The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle

It was a national holiday and we decided to drive back to my husband's hometown to spend the holidays. One day before we left, my husband's childhood crush came crying to him that she had not managed to buy train tickets home. My husband immediately decided to let her have my seat in the car and insisted that I take the train instead. I looked at him in disbelief. There was shock in my eyes. Even my son insisted I take the train. "Mommy, Aunt Rosie is so pretty. How could you make her take the train?" I did not argue. I booked my train ticket right in front of them. However, it was to my own hometown. I no longer wanted a biased husband and a disloyal son.

May nag-post ng pagtatapat ng pag-ibig para sa akin sa confession wall ng college. Pero nag-iwan ang nobyo ng kahati ko sa kwarto ng komentong nakipagtalik na ako sa bawat lalaki sa campus. Galit na galit ako at handa nang tumawag ng pulis. Nagmakaawa ang kahati ko sa kwarto na patawarin ang nobyo niya, nangangakong uutusan niya itong manghingi ng paumanhin sa confession wall. Pero bago dumating ang paumanhin na iyon, isang sensitibong video ang nagsimulang magkalat sa mga group chat. Sinasabi ng lahat na ako ang babae sa video. Ipinatawag ako ng college para sa makipag-usap at iminungkahi kong kumuha ako ng leave of absence. Pag-uwi ko, tumanggi ang mga magulang ko na kilalanin ako bilang kanilang anak. Nawala sa akin ang lahat. Kinain ako ng depresyon, at kasama ng walang katapusang tsismis, nawalan na ako ng pag-asa at winakasan ang buhay ko. Pagkamulat ko ulit ng mga mata ko, iyon ulit ang araw na unang lumitaw ang pangalan ko sa confession wall.

I worked for a restaurant, and our boss loved making empty promises about giving us restaurant shares. The boss said we would start with zero shares, but we could earn 0.01% for every two hours of overtime, covering someone else’s work or saving the restaurant 1,000 bucks. I suggested she write this down in an official document and have someone track it properly. She just smiled and told everyone to work harder. She never actually put it in writing. The experienced staff did not believe her, but one prep cook took it seriously. At the end of the year, he went to the boss to claim his shares. The boss said, “Sorry, the head chef told me there’s no official document, so it doesn’t count. You can’t claim any shares.” The prep cook worked hard all year and got nothing for it, so he took his anger out on me. The day before I was going home for the New Year, he killed me with a knife. “If you hadn’t said it doesn’t count without an official document, this whole restaurant would’ve been mine!” I lay in a pool of blood. When I opened my eyes, I was back to the day the boss first made those empty promises.

I knew perfectly well that people from the Emirates do not eat pork. Yet this time, I watched in silence as my husband's childhood sweetheart insisted on placing a pork dish on the table. In fact, I even supported her decision. In my past life, when our company hosted a welcome banquet for powerful investors from the Emirates, she had been desperate to flaunt her cooking. Against all reason, she forced a pork dish onto the menu. I stopped her then. I explained that pork was forbidden by religious belief, and that offending the investors could cost us everything. If they withdrew their funding, the company's finances would collapse overnight. She took my warning as jealousy. In a fit of rage, she ran out of the banquet hall and was struck by a car, leaving her in a permanent vegetative state. I thought my husband would break down. Instead, he remained calm, stayed through the dinner, and secured the investment in surprisingly calmness. The truth revealed itself later. After the company went public, he brought me abroad under the guise of business, only to drag me onto a medical ship in international waters. As my kidney was cut from my body, I cried and asked him why. His answer came with a slap. "If you hadn't been jealous back then... If you hadn't tried to sabotage her, she wouldn't have ended up like that." I died in agony on the operating table. After my death, he used the money from selling my organs to cure his beloved childhood sweetheart, and the two of them went on to live rich, comfortable lives together. And then I opened my eyes again, back to the very day she decided to serve pork to the clients.

I had returned from overseas to attend my foster son's wedding, already wearing my dress for the evening. My former high school classmates recognized me and pointed at me, laughing wildly. They tore my dress off me without hesitation. Ruby Saunders apologized to me, but it was all an act. She looked at me with malevolence. She had instigated her lackeys to strip me in public. When I tried to retaliate, she slapped me so hard that I fell to the ground. I closed my eyes and laughed coldly as I saw the cruel excitement on her face. She used to imitate me and accuse me of copying her, but I always endured it. However, today was my last straw. I would not allow her to marry into my family and turn me into her mother-in-law, no matter what!

It was only after my boyfriend, Julian Mercer, received his HIV diagnosis that he finally understood what his childhood friend, Luna Sullivan, truly meant by "life and death together". In my previous life, after Julian collapsed from anemia, Luna insisted on donating blood to him. I fought with everything I had to stop it. I told him that Luna had already contracted HIV. If she donated blood to him, he would be infected as well. He refused to believe me. Luna cried and swore that she had never even had a boyfriend. To prove her innocence, she climbed onto the rooftop and pretended she was going to jump to her death. However, she slipped. She missed her footing and fell to her death from the building. To avenge her, Julian conspired with our classmates to kidnap me. He strangled me with his own hands. I still remember his furious roar. "This is all because of your slander! You killed Luna! I will make you pay for her life!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the blood transfusion. I watched as Julian lay there, already receiving blood from his beloved Luna. I smiled faintly. HIV? Fine.

"She is not property. She is my mate and you will not mention 'her' like you're talking about a burnt banana peel."   My breath hitched.   No one had ever defended me like that.   Not once.   Kael glanced over his shoulder at me, his expression softer now, protective. "But it’s her choice. Not mine. Not yours." .......................................................... At just eighteen, Meeva Vale thought that she had found her fairytale ending, an Omega chosen as Luna by the Alpha of the Sinhound Pack. But six years later, her marriage to Alpha Jared has left her silenced, sacrificed, and stranded in a life that no longer feels her own.   When the powerful Alpha Kael Edgar of the Brawnstorm Pack storms into her territory to confront Jared over a broken trading treaty, everything changes. With a single glance, the bond between Kael and Meeva ignites. But Meeva is already claimed, married even.   But Kael doesn’t give two fucks.   He lays siege to the pack and takes Meeva with him, officially staking his claim as her mate. Her wolf betrays her heart, surrendering to him long before she does. What begins as a sinful passion quickly transforms into a deeper whirlpool.   With a dark sorcerer on their tail, their story is about to take a very unnerving turn.  

I discover that I'm a homewrecker after dating my boyfriend for a decade. We're looking at marital homes when his wife seeks me out. She beats me up in public and rips my hair out, yet all he does is hurry to her after I've pushed her to the floor. Why? Because she's pregnant. Later, he gets a divorce and begs me to marry him. "I'm begging you, Madison. Forgive me this once."

The first year after they finally bring me home, the impostor suggests a trip to Golden Island so we can build some brotherly rapport. For safety, my fiancee comes with us. They rack up a massive gambling debt at Golden Island's casino. To get themselves out of trouble, she leaves me behind as a hostage and disappears with him. The casino thugs pin me down, ready to take out their anger on me. I struggle to break free, and that is when I notice the leader's phone lighting up with a number for the island owner. Isn't that the number of the adoptive sister who has adored me for more than a decade?

When my wife brought her lover home for the fifth time, I decided enough was enough. I said nothing, not a word of complaint or protest. Instead, I superglued the windows shut and locked the bedroom door from the outside. From the bedroom came the muffled sounds of her little escapade, breathless and feverish, carrying through the walls like a shameful melody no one asked to hear. Calmly, I sat in the living room, picked up the phone, and called my mother-in-law. "Jessie," I said, putting on my best tone of urgency, "it's bad—real bad! Your daughter's locked herself in the bedroom and says she's gonna end it all!"