1945 Pulitzer Winning

On the day of our marriage registration, Henry Davis’s first love returned.For her sake, he left me at the city hall.He said it was dangerous at night, so he brought his first love back to our new house.I, who was forced to leave, however, encountered a violent criminal.After narrowly escaping death, I finally made up my mind to leave him.But he cried and begged me to stay.I found it ridiculously funny and said, "Do you think I can accept a jerk like you who has no principles?"

Every year, my wife, Jessica Lowe, prepares a huge surprise for me on our wedding anniversary. On the night of our tenth anniversary, she enters the banquet hall with a scantily-dressed male model. She demands that I take off my suit and put it on him instead. I refuse and take out a divorce agreement. In retaliation, Jessica slaps a thick stack of photos onto the table. The photos show me at my most humiliated, shameful, and pathetic moments. She sneers, "Michael Jefferson, you talk about divorce all the time. But each time, you always end up crawling back to me with your tail between your legs, begging me to take you back. "Tell me, what will your comatose mother think if these pictures of you get out? Will she finally wake up in the hospital from shame and embarrassment?" However, Jessica doesn't know that my mother, Eleanor Brown, passed away months ago.

Even after a full decade of marriage, my husband Rudolf and I were as deeply in love as the day we wed—an enviable couple in the eyes of all. On the day of our anniversary, I saw him lifting a little boy into his arms right outside the entrance of our neighborhood. "Daddy! Can you take me to the amusement park this time?" The boy's words were enough to stop me dead in my tracks. I instinctively hid around a corner. "Of course! I'll even take you on a trip." Rudolf smiled warmly and kissed the boy on the forehead. In that instant, something seemed to have been set off in my head, as if years of trust had been shattered at that one moment. Daddy? Upon closer examination, I realized that the boy's features were remarkably similar to Rudolf's. No one could deny they were blood-related. "Your dad's busy with work, sweetheart. Don't cling to him too much," said a beautiful woman standing next to the boy. The cruel moment before me made it clear. The man who swore he would love me forever had been cheating all along.

On the day of my wedding, I stood on the stage, while my fiance, Jake Stevens, passionately kissed his assistant, Chloe Xanders, in front of everyone. He held her in his arms and said earnestly, “Chloe, don’t worry. Even though you’re not my bride, you’ll always have a place in my heart.” Chloe, who was overwhelmed with emotion, threw herself into his arms and wept as she said to me, “Lily, Jake and I are deeply in love, but fate just didn’t work out for us in this life. Please take good care of him.” Gossip instantly spread around us. Just as I was feeling helpless, my fiance humiliated me further and called me nothing more than a doormat. Watching the two of them clinging to each other, I could not take it anymore. I canceled the wedding on the spot and left for abroad the same night to join my best friend. The next time I met Jack, I had already moved on with someone new. When he saw me interlocking my fingers with my new love and kissing him passionately, his eyes instantly filled with burning jealousy.

During a class reunion, a few well-to-do classmates instantly recognize that my branded bag is fake. "How is that possible?" I cry. "This is a new release that my husband got me. Don't you guys know him? He's Tom Smith, Zora Group's CEO." I hand my classmates business cards. The company is one that Tom set up using my name. Naturally, I'm the major stockholder. My classmates look at the business cards doubtfully. One says, "I've never heard of this company." When I get home, I have someone check on Zora Group for me. However, the news I receive is that the company has never existed, much less have a stockholder like me. Tom has another company under his name, but I'm not the stockholder. I drive to the DMV and find out that the car isn't in my name. The company and car are under Tom's name, but someone else owns them with him—his true love, Lauren Rowse.

During a competition, my wife's childhood friend switches my climbing chalk out for flour. When I'm about to win the competition, my hands slip, and I fall from a rock climbing wall that's several feet high. I'm covered in blood. My wife doesn't care about my survival, though. She tells the doctor to prioritize her childhood friend, who's feigned a fainting spell from the blood. Later, I discover that my wife condoned her childhood friend in switching out the chalk. Why did she do it? Because she was worried that her childhood friend, who was never good at physical activities, would be sad if I were to win. Yet, when I lose hope in her and ask for a divorce, she cries and tells me I'm the one she loves.

"If you offend Alpha Carlen, Luna Irene might plead for you. But if you cross Luna Irene, there won't even be a scrap of you left." That's a widely circulated saying in the werewolf upper circles. I'm Irene Chandler. Because of one game, I've decided to dissolve the mate bond with Carlen Alvarado. During the game, he says drunkenly, "I love resting my head on the belly of an expecting she-wolf and listening to the pup's heartbeat." The room falls silent. Every werewolf turns to look at me. There's no surprise in their eyes. What I see is their pity for me, the rightful Luna, and a flicker of panic that their secret has been exposed. At that moment, I understood everything. They all know Carlen has a pup with another woman. They've been helping him hide it from me. That's because they know I'm Carlen's everything. I'll leave him if I ever find out. And if I leave, he'll lose his mind. I have to admit that they know me well. After learning the truth, I plan to do three things. First, I toss the wedding ring Carlen designed for me into the furnace. Second, I save the video of Lily Chalvez flaunting her pregnancy to provoke me onto a flash drive. Third, I submit documents to the Pack Affairs Department, applying to become a researcher on the isolated Icebound Island. The day I leave the pack happens to be our seventh wedding anniversary. I'll vanish from his life like a wisp of smoke.

A car accident left my mother-in-law bleeding and desperate for help, but her plea was heartlessly rejected by her own daughter. Even on her deathbed, my mother-in-law's only wish was to see her one last time. However, she was busy staying by her first love's side, euthanizing his dog. "You better stay as far away from me as possible! My mom's perfectly fine!" she shouted before hanging up on me, only to spend the night tangled with her first love in a hotel room. It was not until after the cremation ceremony that she returned—carrying a birthday cake. What greeted her was not a celebration but her mother's funeral. She cried, sobbing uncontrollably, "Mom! You haven't even celebrated my birthday yet! Don't leave me!" I stared at her and pulled the divorce papers from my bag. How fitting. This time, I was leaving too.

I was an Omega, but my mate was an Alpha. Even though I didn’t have a wolf of my own, I could hear the voice of his. Through his wolf, I learned many of his little secrets. For example, he was secretly preparing a grand bonding ceremony. In three days, he was planning to propose, and I pretended not to know. However, that night, Harry Tarrington brought his childhood sweetheart back home. I was just about to ask what was going on when I heard his wolf growl furiously, “Isn’t the ceremony in three days meant for Lianne? Why is it now for Chloe?” So the ceremony I wasn’t supposed to know about… was never meant for me at all. I kept pretending I didn’t know. Quietly, I gave up my room, my most precious belongings, and even Harris himself. Then, I bought a ticket to the South. Carrying the twins in my belly, I left Fangtooth Pack forever on the very day they held their bonding ceremony.

I merely brought up the wedding decorations, and my fiancé's first love ran out of the room in tears. Ian Murray slapped me so hard I fell to the ground. His face twisted in fury, teeth clenched with hatred. "Daphne, are you that desperate to get married? Afraid no one else will want you, so you're clinging to me, forcing me into it? Our wedding next week is postponed!" I held my face, but not even a ripple stirred in my heart. This made the eighth time he'd postponed it. I had been waiting for him since I was twenty-eight. Now, in my early thirties, I was still getting nowhere closer to being married. So this time, I quietly packed my things and chose to leave. Maybe this marriage didn't need to happen after all.