Scumbag Meaning

In the third year of our marriage, Adrian Jones made me play a game of truth or dare—and when I lost, he told me to take the place of a nightclub hostess and perform a striptease. "Macie's too timid," he said. "You dance for her." Laughter erupted around us. "Adrian's a real sport—letting us watch his wife put on a show!" "Liliana's got a body to die for. I'm burning up just looking at her." Drenched in humiliation, surrounded by crude stares and filth, I finally cracked. My voice shook. "Adrian… I want a divorce." Before I could say more, a glass of red wine hit me square in the face. Adrian scoffed, "The Shaw family's already bankrupt. Where exactly do you think you'll go without me?" However, this time, I meant it. I was done.

After two years abroad in seclusion as I recovered, I received a selfie from my daughter, Lila Ashford. She was sitting on a bike, dressed in a work uniform. "Mom, you’ll be home soon, right? I miss you so much." My heart softened as I thought about how my girl had grown up. She understood that she needed to start from the bottom and work her way up. I was about to praise her when I noticed her skin seemed tanner, and her fitted shirt was the same one I’d bought her three years ago. It was frayed and worn thin, yet she still hadn’t thrown it away. As a child of the wealthiest family, Lila shouldn’t have to live like this, not even for "life experience". I zoomed in on the picture again. Her shoes were falling apart, the front gaping wide open. The more I looked, the more uneasy I became. The next second, I stumbled across Serena Ashford, my adopted daughter’s posts on social media. She was showing off male models, luxury cars, and on her wrist, the global limited-edition diamond bracelet I had given Lila. What shocked me most was the car that appeared in nearly every photo, the very one I had gifted Lila for her college graduation. How the hell had it ended up with her instead?!

Nach meiner Wiedergeburt ließ ich die Hexe meine Gefährtenbindung zu Wyatt Galloway auslöschen. Mit einem Zauber, der die Gefährtenbindung übertragen konnte, verpflanzte ich diese Verbindung auf seine Adoptivschwester Jocelyn Latham. Von diesem Tag an würde er glauben, dass Jocelyn seine wahre Gefährtin sei. Noch bevor er etwas merkte, änderte ich den Namen auf der Einladung zur Gefährtenzeremonie. Das maßgeschneiderte, luxuriöse Kleid, das über ein halbes Jahr angefertigt worden war, überreichte ich Jocelyn mit beiden Händen. Wyatt und Jocelyn reisten in den Süden, um das Gebiet zu inspizieren. Im Namen des Alphas beanspruchte er den Platz der Rudels-Luna für Jocelyn und schrieb ihr ein Empfehlungsschreiben für die Emory-Universität in der Menschenwelt. Ich aber kehrte mich ab und begann mein Studium an der Harvard-Universität. In meinem früheren Leben hatten wir zwanzig Jahre zusammengelebt. Am Ende kniete er vor mir und flehte mich an, die Gefährtenmarkierung zu löschen, nur um nach dem Tod mit Jocelyn zusammen bestattet zu werden. Mit diesem neuen Leben werde ich nie wieder meine Zukunft für jemanden opfern. Dieses Mal werde ich an eine Spitzenuniversität gehen, mein eigener Stolz werden und mich nie wieder nach der Vergangenheit umschauen.

On the day I miscarried and suffered from haemorrhage, my husband posted a photo of a newborn’s tiny feet on his Instagram Story. The caption read: “Welcome, little angel. Daddy will always protect you.” With trembling hands, I called him. “The baby’s gone. Can you come to the hospital?” On the other end, I heard a baby crying, followed by the man’s impatient voice. “In that case, take good care of yourself. Louise just gave birth and needs someone to care for her. I can’t leave. “Besides, the dead shouldn’t compete with the living for affection. Got it?” He hung up right after. I broke down alone on the hospital bed, and when I finally wiped away my tears, I dialed the number of his sworn enemy, Levi Snow. “Marry me, and the entire Wright Corporation will be my dowry. All I want is for you to bring Finn Yeaton down. Do we have a deal?”

My boyfriend is a forensic doctor. I've been abducted and tied to a bomb—there's only ten minutes to detonation. The abductors force me to call my boyfriend, but all I get is a scolding. "What the hell do you want, Michelle? What are you playing at, using your life as an excuse just because you're jealous? "Vi's cat has already been stuck in a tree for three days. She loves it like it's her life! If you delay me from saving it, you'll be a murderer!" I hear a coquettish voice ring out on the other end of the line. "Thank you for this, Kev. You're amazing!" I recognize that voice—it belongs to my boyfriend's childhood friend. I text my boyfriend when the bomb is about to explode. "Farewell forever. I pray we won't meet each other again in another life."

I died on the day I was supposed to marry Ryan Wolfe. When I didn’t show up on time, he angrily married his childhood sweetheart, Lorelei Floyd, instead, and publicly announced, “Alexis Harding cheated before our wedding and called it off herself!” The rumors crushed my mother, and she died from a heart attack right then and there. But Ryan seemed to have forgotten that he, in a fit of rage to defend Lorelei, slashed my arm and locked me in a basement for ten whole days. I begged him and pleaded for mercy, but all I got was his cold reply. “You’ll stay here for a while, so you can fully understand the pain you caused Lorelei. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll rid you of your wicked thoughts.” When he found my corpse, ravaged by maggots, he lost his mind.

[Wanna do it?] I accidentally sent the message meant for my bestie to her brother, Gerald Cooper. Ten minutes later, I received his reply. [In the Maybach downstairs. Come down.] To my surprise, her brother was very well endowed too. That night, things got heated and we almost lost control. When we sobered up, he promised me that he would bear responsibility for his actions. He treated me well and doted on me, giving me anything I asked for. However, there was only one rule: I must never admit in public that I was his girlfriend. Five years later, he brought another woman home. With his arm wrapped around the woman, he told me that she was his girlfriend. I confronted him, asking, "If she's your girlfriend, then what would that make me? I waited five long years for you!" He chuckled indifferently and said something that chilled me to my bone. "Wait for me? Did I tell you to wait? Nyssa Bennett, don't ever fall in love with someone so desperately. It's terrifying." So it turned out that my love for him was nothing but trouble. From then on, I tried to live without him, let go of my feelings, and finally left him. But one week later, when I was exchanging my vows with another man, Gerald was standing there in the aisle, looking up at me with reddened eyes.

Someone pushes me off a cliff when I'm eight months pregnant before taking their life on the spot. Meanwhile, blood pools underneath me as I'm rushed to the hospital. As despair washes over me, I hear Jacob Langley's voice come from outside my hospital ward. "Are you sure it'll work this time?" "Yes, Mr. Langley. Mrs. Langley has taken good care of herself during her pregnancy, but the branch pierced her belly. There's no chance of the baby surviving this, and she won't ever be able to conceive again." "Good. Make sure the culprit's family has been sent away. I won't let anything go wrong before the Adkins agree to adopt Clara." "Yes, sir. Still… why did you need to push Mrs. Langley off a cliff if you wanted to adopt Ms. Jennings' daughter? Mrs. Langley is kind; I'm sure she would've treated the child well." Jacob snorts. "What do you know? Why would Selene agree to adopt Clara if she had her own child? She'll only treat Clara as her own once she can't have children and leave everything she has to Clara. I couldn't marry Kaia back then; this is all I can do to make it up to her." The voices slowly fade away, but they reverberate loud and clear in my mind. I've spent six years by Jacob's side, yet all I've gotten in return are lies and betrayal. His so-called love for me is nothing but a trick to steal my inheritance for someone else. Since this is what he wants, I'll make his wish come true.

On the very first day Jason and I made our relationship official, he insisted on handing over his salary for me to manage. He said marriage was only a matter of time and that he trusted his future wife to keep the money safe. On the day of our engagement, Jason demanded that I hand over the $960,000 in salary I had “kept” for him over the past four years. “Each month, I gave you $20,000. In four years, that’s $960,000. After expenses, there should be at least $800,000 left, right? I can’t bear to make my parents empty their savings for my marriage. We will use my savings for the wedding, $600,000 as the down payment for the new apartment, and the remaining $200,000 will be my wedding gift to you.” I froze. “But there isn’t a single dollar left!” Jason exploded. “You wasteful woman! You spent all the money?!” His mother also erupted. “So much money, and you squandered it all! What shameful acts have you been up to?! This marriage is off!” Jason demanded to see the accounts. I immediately pulled out the records in front of everyone. Seeing this, Jason’s mother panicked.

The day my son gained the lifetime achievement award in research, I died alone on the street. On stage, he thanked his father, a professor, and his biological mother, who had just returned from abroad. He even thanked the nanny at home. But he left me out, his foster mother who had raised him. My husband, Charles Zimmer, learned about my death. He immediately disassociated himself from me. “We’ve long separated. I’ve got nothing to do with her.” I had worked hard to give them a decent life, but they regarded me as a stain that they could never remove. When I opened my eyes again, I returned to the time of my life when my destiny changed. Holding the college admission letter, Charles smiled at me and said, “Yes, I’m divorced. But we can live in the city together if you marry me. I’ll let you discipline the kid if he makes any mistakes. I won’t complain about you.” During my previous life, he had me fooled by false promises. I naively thought that it would be easy to be a stepmother. I helped him care for his son and worked hard to support the family. In the end, they conspired with each other to drive me out and leave me penniless. It was because Charles’ ex-wife, who had abandoned them when he was poor, wanted to come home and remarry him. Since I had gained a second chance, I planned to dump such an ungrateful husband and son.