Tulisan Feel

As soon as I receive my year-end bonus, I transfer 100 thousand dollars to my wife, Zoe Steele, so that she can prepare the holiday gifts for both families right away. I even tell her to buy the best quality gifts for our parents, especially the box of premium liquor meant for my dad. On New Year's Eve, I rush home to have dinner with my parents. But weirdly enough, Dad, who's an avid drinker, starts having tea instead of liquor at the dining table. This leaves me perplexed. "Dad, why aren't you cracking open a bottle of liquor for yourself during the holidays?" With a smile on my face, I get up to my feet so that I can carry the box of liquor over. "Zoe had someone buy the liquor for you, you know. I hear that the taste is exceptional." "Stop!" Dad slams his pipe against the table loudly, his face a starking shade of crimson. "Edgar, don't ever send such gifts home. I know that life is difficult for you in the city and that making money is hard. We Kennedys may be poor, but we are people with pride! "Now, everyone in the village is gossiping about us behind our backs! They claim that I've been boasting about your wealth!" Dad's words confuse me to no end. After I unscrew a bottle of liquor, I sip from it, only to feel thunderstruck. This isn't premium liquor at all! This is just mineral water packaged as liquor!

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!"

We had agreed to spend the New Year with our own families, but at the last minute, my husband, Drake Murrell, changed his mind and insisted I go back with him this year. I agreed, planning to take this opportunity to finally tell him the truth about who I really was. When we first got married, my parents told me to keep a low profile so that Drake, who came from a single-parent household, wouldn’t feel pressured. So I hid the fact that I was the daughter of the richest family in the capital, the Thorntons. When we returned to his hometown, I specifically bought my mother-in-law, Diana Murrell, a pair of gold bangles. She accepted them with a beaming smile, praising me again and again for being such a thoughtful daughter-in-law. However, the next day, as I passed by the old oak tree at the edge of Willow Creek, I overheard her talking about me with a group of people. "Oh, you have no idea. My daughter-in-law is absolutely ridiculous!" My hand froze midair, still holding my phone, as I instinctively ducked behind a haystack. I heard her continue loudly, "She bought me a pair of gold bangles this year. The moment I touched them, I knew they were fake! I’m telling you, they’re probably those cheap online knockoffs, like the kind that cost next to nothing and start fading the moment you wear them!" I was stunned with anger. She called pure gold fake? Looks like the million-dollar New Year gift I had prepared for her wasn’t necessary anymore.

My mom has always been biased toward my younger sister, Nina Henderson. But before she passes away, she leaves the only house she owns to me. Meanwhile, Nina, who has always been the apple of my mom's eye, obtains nothing but a jewelry box. Just as I'm about to feel touched, I see comments springing in front of my eyes. "The truth is, their mom owes someone a huge sum of money. She left Leah her house because she wants Leah to take over the debt. In the end, Leah is forced to jump off a building by the debt collector. What a poor woman." "Nina, on the other hand, is able to marry the richest man's son thanks to the photo hidden inside the jewelry box. She gets to enjoy a lavish and comfortable life." "It's such a shame that Nina begins cursing at her mother the moment she hears the will being uttered. Because of that, her mother dies of anger before she can tell Nina the whole truth." I'm left feeling dumbstruck. That night, I dig up the jewelry box that Nina has thrown away. Then, I'm able to track down the richest man's villa.

On the train back home, I found a scathing post online. [My sister-in-law is pushing thirty but isn’t married yet. She comes home all the time. Would you be bothered by it?] The comments were numerous and ran the gamut of opinions. The post got wildly popular, and there was an argument between the poster and commenters. [It’s bad enough that she won’t get married. She wants to stay with us when she’s home. Shouldn’t she feel ashamed? I’m at the end of my rope. She even drank all my lemonade last time she was here. I really hate her. [She has no boundaries. I’ve been wanting to teach her a lesson for ages. I turned her bedroom into my walk-in closet. Let’s see if she can still stay here.] When I got to this point, I closed the post. It was lucky that I bought the house where my parents and brother live. Because of that, I would not be at risk of losing my own room. But when I got out of the train station, I received a text from my mother. [Sweetie, I booked you a hotel room. You don’t have to come home and stay this time.]

When I'm working as a deliveryman, I receive a delivery order from a hotel. As I look at the bag of adult toys in my hand, I can't help but snicker knowingly. "Youngsters nowadays sure are wild in bed." The moment I open the hotel room door and see my girlfriend, Natalie Brooks, I feel as though all color has been drained from my face. Natalie's work junior, Brandon Clark, laughs arrogantly in my face with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. "How did that broke bastard track us down?" Natalie just frowns at me in displeasure. "Brandon helped me secure many projects at work. His only wish is that he gets to spend a night with a woman. "This is nothing but physical collision between bodies! This is the 21st century, Oliver! Must you be such a prude? "But don't worry, though. Even though I'm spending the night with Brandon, I'll still marry you according to my family's wishes." I shake my head immediately out of fear. "I'm not interested in marrying a woman who's been used by others, so I hope you two have a great life together! But I'll also withdraw my funds from your company. You'd better kiss those projects of yours goodbye!"

My husband died unexpectedly, and my mother-in-law adopted a newborn boy. She said she wanted to keep this child by her side as a reminder of my husband. Therefore, I raised him as my own child. Later, when he grew up, I gave him the company with peace of mind. The first thing my son did after taking power was to have someone lock me up in the basement and torture me. He said, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn’t have been separated from my parents all these years." At the moment of my death, my husband, who had supposedly passed away for many years, appeared with his first love in his arms. "Sophia, how does it feel to be cheated for more than ten years? Fortunately, you raised a son for me so that we can live happily without you." Angered to death, I could only watch the three of them. When I opened my eyes again, I returned to the day when my husband died unexpectedly.

The moment my roommate walked in, she used my locker. She claimed to have too many things and nowhere else to put them. I rolled my eyes. Why should I let her get her way? I was not her parent. She was no princess, but she acted like one. I was ready to argue, but she tossed 200,000 dollars at me. “At your service, Your Highness!”

The project I had poured my heart and soul into earned the company over a hundred million in profit, yet the credit was handed to the vice president's nephew. I stood in a corner, the stack of source code documents trembling in my hands, nearly crushed by my grip. That nephew—who couldn't even get Hello World to compile—was now on stage, smiling brightly as he accepted the award. The vice president came over and draped an arm around my shoulder like we were old friends. "You're just an outsourced worker," he said casually. "These honors wouldn't mean anything to you anyway. Jason is new. He's got limitless potential. From now on, you'll be responsible for mentoring him properly." Only then did I realize that decades of struggle had been nothing more than laying out a red carpet for someone else's glory. That very night, while reviewing the project's code repository, I discovered a massive flaw—one serious enough to bring the entire system crashing down within three days.

At the year-end company meeting, I was announcing the bonuses when a new employee suddenly raised her hand. "Over at the other company, they handed out two boxes of imported cherries at their annual party," she said, shaking her phone. "And we only get performance bonuses?" The video, maliciously edited, went viral online and hit the trending list the very next day. I had the finance department cancel all the year-end bonus transfers. "If cherries are what really count as a gesture of goodwill," I said, "then this year's year-end benefit will be cherries—fifty boxes per person." When they saw the mountain of cherries piling up before them, the employees who had once joined in mocking me panicked instantly. One by one, they cried and apologized, begging me to reconsider.