If I Stay Novel Novels & Stories

Right after the SAT results dropped, the admissions representatives from Blackridge University practically fought over me so fiercely it felt like they'd set the whole room on fire. They made an outrageous offer just to win me over, claiming that I could bring one friend along with full admission. As the clock reset, I chose no one this time around because I'd already lived through it once. In my last life, I didn't hesitate to pick my childhood best friend, Shawn Hooper. I gave him a ticket into a world he could never hope to reach without my help. And what did I get for it? A look of pure disgust. "You're pathetic," he sneered. "It's laughable that you'd dare use something like this to drive a wedge between Madison and me." Madison Cole was our class president. She was the golden girl and everyone's favorite girl. She couldn't handle losing both the guy she loved and the future she thought was hers. So, she jumped from the roof of a building. Shawn found her final message and lost his mind. He told me the class was having one last bonfire party just outside town. It was a lie. He took me there to torture me before leaving me to die. Our entire class covered for him. Every last one of them told the police I'd slipped near the ravine and fallen by accident. … A week after my death, my parents died in a supposed highway pileup. My soul never moved on, and that was how I discovered the truth—Shawn had orchestrated everything. When I reopened my eyes, I quickly realized I was back on the day when Blackridge University fought to recruit me. I wouldn't choose anyone this time. No, the only one I would choose was myself.

My fiancee, Isabelle Bailey, engages in a passionate kiss with her stage partner, Shawn Sanders, in a theater play. While the audience is wholly touched by the romance depicted by the main characters of the play, I know for a fact that the actual script doesn't feature the kissing scene at all. Guilt flickers across Isabelle's face at my confrontation. But she argues, "We were just acting! Are you saying that I can't act out romance scenes anymore?" I no longer demand answers from Isabelle like a hysterical fool. Instead, I give the roses that are cultivated from a new breed to the background actors. After leaving the afterparty, I call my mentor, Patrick White. "Professor, I'm willing to travel to the northwest to plant roses there."

As human fertility rates kept falling, the government created a matching system between humans and beasts. That was how I became engaged to the Blackwood brothers—two wolf beasts who never wanted me. For a year, I made coffee for both of them every morning.The older brother, Adrian, kept his distance, but he always took the mug and thanked me quietly. The younger one, Kieran, was all temper and sharp teeth. He snapped at me, broke the mug, and acted like I was a nuisance. I told myself this was fair. If I treated them the same, maybe one day this arranged bond would feel like home. Then my best friend saw it and asked, “Have you ever thought that treating them equally might be unfair to the one who’s actually kind to you?” I thought about that all day. Then one morning, I walked out of the kitchen carrying only one cup.

This isn't your typical Cinderella or damsel in distress tale. Briella served as the CEO of Star Airlines. Beautiful, successful, and badass. Despite her wealth, her parents never loved her as much as they did Sage, her step-sister. Sage wasn't particularly bright. She spent her parents' money and manipulated them to get what she wanted, but she was still the most loved. Sage was engaged to be married to a business tycoon with operations all over the world. A day before the wedding, she changed her mind. Why? She didn't want to marry him because she had found someone better. Briella had to step in and be the bride because their parents and Kendrick's parents refused to cancel the wedding. Was she willing to spend her life with someone she'd never met? When Kendrick's wife loses her memories of him, the tables are turned. Will his efforts be fruitful?

The night before my wedding, my mom got into a car accident—she needed a blood transfusion, fast. Her blood type was rare. Mine matched. I was pregnant, but I didn't think twice. I donated. While I was bleeding out, losing my baby, my fiancé, Joffrey Habsburg, and his brother—my so-called childhood friend—Mateo, were busy holding Nancy's hand during her cosmetic surgery. I begged Joffrey to save my mom. Only then did he bother to pick up a scalpel. When it was over, he said, "Surgery failed. She's gone." Two days later, I overheard Nancy purring through the door, wrapped around the Habsburg brothers. "Mateo really is a racer—he hit that old hag dead on. And Joffrey? You were amazing too, making sure she didn't survive the surgery. Thanks to you both, I got Lori's blood for my operation."

At the dinner celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary, I held the pregnancy test report in my pocket, planning to surprise my CEO husband. However, the moment the doors opened, I froze. A stunning woman stood there with her arm intimately linked through my husband's. She clung to Charles Lawrence with the ease and confidence of someone who clearly belonged at his side, carrying herself like the lady of the house. Neither Charles nor the guests found it strange. If anything, they seemed entertained. Someone even joked, "Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Cooper aren't just ideal partners at work. Their chemistry is something to admire as well. I've personally reserved the presidential suite at Jubilee City's finest resort for Mr. Lawrence tonight. You can be sure no one will disturb you." Fiona blushed and slipped shyly into Charles's arms. He lowered his head and kissed her hard. They fit together so naturally, so intimately, that the sight was unbearably glaring. My thoughts flashed back to the night before, when Charles had pressed me into the bed. In that moment, I had caught sight of a strange message sent by someone named Fiona: [Everyone in the company thinks we've slept together.] Charles had explained that Fiona was only his assistant, a forty-year-old woman, and that the message was nothing more than a punishment from a lost game, a foolish dare. That explanation had dissolved my suspicion and anger. Then, I finally saw the truth. I was the one who had lost everything. Inside my pocket, the pregnancy report was crushed into a tight ball. I forced the tears back, stepped away, and opened the invitation from the National Aerospace Research Institute on my phone. Without hesitation, I tapped Accept. Three days later, I would vanish completely from Charles's world.

At the class reunion, Grace Sullivan grabs me and tears into me with vicious lies. "She's an exiled Rogue who slept her way to the top with the director, Damian Pierce! My father's bed at the clinic? She spread her legs for it!" She slaps me across the face, rallying others to join the beating. Finally, she stomps down hard on my hand, the one gripping the scalpel, crushing the bones. Ethan Carter just stands there watching, cold and unmoved. He doesn't lift a finger to stop her. The pain sends tremors through my entire body, but I scream right back at her. "You're just jealous that I'm the better healer, that Ethan chose me over you, so you made up filthy lies to destroy me! "I'm a healer. Right now, your father is dying, and I'm the one who can save him. You want to stop me? Then get ready to plan his funeral." That's when my father, Damian, storms in and roars the truth for everyone to hear. "She's my daughter! Everything she has, she earned!" With my shattered hand, I push through the pain and charge into the operating room anyway. I'm not just saving a life tonight. I'm making sure the liar and the traitor both pay the price they deserve.

The three of us got dragged into a horror game. My handsome CEO husband, Adrian Chase, tore through dungeon after dungeon and shot straight into the top four on the player leaderboard. Then we entered an SSS-level dungeon, and he and our son decided I was deadweight. They left me behind in a monster-filled zone. The chat instantly blew up: [Adrian Chase is so hot! He should've dumped that deadweight forever ago!] [Theo's only ten and already this strong? Total mini-Adrian.] [Adrian and the number two player, Mollie, are perfect together. I ship them so hard!] I was crouched in a pool of blood, zoning out, when a shadow dropped over me. The stream chat lost it: [Holy crap! That's the SSS-level BOSS!] [Did she freeze up?! Run!] I looked back— The boss who had the entire server terrified dropped to one knee without hesitation, silver hair spilling across my lap. "Master, you haven't spent time with me in three days..." I shoved his stupidly handsome face away. "Not now. I'm busy." Viewer chat: [Wait, WHAT did we just hear?!]

After the doctor confirmed her pregnancy, the first thing Eliza Lockett did was ask her lawyer to draft a divorce agreement. "Ms. Lockett, once both parties sign, the marriage will automatically dissolve after the 30-day cooling-off period." Eliza's expression did not change. "Can I sign his name for him?" The lawyer hesitated, then quickly shook his head. "No. He must appear in person." "He agrees to the divorce," she said evenly. "He's just busy with work and can't come. If you don't believe me, I'll call him now and let you hear it yourself." She took out her phone and dialed Alban Sidham. "Alban, there's something I need to talk to you about—" He cut her off before she could finish. His voice was cold and edged with impatience. "Didn't I tell you to handle your own affairs? I don't have time for your trivial matters."

When Joy Staton, my adoptive sister, fainted in the freezer on her birthday, William Staton, my brother, checked on the security footage in rage. The moment he saw that I was the one who took Joy into the freezer, he kicked me inside without hesitation. Before shutting the door, he stared at me in disgust. “You’ve been pushing your luck a lot these days, huh? If I’d been a second too late, Joy would’ve died!” I wanted to defend myself, but William refused to listen and slammed the door shut. I heard him talking to the bodyguards outside. “If she doesn’t apologize, don’t let her out!” But he did not know that Joy had set the freezer to –58 °F. I did not even have the strength to complain about the freezer being cold. William did not know that the sister he once loved dearly had stopped breathing in the freezer. He had killed his only blood relative left in the world.