Waking Up With A Heavy Chest

My Three Loves This is the powerful, personal account of my journey and the vital lessons learned through three pivotal loves. My First Love, Kaden, taught me how to love openly. The relationship with Raymond, the dark Lesson, shattered my self-worth, forcing me to find the strength to survive and establish boundaries. I found my Coming Home in Noah, a steady, inevitable return who became my anchor for healing. Together, we rebuilt our lives, culminating in the birth of our children. The story affirms that every past heartbreak and choice was necessary, proving that nothing, in the end, was wasted.

Pada hari ulang tahun cucuku, aku ditabrak mobil saat dalam perjalanan mengambil hadiahnya. Karena tidak terlalu parah, aku hanya pergi ke rumah sakit untuk membalut lukaku, lalu buru-buru pualng. Setibanya di rumah, ternyata acara ulang tahun telah berakhir. Sementara itu, aku harus membereskan kekacauan yang ada. Tidak ada yang peduli pada lenganku yang diperban. Yang ada di pikiran mereka hanya apakah baju sudah dicuci, apakah makanan sudah disiapkan? Karena tidak enak badan, aku tidak membuatkan sarapan. Putraku dan menantuku pun mengataiku malas. Aku pergi ke rumah sahabatku untuk menenangkan diri. Mereka malah bilang aku bersikap tidak masuk akal, padahal sudah tua. Kemudian, suamiku ingin bercerai denganku demi seorang pengasuh .... Cerai saja! Siapa juga yang mau mengerjakan pekerjaan rumah yang tak ada habisnya itu! Lagi pula, mereka tidak menyukaiku!

"Mom, Dad, I’ve decided to come home for the blind dates you mentioned. I’ll be back by the end of the month." In the early spring, with the lingering chill of winter in the air, Valerie Stonecutter pushed open the door while speaking softly into the phone. Her gentle voice drifted through the rain like a thread weaving through the mist. Pulling her collar tighter against the cold, she heard her parents breathe a sigh of relief on the other end. "Val," her father began, his voice heavy with age. “Your mom and I haven’t been in good health these past few years. So now that you’ve made up your mind, that’s good. When you’re back, I’ll have your Aunt Laura arrange a few suitable candidates for you to meet." Hearing that her parents were already making arrangements for her future, Valerie’s gaze flickered, her emotions momentarily unsettled. After a few more words of small talk, she ended the call. She glanced around her home with a heavy heart, her thoughts tangled in a quiet storm. Then she retreated to her bedroom and began to pack.

was sixteen years old when he was first killed; when he stood on Matthew's chest, his best friend, blood spurted from all over their bodies so that it was an exhausting and even battle between them until Matthew at last gave way to victory. Jaden breathed out, feeling the fires of hell all around him. His palm shook over the sheath of his sword, recalling that nightmare that steals sleep from his eyes: the moment he was kneeling on Matthew's chest, raising his rusty dagger, reluctant to take his soul, his eyeballs shaking turbulently and his chest rising and falling at an exhausting pace, and Matthew grabbed his trembling palm and led him towards his chest containing the dagger. Empty not to retreat, not to coerce and relieve him from his hell, but to kill him and prove to everyone that he will no longer be the prey. On that day, everyone around him was waiting, waiting for him to retreat in order to pounce on them, the mighty king's monsters, who made a vow to himself to turn his life into hell from the moment he was born and did the most heinous things.

Ryan is a hard working young woman that loves to be in her own space and keeps to herself. Until a man from her past comes binto her life and shows her new and exciting way to live. He makes her change the way she lives, thinks and even dream about life. Will she let him in or will she run for the hills?

Her name was Cathedra. Leave her last name blank, if you will. Where normal people would read, "And they lived happily ever after," at the end of every fairy tale story, she could see something else. Three different things. Three words: Lies, lies, lies. A picture that moves. And a plea: Please tell them the truth. All her life she dedicated herself to becoming a writer and telling the world what was being shown in that moving picture. To expose the lies in the fairy tales everyone in the world has come to know. No one believed her. No one ever did. She was branded as a liar, a freak with too much imagination, and an orphan who only told tall tales to get attention. She was shunned away by society. Loveless. Friendless. As she wrote "The End" to her novels that contained all she knew about the truth inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, she also decided to end her pathetic life and be free from all the burdens she had to bear alone. Instead of dying, she found herself blessed with a second life inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, and living the life she wished she had with the characters she considered as the only friends she had in the world she left behind. Cathedra was happy until she realized that an ominous presence lurks within her stories. One that wanted to kill her to silence the only one who knew the truth.

My wolf told me Alpha Zeus is my mate. Of course, I didn't buy it. Because I'm a weak, disgusting she-wolf who was regarded as the murdered of my mother by my pack. Even if I didn't do it! Finally, that day, I decided to rebel. Fed up with the life full of suffering, I left my pack. I met Alpha Zeus and he said he's my mate, but he rejected me to be his Luna. I loved him with all my heart, but he just broke it all! I thought staying with him was my another misfortune, so I ran away. However, he did his best to catch me and keep me by his side. I prayed to the Moon Goddess to punish and destroy him! But at the day his 'punishment' did come, I suddenly realized, he loved me all this time...

I woke up, and I was 28 again. I had twin heirs, and my husband was Santino, Veridia's most feared Mafia Don. He sat at the head of the Commission of the Five Families. His sharp profile was a fixture on the cover of the underworld's most exclusive magazine for several consecutive issues. Even the oldest Valerian families were lining up to offer him their daughters. All the women in Altoria envied my good fortune. But the first thing I did after waking up was pick up the divorce papers, the ink still fresh, and handed them to his childhood sweetheart, Jessy. "My lawyer will handle the divorce. The properties and assets are yours. Santino is yours. The children are yours, too." Sitting across from me, Jessy couldn't believe it, her eyes wide with shock. "Are you crazy, Alessia? Is this some kind of trick?" "How could the woman who has been Donna for six years give it all up so easily?" I lowered my gaze, my tone calm. "Since they all prefer you, I figured it was time to step aside." "Just have Santino sign it and press his signet ring into the wax seal." "Once the divorce is final, I'll leave Veridia for good." This time, I would not make the same mistake. I would never again be a Donna in name only.

An apocalypse driven by natural disasters. Survival of the fittest. Typhoons, floods, deadly cold, scorching heat, earthquakes, tsunamis, insect plagues, acid rain… After struggling through three years of the apocalypse, Nicole Floyd met a brutal death. Miraculously, she woke up and found herself three days before it all began. Nicole seized the advantage to reclaim her storage space, flipping the switch on full-on stockpiling mode. She shopped until she ran out of money, and her storage was packed tight. She also looked for the dog that had saved her life once before. She sharpened her knives, stacked her supplies, and took care of unfinished business. She paid back every debt, whether owed in blood or in kindness. And then, disaster struck. Her right hand gripping a knife and her left stroking the dog, Nicole pressed on through the ruins of a world without order or morals.

Five years after we broke up, my ex bought the company I worked for and suddenly became my direct boss. The project plan I'd stayed up nights working on—nearly killing myself to finish—was handed to someone else without a word. My teammates were split apart, and I became his go-to example when he wanted to tear someone down. I was the laughingstock of the office. Shawn Lubbard said it was the price I had to pay for betraying him. Finally, I asked him what it would take for him to leave me alone. His reply? "Only if you die." Feeling crushed, I drove a knife into my chest right in front of him. Maybe this terrible life should have ended long ago.