Today Story

My wife, Maeve Sinclair, has a weird fetish. She loves roleplaying as other characters. In her scripts, I'm always the OG husband who gets abandoned by the heartless wife. Today, Maeve will be the domineering CEO who's fallen in love with her assistant. Tomorrow, she will be the professor who has the hots for her student. Every time, she will make me sign a divorce agreement. The next day, she will laugh while ripping it apart. "Darling, this is just a game." But when my dad gets into a car accident and requires 200 thousand dollars just to undergo a life-saving surgery, Maeve is playing the role of a broke woman. "I'm a penniless woman who's gone broke, Neal. I don't have any money for your dad's surgery at all." I can only watch as my dad breathes his last on the sickbed. On the day of his funeral, Maeve approaches me with a young and handsome university student clinging to her side. "Darling, I've fallen in love with my student. Let's get a divorce." Then, she pulls out a document from her briefcase and passes it to me. This time, I refuse to wait for her to rip it apart.

My parents were renowned educators, celebrated as top-tier teachers who mentored countless high achievers. Yet, I was the black sheep of the family, consistently bringing home failing grades. After yet another gentle reminder from my homeroom teacher, my mom erupted in frustration. "How could I have given birth to such a foolish child? You only exist to torture me!" She disappeared for three days. When she returned, she brought a girl with her. "From today on, Cora is my real daughter. You are forbidden to call us Mom or Dad ever again. Get out. Only when you can pass your exams will you be worthy of being my daughter!" Our next encounter was at the hospital, during the school staff's annual physical check. The dean spotted me, speaking. "Renee, isn't this your daughter? Sherry works here now! That means Cora's illness can be treated. Ask her to introduce you to the new director!" My mother's gaze landed on my white coat and shifted from shock to irritation. "She changed jobs and didn't even bother to tell me?" I discreetly covered the badge pinned to my chest, trying to conceal my status. I was now Evie Coffey, the director of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

I'd spent six months saving every penny for prenatal care, but the money vanished overnight. Panicking, I called my fiancé, only to see him on another woman's social media. The man's busy silhouette radiated excitement, with a luxury handbag sitting at the edge of the photo. The caption read: "Mr. Wellington is such a gentleman! Today's happiness starts with snagging the last designer bag at the boutique~" When I came out of surgery, my furious fiancé finally showed up. His first words were an accusation. "Can you stop treating me like I'm on a leash?" "My friend was feeling down, so I bought her a bag and kept her company. What's wrong with that? Why are you so petty!"

I've been married to Elliot Graves, the mafia drug lord in NYC, for the past eight years. But today—on our wedding anniversary—I received a photo of him with my best friend, Lila, celebrating as if they were the ones married. And in her arms was my son, Owen. I stared at the image, then typed out two words in reply. “How perfect.” Half a hour later, Elliot stormed through the front door. His voice thundered through the hallway. “Why do you always have to be so bitchy to Lila?” Owen, my own little boy, shoved at my leg and glared. “Bad Momma,” he said. “I wish Miss Lila was my real mommy.” I didn’t flinch. I simply walked over to the drawer, pulled out the crisp stack of papers I’d long prepared, and dropped them on the table with a quiet finality. “Alright,” I said, my voice calm. “It’s all my fault. Now, can I go?”

It's Family Day at my daughter, Hannah Neel's, preschool, but my wife, Samantha Miller, says she has to work and tells both Hannah and me not to go. Seeing the disappointment on Hannah's face breaks my heart, so I bring her to school anyway. As soon as we step through the gates, I see Samantha. She's holding her childhood friend—Oscar Barnett's—hand, with a little boy clutching her other. The three of them look like a perfect family, laughing and chatting, as if they belong together. When Samantha sees us, her smile fades, and she lets go of Oscar's hand. "Zach, it's not what you think. Oscar's raising his son alone. Today's his fifth birthday, and he just wanted to give him a little taste of a mother's love," she says quickly. I study her for a moment, then kneel and gently take Hannah's hand in mine. "Sweetheart, say hello to the lady."

On my 30th birthday, my boyfriend of seven years asked to meet at the City Hall. He even told me to bring my ID and wear a wedding dress. But when I showed up just as he asked, he was laughing and looked really excited. “Pay up, pay up! I told you all. No matter how embarrassing it is, Wrenna will always do what I say!” I just looked at him wordlessly. Matthew Young raised his eyebrows at me. “Come on, it was just a joke. You’re not mad, are you?” When I stayed quiet, he got annoyed. “Alright, alright. I said I’d marry you, and I will. Just not right now.” His good-for-nothing friends started laughing and making fun of me. They said I was his simp and would never get angry. And they were right. I was not angry. I did not come here today for him anyway. After everyone left, I walked into the City Hall. “Sorry I’m late. Let’s go get married.”

As the male lead, Henry Johnston, forces himself on me, a row of comments suddenly appears before my eyes. "Henry is about to misunderstand and think Aria drugged him! The angst is about to begin!" "I'm thrilled just thinking about Henry regretting dearly after Aria dies!" "Keep up the act, Henry. After she dies, you'll be hugging her corpse and crying every day." That is when I realize that I am the tragic female lead in a story where I am destined to be tormented until I die. The readers treat my death as a highlight to push the plot forward. They are counting down to my death. As I look at Henry, who is panting on top of me, anger courses through me. I grab a table lamp and smash it into him, killing him on the spot. Who says that the one who dies in a toxic romance story must always be the female lead?

In the second year after dropping out of school, I decide to cosplay as a dancer and stage a chance encounter with my husband, Don Vincenzo Rossi, in order to give him a surprise. However, I happen to run into my old classmates in the club. When they see me pole dancing in a skimpy outfit, they burst into laughter immediately. Tatiana Lazzari, the one who's throwing the party and was my former bully at school, mocks me for being a lowly, slutty bitch. My ex-boyfriend, Cristian Paleno, who had cheated on me with Tatiana back then, has his brows drawn into a tight frown. He seems to feel sorry for me. "If you didn't insist on breaking up with me back then, Aria, you wouldn't have gotten reduced to having to work as a stripper." In order to spice up the party, they drag me into their private room and force me to strip in front of them. When I reject them, they dump all sorts of alcohol and beverages onto my exposed skin and my thin, skimpy clothes. Then, they force me to kneel between Cristian's legs in submission. As Cristian leans in close to my ear, I can see the lust brimming in his eyes. "Come back to me, Aria. Otherwise, you can only remain as a horny bitch for the rest of your life." Out of sheer jealousy and rage, Tatiana kicks me in the gut right away. That's when Vincenzo hurries to my side and scoops me into his arms. By then, I'm in so much pain that I'm all curled up. He then glares at everyone else, whose faces have gone white from terror. "How dare you harm my wife and our unborn child! You can forget about leaving this room today!"

It was the climactic moment of my game, but the enemy's flash bang blinded me. After I reopened my eyes, I found myself in the world of the post-apocalyptic underdog comeback story I'd ranted about to my friend the day before. No, I wasn't the protagonist with a cheat for a system. Instead, I was the cannon fodder who suffered the worst fate. He also had my name. I found myself locked outside the armored vehicle while a swarm of high-level zombies had surrounded me. 'Blast,' I thought. 'All this just because I flamed them? And I just made a pentakill after my 8-win streak!' I told myself to calm down and let my mind do its work, but then the laughter of this body's wife echoed from the walkie-talkie. "Stop covering for him, gunners! We're livestreaming to the whole camp. My husband's going to rip these Tier Six zombies to shreds!" Then, the woman's useless male best friend buzzed with excitement. "I'll have a permanent spot in the inner city if he distracts the horde and they rip him apart in the process, babe!" If this went the way of the original story, I'd beg for help only to get no answer and be ripped apart by the zombies. Fortunately, I wasn't the same coward this guy used to be. The woman kept egging me on. I sneered. I didn't spend years playing competitive games for nothing. And so, I grabbed a high-frequency concussion grenade that could get the attention of every single zombie in a 3-mile radius, smashed the ventilation valve of the armored vehicle, and hurled the grenade inside.

After I won a total of one million dollars from the lottery, I planned to spend four hundred thousand dollars paying off my wife Jocelyn's debts, then buy our son, Sean, the sports models and Lego set he had always wanted. But after waiting and waiting, the only thing I got was a call from my son. "Dad, there's an event at the kindergarten today, so go eat by yourself. Mommy and I will miss you!" I said nothing. Because just half a minute earlier, a screen of bullet comments had suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. "The supporting male lead is just so sad. He's working three jobs to pay off the female lead's debts, and even his stomach is bleeding due to pure exhaustion. Meanwhile, the female lead is out buying the male lead a gold watch!" "But if the supporting male lead doesn't work himself to death, how are the male lead and female lead supposed to end up together?" At first, I did not believe those comments. But just then, my phone buzzed, and a credit card charge alert came in. My stomach dropped. I never would have thought the wife who always seemed to love me so deeply and the son I had worked so hard to raise would lie to me like this. In that case, my ten million lottery winnings had nothing to do with them anymore.