Scumbag

Kaden Zacarias and I have been together for a decade. He gives me all his love throughout that time. But one day, I see the news of him marrying Gwendolyn Crawford as part of a marriage alliance. He tells his friends, "I'm only fooling around with Ella—does she think I'll actually marry her? It's not like my parents will ever agree to it. I can just keep her around as a mistress after getting married. Remember to keep your mouths shut about this." Our decade-long love goes up in flames, but I don't question him. Instead, I call my father with a withered heart and say, "I'll go through with the marriage alliance. I'll leave the country."

The day after my fiancé abandoned me at our wedding, I boarded a plane to another city - Silverbrook Haven. He comforted his “girlfriend”, saying, "Sarah's been spoiled since childhood. She'll calm down and come back in a few days. You don't need to feel guilty." My friends were all worried I'd keep obsessing over Henry and cause another huge scene. But what they didn't know was that I had already accepted someone else's proposal. This trip to Silverbrook Haven was to get married. As the wedding day approached, I sent back everything Henry had given me over the years, without missing a single item. Including that engagement necklace I once treasured like a precious jewel. This is our final goodbye - what's done cannot be undone.

My husband is the perfect doctor… or so everyone thinks. However, he delays the critical treatment of an accident patient so he can accompany his first love's son. Later, he even secretly switches out a patient's medication and watches as she dies from the pain. That way, he can take her heart and perform a heart transplant for his first love's son. What he doesn't know is that the patient whose heart he's taken is his daughter's. She's disfigured in an accident after her treatment is delayed. He calls her family's phone number, hoping they'll agree to donate her body to contribute to the medical field. That's when he hears my phone ring.

After I studied and lived in Descensio for five years, I finally graduated and was ready to return to my home country to take over my dad's company. When I arrived at the Sullivan Group building, I took a picture and posted it on my Instagram story with the caption. 'Since you're the man I love most, I'm here to see you immediately after graduation.' Yet, a woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped me as soon as I arrived at the company's lobby. "It's her! She's the hussy! She had seduced my husband back in high school. Now that my husband has become the director, she shamelessly showed up here to flirt with him. So, I want you girls to beat her up. I'll take the blame if anything happens." While the woman was cooking up a story about me seducing Marcus Lane, a director of Sullivan Group, others around simply looked on coldly and judged me. She slashed my limited-edition bag to pieces and smashed the expensive seal I wanted to give my dad. "You're just a gold digger wearing and buying fake luxury goods. It's just a few hundred dollars. I can still afford to pay you." However, little did she know that everything I had was real. Even if she and her director husband worked for the rest of their lives, they would never be able to afford to pay for the damages.

The day before the wedding, my fiancé James's childhood sweetheart had a severe depressive episode. Threatening to take her own life, she demanded the destruction of the wedding gown my grandmother had painstakingly made for me before her passing. To calm her down, James locked me in a room and stayed by her side, helping her cut the gown into shreds. Amid the mess, he spoke indifferently. "Be reasonable. It's just a wedding gown. Do you want to see her die?" Later, James's hot uncle approached me, asking me to carry on the family lineage. I nodded in agreement. But James, with reddened eyes, confronted me. "Are you really going to have his child? Have you completely given up on me?" Covering my slightly rounded belly, I replied, "Be reasonable. It's just a child. He’s your uncle. Do you want to see him with no heir to carry on the family name?”

An older woman had wormed her way into my husband's life. A new hire in the company, she catered to his every need, from preparing his meals to washing his personal items. I had warned him repeatedly about the inappropriate nature of their relationship, but he dismissed my concerns. "Claudia's son is in college," Bryce had scoffed. "What could I possibly want with her?" Fine. I had a plan. I served him divorce papers and began showering attention on a young college student. His reaction was explosive. In response, I threw him a puzzled look. "Leon's father is about your age. What could I possibly want with him?"

My son accidentally ate peanuts and suffered a severe allergic reaction. I threw away all the anti-allergy medication in the house and even hung up when he called 911 for help. I watched helplessly as his airway swelled shut and he suffocated to death. In my previous life, when my son struggled to breathe, I immediately drove him to the hospital. After an intense rescue effort, he survived, and I finally breathed a sigh of relief. However, my mother-in-law stormed in, furious, accusing me of being a monster and blaming me for nearly killing him. I hurried to explain that he was fine. Yet, when I presented the doctor's report and discharge paperwork, I was horrified to discover that they had turned into a death certificate. My son, who had been resting safely in the ICU, was gone. He had somehow appeared in the morgue. Refusing to accept it, I checked the surveillance footage. However, the footage clearly showed that my son never left the operating room. Instead, it was just me, talking to myself the entire time. I had no idea what was happening. No one believed me. They locked me in a psychiatric hospital. In the end, as my condition worsened, a swarm of frenzied patients attacked me and tore me apart alive.

My husband’s family has a tradition of couples living apart together, and he can't publicly acknowledge our relationship until a son is born. He forces me to respect his family's traditions and tells me to raise our daughter alone. Six years after we got married, Andrew Sonovan inherits everything his late brother left behind, including his widow, Kasey Jordan. To satisfy his family's demands for him to carry on both lines, he sleeps with Kasey time and time again. Then, he holds me in his arms. "I can have a proper wedding with you once Kasey gets pregnant and carries on my brother's line. Hold on for a bit longer…" However, all I get is the news of him marrying Kasey. "Marry me, Kasey! I'll make you the happiest woman in the world!" I watch as Andrew gets on one knee in the glow of the flickering candlelight. He looks at Kasey lovingly as he proposes. Meanwhile, she rubs her baby bump, looking blissful. My daughter and I stand outside the room and witness their happiness. It's only then do I understand that I'm the only one who's been in the dark for the past six years.

In the third year of our marriage, my husband's first love got a divorce. He gave her the forty-five thousand dollars we had saved for a house because she was left with nothing and struggling to make ends meet. I urged him to ask for the money back, but he pointed at my face and angrily shouted, "You used to be so gentle and virtuous—what happened? Why are you so selfish, so shallow now?" "Is forty-five thousand dollars really worth you making a fuss over?" "Chloe is starting over with nothing, raising a child on her own. Don't you feel any sympathy for her?" Fine. He was noble, he was merciful. I did not argue further, because the one who needed money for cancer treatment was him, not me.

#While returning home from a late-night shift, I was knocked down by a delivery rider. The girl riding it was deaf and mute, looking no older than a teenager. I couldn’t bring myself to make things difficult for her, so I paid for the medical expenses at the hospital on my own. Limping back home, I saw a familiar delivery helmet lying at the doorway. From inside, laughter echoed through the walls. “She’s such a fool. I was just pretending but she believed it anyway.”