Puisi Untuk Bias Novels & Stories

On the third day of my business trip out of state, someone new joined the group chat formed for my son's class. It had been quiet for weeks when she suddenly sent a voice message. I tapped it, and an unfamiliar woman's voice played through my phone. "Hello, everyone. I'm the new language teacher at the school, and I'm also Tony Gardner's mother. Looking forward to getting to know you all!" My whole body went cold. I opened the group member list and checked it over and over. My son's name was Tony Gardner, and she said she was Tony Gardner's mother. Then, who the hell was I? I immediately called my husband. "Did someone get added to the parent group by mistake?" He paused on the other end before he laughed it off like it was nothing. "Oh, probably just a mix-up. The school has so many kids. It's not unusual for kids to have the same names. What's the matter? Did something happen?" I kept my voice light and told him everything was fine. The second I hung up, I booked the next flight home and headed straight to my son's school.

On the day my daughter is discharged from the hospital after recovering from the flu, I run into my ex-husband, Zachary Levine, whom I have been divorced from for seven years. He is there to pick up his wife, who has just given birth. He looks a little surprised as his gaze moves up and down to take in my clothes, which is still stained from my child's vomit. I had no time to change out of it earlier. "Long time no see. How have you been lately?" he asks. I smile and say I am doing fine. As we are about to part, he grabs my arm. "Alyssa, our son misses you a lot. If you are having any difficulties, don't push yourself. The passcode for the house in the north of the city is still your birthday. You can go there anytime." I politely decline, and he lets out a sigh. "After all these years, you are still as stubborn as you were back then. Don't hate me." I smile but say nothing. There needs to be love for there to be hate. But now, he is just a stranger to me.

"She's only eight years old, and she's already spreading rumors about her sister!" "She even stole our neighbor's emergency money!" "Worst of all, she conspired with human traffickers to sell her own brother!" In the underworld courtroom, Mom and Dad rushed to accuse me of my "crimes," talking over each other in a frenzy. They thought this was just a dream, and in the middle of it all, they did not forget to warn my sister and brother standing nearby. "You two better watch carefully. This is what happens to disobedient kids after they die!" I instantly understood. As the middle child, I had once again become the "example," the one sacrificed in their lesson. 'Mom... Dad... this isn't a dream. You locked me in the freezer, then took Grace and Tommy on vacation. I was locked in there for three days. I was so cold, my whole body frozen stiff...'

Three days before the wedding, I was cleaning out some old boxes when I remembered the time capsule Natasha Rowe and I buried ten years ago. When I mentioned it, her face stiffened for a moment. She quickly tried to talk me out of going. "It's been so long," she said. "Someone probably dug it up already." I didn't think much of it and went back to our old high school alone. At the spot where we buried it, I started digging. Instead of one box, I pulled out five metal containers of different sizes. Two of them were the ones Natasha and I buried ten years ago, their surfaces rusted and worn. But there were three others. One of them was just as rusted as ours. The other two looked almost brand new. The old extra box had a name scratched into the lid. Vince Houle. On it were the words, [My secret crush was a war I fought alone. Natasha, I hope you're happy.] I remembered him then. He had been a quiet guy who sat behind us in class. The kind of student no one really noticed. The two newer boxes had names carved into them, too. Natasha and Vince. The date etched into both of them was today. On Natasha's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I couldn't marry you.] On Vince's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I can't openly congratulate you on getting married.]

After I get reborn, I've orchestrated every missed moment with my biological parents. When they want to take my adopted sister, Simone Graham, to take a family portrait, I'll take cold showers so that I can catch a fever. When they decide to book a cruise ship overseas in order to celebrate Simone's birthday, I join a classified project, which stops me from leaving the country. When they start a company for Simone, I quickly apply to get dispatched to South City, which is 600 miles away from my hometown. I also make sure to declare that I will never fight with Simone over anything in life. In my previous lifetime, Simone and I had been fighting over our parents' affection for decades. But all I got were comments on how manipulative and cunning I was. Everyone preferred Simone, who was pure and innocent, while showing disdain toward me, who was a woman of little words. Even my own husband and child couldn't understand my pain at all. "We're all family here, aren't we? Can't you just stop your dramatics for a few days? Whenever I come home, you always start a fight and cause unrest among everyone! You really should reflect on your own actions!" Just like that, I died on my sickbed all alone. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I get accepted back into my family. This time, I'm not going to fight anymore. I'm going to live for myself instead.

My mother had a rare disease. After months of dead ends, I found one person in the country who could treat her. She told me there was a price. She said she needed a husband. I agreed. For my mother, I agreed. For six years I was her ATM. I bought her the bags. I bought her the watches. It got worse. She used my money to keep a kept man. She brought him into our bed. The day my mother had her last surgery, she walked out of the operating room halfway through to go celebrate her lover's birthday. The moment they pronounced my mother dead, I decided there and then, she was paying for that with her life.

Five years into my quest to conquer the male lead, Patrick Suede forgot my birthday once again. Instead, the villainess texted me, “So what if it’s your birthday? He came crawling to me at the snap of my fingers. For once, I didn’t take the System’s suggestion to break down. I replied, “Thank you. You’re the only one who remembered my birthday today.” The response back was a big question mark. My phone kept going off with notifications. “Seriously. Were you meant to send that to someone else? “Are you for real? That’s kind of sad. “What do you want for your birthday? “Forget it. I’m coming over. Since you can’t eat mangoes, I’ll get you a strawberry cake. “Honestly, you’re a handful.” … When my doorbell rang, I grinned at the System. “The mission is to romance the main character of this world. You never said it had to be a guy.”

In my past life, my mother had adopted me out to my aunt, but kept my older sister close to her. I followed my aunt into the world of business and became a success that everyone envied. My sister, consumed by jealousy over my life, seduced my husband. To claim my fortune, she even schemed to burn down my villa. But she hadn't counted on the fire spreading too fast—we both perished in the blaze. Reborn, I now had a second chance. And of course, my sister was the first to step forward, claiming she should be my aunt's daughter. I smiled. Things were panning out just as I'd hoped.

Three years after our divorce, I ran into Cole Allen again on the streets of Atlantica. I was there as a volunteer, handing out boxes of cold medicine, and he had become a homeless man, struggling to survive. It was ironic because our divorce had all started because of a box of cold medicine. “Two times a day. Two pills each time.” I handed the medicine to him, my tone calm, like I was speaking to a stranger. However, Cole’s eyes slowly turned red. “Sadie, you still hate me.” I didn’t look up. I kept passing out boxes of medicine to the people in line. “This box of medicine only costs one dollar. It’s very cheap, yet you forced me to sell my blood for money. Cole, how could I not hate you for that?”

To protect the assistant who had been evading taxes, she deliberately gave false testimony in her role as my superior's wife, putting all the blame on me. I protested endlessly, but the law held me accountable. I was imprisoned for two months. Upon release, my colleagues turned against me, ostracizing me and destroying my promotion chances. Seeing that I neither cried nor caused a scene, my wife assumed that I had finally submitted. She even threatened to make amends with a lavish wedding for me. However, during the wedding vows, the assistant, suddenly overtaken by jealousy, ran to the company rooftop and threatened my wife with suicide to force her to cancel the wedding. My wife, who had always been obedient to him, panicked. She abandoned everyone at the ceremony and spent the entire night comforting her assistant. Afterwards, she calmly explained: "Wilson is young and impulsive. I was just afraid he might get hurt. Besides, you were released from prison so early thanks to him. He helped a lot. By right, he's still your lifesaver. I couldn't just abandon him." I looked at the couple rings she had just put on her finger, let out a faint hum, and said nothing. She believed I accepted her excuse and was pleased, even making an unprecedented promise: once she had calmed the assistant, she would take me on a honeymoon. However, she seemed to have forgotten one thing. She had already signed the divorce papers, and I had filed a lawsuit in court to have the case heard. From that moment on, we were no longer husband and wife. We were only plaintiff and defendant.