Mature Cheating

Past thirty, my usually serious husband suddenly developed a fascination with pink. The dark-colored furniture that had stayed the same for ten years was replaced with pink; even the utensils he picked up casually were pink. I stared at the line of pink pajamas, pink bow ties, and pink underwear hanging out to dry on the balcony, feeling something was off. "I thought you said you hated pink—that it was a color only women liked?" He was unpacking a new pink bed set and didn't even look up. "Oh, Jack and I made a bet. If I can replace everything in the house with pink, he'll give me his seaside villa for free. Honestly, after looking at it for a while, pink isn't that bad, don't you think?" I neither agreed nor disagreed. Instead, I called Jack, who blurted out, "What seaside villa? I don't remember ever buying one!"

Jim Charleston is my foster brother. He and I have been dating in secret for 10 years. On the day we decide to go public, Jim receives an undercover mission assignment to Duskhaven, where he has slim chances of returning alive. The night before he left, he held me and promised, "If I come back alive, I will marry you in a grand wedding. I'll stay by your side forever." Foolishly, I broke ties with my family and waited for him. I became the laughingstock of the entire high society circle. Three years later, Jim returns but with a ruined reputation and enormous debts. Kneeling like a broken man before our father, he firmly declares, "I promised Anne I would take care of her for life, Dad!" The woman named Anne hid timidly behind Jim, clutching her pregnant belly tightly. Dad turns to me instinctively. Everyone is waiting for me to lose my mind and cause a scene. However, I just smile. Right then and there, I accept the engagement ring from the good-for-nothing playboy. On the day of my engagement party, Jim drives in recklessly. With a gun in his hand, he shouts, "Cecilia Forrest! If you dare go through with this marriage, I'll kill him!"

On the third day after my death, my body was sent to the police station in different packages. Jonathan Walsh, my husband, and Frank Stone, my junior at work, saw my corpse and frowned. “If only Elena were here, she would have been able to find some clues.” Frank sighed as he stared at my horribly mangled remains. “Don’t mention her. She’s not even worthy of being a forensic scientist!” I stared at my husband with a conflicted look. He analyzed each part of my body and deduced the manner of my death with familiar ease. “The murderer is a monster…” Frank’s face turned pale, and he sighed again. Jonathan calmly used all that I had taught him and perfectly pieced out the entire process of my death based on the clues from my dismembered body. I could not help but feel proud. Unfortunately, he was still a little off the mark. He did not manage to figure out that this body belonged to me, his wife.

On the day of my wedding anniversary, I was cleaning my house when I found a picture album. As it turned out, my husband had been religiously taking pictures with the girl of his dreams every year on this precise date. He had been doing it since he was forty years old and he was now sixty years old. His hair had progressed from a jet black to a faded white and yet, he kept up the tradition. There was a written message in his handwriting at the back of the picture that read, “Eternal Love.” Since he doesn't love me, I will no longer bother washing his clothes and cooking for him. I will no longer care for his children and grandchildren. I may have foolishly wasted half of my life, but it was not too late to make a change.

I die in the corridor of the private hospital my husband established after being forced to give my heart to his true love. Before my death, my six-year-old son tearfully begs him to save me thrice. The first time, he holds my husband's hand and says I'm coughing up blood. My husband sneers. "Looks like she's learned tricks—she knows how to teach children to lie now." Then, he has his bodyguards kick my son out of the ward. The second time, my son grabs his sleeve and says I'm in so much pain that I'm incoherent. My husband frowns. "It's just a heart transplant. The doctor said she won't die." The bodyguards step forward and drag my son out of the ward again. The third time, my son grovels at my husband's feet and grabs his pants, sobbing and saying that I'm already unconscious. My husband is infuriated. He grabs my son by the neck and throws him out of the ward. "I told you Nadia won't die! I'll throw her and you out of the hospital if you come here and disturb Ruby's rest again!" My son gives his most previous item—a guardian angel pendant—to a nurse to save me. The nurse accepts it and arranges for me to be admitted to the last available ward in the hospital. However, Ruby Sharpe has someone stand before it with her pet dog. She says, "Sorry, kiddo. Your father's worried I'll be bored without my dog, so this ward has been set aside for my dog to stay in."

My husband, Jonathan Rivers, was a notorious playboy in Polesburg's elite circles. Beautiful women surrounded him constantly, yet he claimed to have fallen for me at first sight, saying it was a love that would last forever. He dismissed all the other women around him for my sake. Everyone said I was his destined soulmate. Seven years into our marriage, I had seven abortions for him, simply because he said he did not like children. Then on Father's Day, I saw him on his secretary's social media feed. The same man who claimed to be away on business was there with a child beside him, calling him "Daddy" loudly. It turned out that when he said he did not like children, he meant that he did not like children with me. I dialed his number through tears. "Do you want another wife?"

For five years, I was married to Angelo Harmon, who treated me like a queen, earning the envy of everyone around us. But my dream life ended when I discovered he had a second home with a younger woman. When I confronted him, he brushed it off. "It's just a fling for excitement. You’re still my wife. What's the problem?" His callousness repulsed me, pushing me to terminate my pregnancy and walk away.

I'm rejected after asking for my boyfriend's hand in marriage for the 99th time. To my devastation, he turns and proposes to my best friend. I storm over to his office to demand an answer, but I hear them making out. My boyfriend says, "Don't worry. She offered herself to me in bed several times, but I've never touched her." I head home and trash the place. When I run out of strength, I make a call. "I'll marry you, Spencer." Since the man I chose doesn't love me, I'll now go for someone who does.

During the five years that Sophie Lord was married, she had been continuously doing IVFs and was finally able to become pregnant with Luke Shaw’s child. That same day, she saw Luke at the hospital with his secretary, Helen Jones. He was accompanying her for a pregnancy test. Sophie was devastated and asked Luke to choose between her and the child in Helen’s womb. “Let’s not make a fuss, Sophie. I’ll explain everything to you when I get back. You need to calm down first. I’m keeping this child no matter what.” He carefully supported Helen as they left, but what he didn’t see was the blood trickling down Sophie’s legs. Later on, when Sophie disappeared from Luke’s life, the latter brought down completely.

I waited for my boyfriend for three hours at his birthday party. Sean Ziegler was supposed to show up dressed as the star of night. However, his secret lover, Josie Sullivan, called him to the hospital. She had pretended to sprain her ankle. There, she recorded a video of her and Sean kissing. In the heat of the moment, Sean stood up and pushed her against the door. But he was supposed to be paralyzed. “Sean, why haven’t you told Wendy that your legs are fine now?” “If she knows, she’ll pressure me to marry her. Seriously, who does she think she is? Wendy’s just a free maid. She’s not good enough to be my wife,” Sean said in a muffled voice. After that, he continued to kiss Josie intensely. Wearing the wedding dress I had designed, Josie looked provocatively into the camera. The video then ended with the sounds of them kissing. It turned out that Sean had been lying to me all along. I threw the cake that I made for him into the trash. Then, I texted my mom. [Mom, I’ll go on that blind date.]