even if this ‘audience’ was only Leon and Liana, it was enough. “Elara?!” “How are you here?” Liana released Selene and charged toward me like a feral she-wolf.

"With you. If you want. If you choose. Again. Knowing everything you know." Grayson looked at her. The doubt and the wanting, the inheritance and the possibility, the test she'd proposed and he was grading. "I choose," he said. "Again. Not because I'm certain. Not because I've escaped my father or my fear or the framework he documented. But because—" He stopped, smiled, the crooked version that reached his eyes. "Because you saw me. Because you stayed. Because the ice is melting and we're still here, wet and uncertain and—"

must not believe that I would finish the selection. Even I don’t believe that I would but there are too many people involved and I don’t want to let them down. I made promises and I am a man of my words. I don’t know if I am happy but let’s just say I feel content because everybody is happy and excited for this selection. The one person I wish would show more enthusiasm is Jessica. She has not said anything against the selection but she doesn’t seem happy either. When I imagined my engagement, I imagined her to be the most enthusiastic and happy person but I guess I was wrong and that doesn’t sit well with me. What is the point of making other people happy if the most important person in y