Sweethearts Cradle Novels & Stories

"Breaking News! A certain A-lister was sent to the hospital in the middle of the night because of… anal fissures!" "This just in—a certain A-lister is witnessed being carted out of the elite heir's residence!" As I read the viral headlines featuring myself, I can't help but clench my fists tightly. "What the heck? Who came up with these stupid rumors anyway? I went to the hospital to get my hemorrhoids removed!" And here I am, thinking about why my long-time rival, Pierce Kirkland, had decided to invite me over to his place for a candlelit dinner in the first place. It turns out that he wanted to watch me embarrass myself after eating a spicy meal! But after Pierce makes a shoutout on a show, I belatedly realize that I can never escape from him anymore.

Gabriel Black and I had grown up together as childhood sweethearts, and when we reached adulthood, our families arranged our engagement. From the day the engagement was announced, I started counting down the days. However, Gabriel thought the whole thing was unfair. “Other people get to fall in love a few times in their lives. Why should I be stuck with just you my whole life? You should date a few people, too. Don’t shortchange yourself.” And he meant it. In the year after our engagement, Gabriel went through seven girlfriends. Every time he changed partners, I would simply smile and say it didn’t matter. After all, I thought he would always come back to me. That was until the eighth girlfriend came along. He brought her to the Black family’s annual banquet. She clung to his arm and called him Gabe. I quietly set down my utensils. Right there in front of both families, I took out the engagement agreement and slid it to the center of the table. “Gabriel,” I said calmly, “you were right. Staying loyal to just one person really is a loss.” Later, I stood before him again, this time with my hand linked with the only son of the Graham family. Gabriel smashed his glass on the spot. For the first time, his eyes turned red. “Erin, what do you mean by this?” I smiled and said, “Didn’t you tell me to try dating, too? Well, I did, and it suits me just fine.”

It was a zombie apocalypse. My mercenary leader husband, Hans Luketon, refused to let me set sail to the safe zone just because he wanted to wait for his childhood sweetheart, Winnie Snowe, who insisted on reclaiming her bag that fell into the water. However, the zombies were getting closer to the port, and their roars were terrifying. The survivors on the ship were crying and wailing. I had no choice but to sneak up on him and knock him out. After reaching the safe zone, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was pregnant. Hans became even more gentle with me. On the very day I gave birth, he took me to the basement and threw me to a horde of zombies. As I was being torn apart by countless zombies, I caught his sinister gaze. He said, "If it hadn’t been for you, Winnie could've made it back to the safe zone with us. She just wanted to retrieve her things, what's so bad about that? You took her life, now you'll pay with yours!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the moment he blocked the cockpit door. This time, I would not assist him in "defying fate."

Kenneth Parker, my childhood friend—and the person I've secretly had a crush on—isn't into men. In the end, I find myself wandering into one of those shops out of sheer loneliness and buying myself a toy. That night, just as I'm about to follow the instructions to use it, someone suddenly opens the bedroom door. Kenneth stands in the doorway, his face frozen in complete and utter shock as he stares at me. Blushing furiously, I try to pull the blanket and cover myself, but Kenneth rushes in and takes the toy from my hand. He says, "It's alright, Xavier. I'll show you how to use it."

My boyfriend’s childhood sweetheart had bound a transfer system to me, causing the cool air around me to automatically converge on her. From then on, her family no longer had to pay for air conditioning. They even made a fortune by selling the cool air at a low price, thanks to this supernatural arrangement. When I explained the situation to my boyfriend, he was lying in his childhood sweetheart’s arms while eating an ice pop. He looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Your family is so poor that you can’t even afford to run the AC. Instead of looking at yourself, you came up with such a ridiculous excuse.” Later, I installed three air conditioners at home, but it did not help at all. In the end, I literally baked to death in an air-conditioned room at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. By the time I was discovered, I had turned into a dried corpse. Even after my death, my boyfriend still tried to profit off my misfortune. He became an internet sensation as the “first person to discover a dried corpse in an air-conditioned room.” He went on to live the life of a rich influencer with his little sweetheart. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the very day his little sweetheart had bound the transfer system to me. Knowing the future ahead, I immediately booked a reservation at the nearest sauna to escape the heat!

Leonard Burton and I are childhood sweethearts, bound by a family-arranged marriage. After we marry, we live a loving, harmonious life. In a terrible accident, he even gives up his only chance at survival to save me. After Leonard's death, we find a journal among his belongings. In it, he records the three years he was missing after falling off a cliff—years spent with another woman he deeply loved. But his parents had forcibly separated them and arranged our marriage instead. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had continued to protect that woman from afar, silently and faithfully. At the funeral, Leonard's mother, Charlotte Newman, is inconsolable. "Leonard, it's all my fault. Would you still be alive if I'd let you marry Yelena back then?" His father, Samuel Burton, glares at me with hatred. "He fell off that cliff saving you. He died in that crash shielding you. Why do you bring him nothing but harm? Why aren't you the one who's dead?" Yes, why is it not me who's dead? I look at Leonard's familiar, smiling face on his gravestone before running at it and smashing my head on it. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to when he just returned from that small fishing village. This time, I choose to let him go and give him what he wants. Finally, I see Leonard again.

When I met Ethan Stone, his family had just gone bankrupt. He had fallen hard and was at his lowest point. I stayed with him for eight years and helped him rebuild everything. We were finally about to get married. On our engagement day, I was kidnapped by his greatest rival. When I came back safely, he held his secretary in his arms and looked at me with disgust. “Jane, you’re no longer pure.” I felt my heart sink. I let him go and chose to fall into the arms of his rival.

Three days before my wedding, Eric Foreman's childhood love returned to the country with her terminally ill mother. She wanted to marry Eric to fulfill her mother's dying wish. I objected furiously to it in my last life, and Eric eventually rejected Naomi Corbin's request. Naomi appeared with her mother's funeral picture in the middle of our wedding and accused Eric of being heartless. Eric got the bodyguards to kick her out, and our wedding continued without a glitch. However, he did not return home that night. Since then, he insisted that we sleep in different rooms. He would rather get drunk than touch me. When I questioned him about this, he said to me drunkenly as his eyes glazed over, "Ayla, every time I look at you, I'm reminded of the look of despair in Naomi's eyes and her mother's dying face… I regret making that decision!" His answer depressed me, and I eventually died from it. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Eric tried to convince me to give Naomi our wedding. This time, I agreed. I called my family as I watched him leave happily. "I agree to the marriage alliance. We can hold the wedding in three days."

I make my final phone call to my boyfriend when a murderer is hunting me down. He thinks I'm messing with him and hangs up on me. That destroys the final sliver of hope I have for survival. He's celebrating his childhood friend's birthday when I'm being murdered. Later, as a restorative embalmer, he receives a body to restore. He loses his mind when he restores my shattered skull and realizes the body is mine.

After the SAT results came out, Ethan Blake—the poorest student in our class—had scored just over 660. And yet, he somehow managed to convince my two childhood friends to apply with him to the worst community college in the state. Under his influence, they both happily agreed to go to the same school as him. I tried to talk some sense into them over and over, but they accused me of having bad intentions—of just being jealous of Ethan. When that didn't work, I reached out to their parents. At the very last minute before the application deadline, I managed to get their choices changed, securing them spots at a good university. Ethan had no choice but to enroll in the community college alone. Less than six months later, news broke that he had jumped from a campus building. After Jessica Miller and Megan Flores went to the school to claim his body, they came back and dragged me up to the rooftop. "If you hadn't stopped us from applying to the same school as Ethan," they said, "he never would've been bullied into jumping to his death. Now you can die with him!" Without hesitating, they pushed me off the roof. I hit the ground and shattered into pieces. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment they decided to follow Ethan to that community college. This time, I'll just stand back and watch them throw their lives away.