To Good At Goodbye

I was checking out our own hotel. Got hungry, so I snagged a tiny bread roll before my order came out. Then the lobby manager strutted over and slapped me with a fine. "Hi, miss. No outside food. You stayed eight minutes and thirty seconds, spent $150, and your fine's $128,000." I stared at the ticket like, What the hell? Snapped a pic and sent it to the board, tagging my lovely brother: [Getting fined at our own hotel—so THIS is how you're boosting revenue?]

I check on family businesses in the countryside with my girlfriend, Mildred McClure, in tow. At noon, we stop by my uncle, Barron Cortez's, place for a simple lunch. Just as we are getting ready to leave, his new wife, whom he married just six months ago, Hilda Ross, rushes out and demands that we settle the bill. "Elden, you two just had the Supreme Farmhouse Set Meal, which is 1,888.80 dollars, and your girlfriend picked three organic, pesticide-free tomatoes in the garden. That's 199.80 dollars. "With an 80% service charge, your total comes to 3,800 dollars." Mildred is stunned. "Elden, do we have to pay to eat at your uncle's place?" I start to feel embarrassed, and my expression darkens as I look at Hilda, my supposed aunt, who's barely any older than me. "I've grown up eating at my uncle's place and never paid a single penny. Besides, your prices are downright outrageous!" Hilda calmly whips out a price menu and righteously declares, "That's all ancient history. Now, we're running a farmhouse business where all prices are clearly marked, so everyone pays the same rate. "Barron said you're some big boss in the city. Surely you're not going to stiff us over a little bill, are you?" She steps in front of the gate to block the exit with her body and shoots me a contemptuous look. "Even family settles their accounts. If you don't pay up today, don't even dream about stepping through this door!" While Mildred panics, I laugh in disbelief before taking out my phone and dialing Barron's number. "Uncle Barron, Hilda wants to settle accounts between family, so don't you think it's time we settled our accounts too?"

My husband only lasts a minute each time. As a mature woman in my thirties, I often find myself lying awake at night, feeling like something is missing from my life. That is, until I met a rugged, muscular mechanic while getting my car repaired. Watching his strong muscles flex beneath his tank top awakened a desire I hadn’t felt in a long time. Our brief, intense encounter left me overwhelmed with emotions I couldn’t control. Just as things were about to go too far, I pushed him away, not wanting to make a mistake. But then I discovered that my husband had already been cheating on me with our pregnant neighbor. So, maybe I should just...

On New Year's Eve, my daughter was critically ill. As she took her last breath, she said she just wanted to see her father one last time. But I couldn't bear to tell her the truth that her father was with someone else's child, lighting fireworks and celebrating New Year's Eve together. Beside me, calls continued being made, but none of them went through. My daughter passed away with regret in her heart, and I followed her into despair, jumping to end it all. Now that I've been given a second chance to live again, I looked at the man in front of me whose eyes were full of guilt and helplessness. However, my heart remained calm. "Just this once, Mariah. Tonya is sick, and she really needs me—" I cut him off and went to pick up my daughter. "Get out of my sight."

When I pushed through the main door, covered in blood, I found my amnesiac husband right on top of my best friend. His arm was wrapped around her waist with practiced ease, and she was passionately reciprocating his advances. "Ada will be devastated if she finds out…" Camilla said in a sweet voice through bated breaths. "After all, she really thinks you've lost your memories." Lucio chuckled softly and said in a mocking tone, "It's not my fault she loves me that much. Then again, it's a good thing for me since I can just let her do all the tough and dirty work." He leaned down and planted a kiss on Camilla's lips, mumbling, "Right now, you're the only one I recognize as my wife. Just wait. Once I sign the deal with the Della Veras, I'll have her kicked out and pass everything she owns to you. After all, I no longer remember a thing." Only then did it hit me. My husband's amnesia was all an act, a farce to fool me. Moreover, my best friend conspired with him to stab me in the back. Too bad they didn't know that the Della Vera family, the most feared Mafia family in Ritelle, only acknowledged one person: Me, Ada Rossi.

On the day of Lucas' engagement, he managed to get a few lackeys to keep me occupied, and by the time I stepped out the police station, done with questioning, it was already dark outside. Arriving home, I stood there on the doorstep and eavesdropped on Lucas and his friends talking about me. "I was afraid she'd cause trouble, so I got her to spend the whole day at the police station. I made sure that everything would be set in stone by the time she got out." Shaking my head with a bitter laugh, I blocked all of Lucas' contacts and went overseas without any hesitation. That night, Lucas lost all his composure, kicking over a table and smashing a bottle of liquor, sending glass shards flying all over the floor. "She's just throwing a tantrum because she's jealous… She'll come back once she gets over it…" What he didn't realize, then, was that this wasn't just a fit of anger or a petty tantrum. This time, I truly didn't want him anymore.

My husband has asthenospermia, so we decide to try IVF. Before the embryos are combined, I catch my husband switching my ovum out for his true love's. I don't say anything and switch them back. At the same time, I switch my husband's sample out for my ex-boyfriend's. 25 years later, my husband's true love comes knocking. She holds my daughter's hands and weeps while saying, "I'm your mother, my darling!"

At the class reunion, Grace Sullivan grabs me and tears into me with vicious lies. "She's an exiled Rogue who slept her way to the top with the director, Damian Pierce! My father's bed at the clinic? She spread her legs for it!" She slaps me across the face, rallying others to join the beating. Finally, she stomps down hard on my hand, the one gripping the scalpel, crushing the bones. Ethan Carter just stands there watching, cold and unmoved. He doesn't lift a finger to stop her. The pain sends tremors through my entire body, but I scream right back at her. "You're just jealous that I'm the better healer, that Ethan chose me over you, so you made up filthy lies to destroy me! "I'm a healer. Right now, your father is dying, and I'm the one who can save him. You want to stop me? Then get ready to plan his funeral." That's when my father, Damian, storms in and roars the truth for everyone to hear. "She's my daughter! Everything she has, she earned!" With my shattered hand, I push through the pain and charge into the operating room anyway. I'm not just saving a life tonight. I'm making sure the liar and the traitor both pay the price they deserve.

Our expedition team ventured into a desert wilderness to investigate rare mineral resources when we were suddenly struck by extreme heat that reached 158 °F. I nearly passed out from dehydration and quickly reached into my backpack for the electrolyte water I had prepared in advance. Just as I was about to drink it, I realized the bottle was half-filled with urine. When I turned around, I saw Ben Murphy, my wife’s childhood friend, gulping down my electrolyte water. As I was about to confront him, Amy Garner, my wife, grabbed my sleeve and said, “Don’t be mad. I gave Ben your electrolyte water. He’s almost dehydrated. You can make do with this for now.” My vision started to blur. Clutching the half-empty bottle of urine, I asked through gritted teeth, “I’m dehydrated. Instead of letting me rehydrate properly, you want me to drink this? Are you trying to kill me?” Amy was upset. “Don’t be ridiculous! Ben doesn’t work out daily like you do. He can’t handle this heat. Wasn’t it right to give him the electrolyte water? Besides, urine can hydrate you, too! Don’t be picky at a time like this.” Seeing how unreasonable she was being, I sent a distress signal with my location just before losing consciousness. [Severely dehydrated, near death. Expedition mission suspended. Request immediate rescue. Also reporting a robber in the team. Notify the police immediately.]

While visiting a property development with my fiancé to buy our first home, I ran into a two-faced real estate agent.   She showered my fiancé with compliments, praising him for being young and successful enough to afford a Rolls-Royce.   Then, she suggested I was a fake socialite with a knockoff designer bag, implying that I was just using my charms to snag a free house.   When she found out the property was meant to be a marital home, her voice grew loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.   “I just think the sugar daddy who bought you those two properties last time treated you pretty well!” “Oh, wait. Miss Gwen, don’t you have several sugar daddies? Do they all know about each other?”   I chuckled. What she didn’t know was that my “sugar daddies” were my godfathers and I really was a socialite.   The kicker, though, was that my so-called wealthy fiancé wasn’t rich at all. In fact, he was just a scholarship student I had been financially supporting!