Realism Novels & Stories

My father suffered a heart attack and collapsed. Emergency treatment required the installation of a cardiac stent. I asked my husband to approve an expense of 10 thousand dollars for the surgery. Cameron Lister, the CEO, refused coldly, "The company and family accounts have been frozen recently because of a major project. Your father has medical insurance, so just use a cost-effective domestic stent for now." He was the sole administrator of all the bank cards in my family. His reply made me sorrowfully realize something. Even though I was a genius architectural designer with an annual income of 600 thousand dollars, I was still not worthy of choosing a better life-saving device for my own father. It was a Twitter post forwarded by a colleague, freshly and gleefully posted by the company intern Wendy. [Cameron is so nice. I just said I liked painting, and he gave me a million dollars to organize an art exhibition. I love him so much!] I looked at my father lying on an extra bed in the hospital corridor, groaning in pain, and then looked at the photo of them sweetly embracing each other. I finally understood that Cameron had perhaps never truly loved me. He had only treated me as a stepping stone for his soaring career, and as a tool for him to exploit without limits. 'If this is what you want, Cameron, then don't blame me for being ruthless,' I said inwardly.

In my previous life, the person I trusted most—my own sister—betrayed me. When her lover's financial fraud was exposed, she pushed all the blame onto me. Overnight, I became the villain everyone despised. Even my father abandoned me. "We don't have a son who would destroy the company like this!" With my reputation ruined and my future destroyed, I chose to end my life on a cold, rainy night. However, fate gave me a second chance. When I wakes up, I finds myself back on the eve of the project that started it all. This time, I refuses to let anyone control my destiny. Sitting in the office, staring at the glowing computer screen, I ignores the mocking laughter of my coworkers—and sends out my resignation letter. If the world once turned me into a scapegoat… Then in this life, I'll take control of the game itself.

The day I announced I was quitting writing, the entire internet celebrated. Everyone except my girlfriend's rumored boyfriend, the famous mystery author, Bryan Vega. In a short video, he looked genuinely regretful. "This is all a misunderstanding. I’ve always admired Kobi’s work, and I hope he’ll come back for the sake of his readers." I turned off my phone and ignored him completely. In my previous life, the web novel I wrote was identical to the mystery novel he published. People online called me a plagiarist and wished death on my whole family. I tried to defend myself, posting my drafts, outlines, and timestamps. Yet, it didn't matter. The last edit timestamp on his document was ten minutes earlier than mine. Just those ten minutes destroyed me. The messages never stopped. Strangers flooded my inbox with insults. Some even showed up at my house and threw paint on the walls. Years of nonstop harassment dragged me into depression. My parents tried to clear my name, but obsessed fans hunted them down and murdered them using methods copied straight from his novel. In the end, on the very day his book won a major award, I sealed my windows and burned charcoal, ending my life. And then, I opened my eyes again. I had returned to the day my new book was supposed to be released.

Three days after my father’s death, I was home, planning his funeral. A woman and a group of bodyguards stormed in. She shoved me, hard. "Who the hell do you think you are?" she screamed. "Get out of my house! Now!" I froze, stunned. A new housekeeper? Maybe my brother Liam hired her. I kept my voice calm. "This house is mine. Liam knows that. If you have a problem, take it up with him." Her face twisted into a mask of rage. Then she slapped me. "Yours?" She scoffed, looking me up and down with disgust. "This is my boyfriend Liam's house. And you look like you don't belong here. I don't know if you're the new maid or the cook, but I don't care. Get the hell out. Now." My blood ran cold. I pulled out my phone and texted my assistant. [Tell Liam to get home and handle his girlfriend. Now. Or he won't see a dime of the family money.]

After guarding the nation's border for ten years, I return home only to see my younger sister, Piper Wright, being trampled under someone’s foot. "Where did this country bumpkin come from? How dare you show up at a place like this?" The man in a suit throws an invitation in her face. "Take a look at yourself. What do you think you are? My sister is Velda Mercer, the top socialite of Hyporion. If you offend me, I will have your whole family thrown into the river!" I smash his nose with a single punch. I help Piper to her feet and dial Velda's number. "Velda Mercer, if it were not for me back then, you would still be begging for food. How dare you bully my sister?"

Ever since I decide to repeat my senior year due to me not doing well in my SATs, Mom views me as the biggest pain in her ass. After all, I have the potential to get into a prestigious university, and yet my grades are only good enough for me to land a spot in a regular university. To her, it's extremely humiliating. Mom often looks at me with red-rimmed eyes. "Natalie Jones, after your father cheated on me, I raised you all by myself. If you don't succeed in life, you're basically forcing me to die." She did what she said. If I don't get a perfect score in Math, Mom won't hesitate to jump into a river. If I don't emerge as the top student of the year, she will slit her wrist. I'm worried that Mom might commit more outrageous antics, so I explain to her tentatively, "The truth is, I'm sick…" Without even bothering to look at me, Mom continues speaking to me coldly. "You'd rather curse yourself than study. "I've enrolled you into a prep academy so that you can learn how to be a perfect daughter, not the filthy liar you're being right now." I can only clutch the report that states I have late-stage brain cancer in my hand. Later on, I use the remaining seven days in my life on attending the course that will apparently teach me how to become Mom's perfect daughter.

When I came home for break, my mom, Evonne Ziegler, took me to the grocery store to buy ingredients for a big Thanksgiving dinner. As soon as we got there, she asked me what I wanted to eat. I picked up a pack of salmon and dropped it into the cart, but she immediately took it back out. "Salmon has radiation contamination now. You can't eat that." I glanced at the rotisserie chicken instead, but I was still turned down. "Chicken is full of growth hormones. They grow them in a week now. You'll get sick eating that." Apparently, everything was off-limits, so I lost interest and stopped talking. I figured I'd just let her buy whatever she wanted. But that upset her too. "I specifically brought you to the store. If you want something, just say it. Now you're just being silent. How am I supposed to know what you like?" Not wanting to ruin the mood, I casually pointed at some peaches nearby. "I like peaches. Let's get some." "We already have peaches at home. Don't buy any. You won't even eat them." On the drive back, Mom suddenly sighed. "You're so hard to please. We basically came out here for nothing." The moment I heard that, I suddenly thought this whole thing was pointless.

When I prepared to marry my boyfriend, his mother gifted us a brand-new house. But to my surprise, my future sister-in-law—who'd married into the family ten years before me—just up and moved into my new home. She stood there like she owned the place and announced, "Why should you get the new house? Both our husbands are sons of this family. How can they play favorites like this?" The truth is, when she got married, my future in-laws had given them a house of equal value too. It's just that ten years had passed, and their once-new home had simply grown old. My future mother-in-law just wiped her tears, clearly torn, but she didn't say a word. So I smiled and agreed to switch houses with my future sister-in-law. But she didn't stop there. "I've taken care of Mom for ten years," she said. "I spend no less than five thousand dollars on her every year. That's fifty thousand over ten years. You two should split that cost with us—just give me twenty-five thousand." The truth was, my future mother-in-law had spent those ten years helping them raise their kid, even draining her own pension into their household. I turned to look at her. Still, she said nothing. What they didn't know was that James Carter and I hadn't even filed our marriage license yet. They'd shown their true colors way too soon. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't setting one foot into that family anymore. And I swore that I'd turn their whole house upside down.

During a public lecture on derivatives, I hurl my water bottle hard at the blackboard. Under the stunned gazes of the professor and my classmates, I stand up and say, "Seriously? Is there a need to explain a problem this simple? Move on to the next one. How did you bunch of idiots get into the accelerated program? How are you even worthy of sitting in the same classroom as me?" I turn my head and see my mother, who is standing outside the classroom to accompany me as I attend the lecture. She has a pleased and approving look on her face. A reporter sitting in the back quickly points the camera at me. I smile and call out toward the door, "Mom, I need to pee. Come take me to the restroom."

The hotel calls me on the phone and tactfully reminds me that since I've forgotten to pay for the condoms I've used last night, they've deducted the sum from my VIP card. I'm a little perplexed, to say the least. Last night, I've taken on an overnight shift till late night, so I've never been to the hotel. So, I question my wife, Nyla Burdette, who's the only one that knows about my VIP card number. She just looks at me in confusion. "Honey, it costs over a thousand dollars to spend a night in that hotel! Why would I stay there, to begin with? There must be something wrong with the hotel's system!" I no longer waste my breath on Nyla. My oldest uncle, Eric Fuller, is the investor of that particular hotel, so I call him right away. "Uncle Eric, help me investigate who Nyla has taken to the hotel last night! I want to catch them in the act!"