Awakening

On Christmas Day, eight months pregnant, I struggled through the kitchen,cooking for my husband and his secretary. When I finally sat down, hoping to taste a piece of turkey I didn’t even get during Thanksgiving, my husband shoved me aside like I was nothing. He slid the turkey in front of his secretary instead. “Alison,you’re already so fat. Stop eating. Let Daisy have it—she deserves to enjoy your cooking.” Daisy，chewing on the turkey I had painstakingly prepared, had the audacity to mock me under the guise of playing truth or dare with my child. “So, what do you think your mom looks like?” “Mommy looks like a fat pig on a farm!” “Her stretch marks? They’re like disgusting worms crawling all over her. Even Santa would run for his life!” Their laughter erupted like daggers piercing me from all sides. Humiliation and rage burned through me as my dignity was stripped bare. I demanded an apology from that vile woman, but my husband—my husband!—turned his cold, cruel face toward me and said, “Get out of here.” Pregnant, exhausted, and humiliated, I stood there in shock. Then I snapped. I grabbed the Christmas cake and turkey and threw them in the trash. I walked out without looking back. This wretched family doesn’t deserve a second of my effort or a single ounce of my love!

The night my boyfriend and I celebrate our first anniversary, we get into an accident. My soul travels through time and ends up ten years in the future. Here, I see that my boyfriend and I have married and started a family. It's the future I've dreamed of. However, it seems that I'm out of a job, and I've given up on my dream. I struggle to make it through endless days of my boyfriend's ice-cold treatment. Ultimately, I see myself sitting on the edge of a building's roof after falling deep into postpartum depression. When I open my eyes again, I see my boyfriend's panicked face…

My sister-in-law and I have always been close, and we happened to be pregnant at the same time. However, during a routine check-up, she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids. I urged her to have surgery as soon as possible, but she refused and instead claimed her sallow complexion was a sign she was carrying a "child of fortune." She then retreated to the countryside to rest and nurture her pregnancy. Nine months later, while I grieved the loss of my stillborn child, she came back from the countryside with a baby girl in her arms. Consumed by the suspicion that the child was rightfully mine, I demanded a DNA test. That same night, my own mother and brother conspired to take my life. After my death, I discovered it was all a conspiracy. My family had orchestrated everything to swap my child for hers. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the moment before I took her for that fateful check-up.

I'm hospitalized after a car accident that nearly costs me my leg. Meanwhile, my fiancé is too busy in the room next door taking care of his first love. She's only faking a sprained ankle. From that same room, I hear Johan Rivera's mocking voice. "Raelyn? She's just a pawn the old man picked for a political marriage. She's not even good enough to be your stand-in." In that moment, something in me finally breaks. I watch the news coverage of a rising business star who's surrounded by reporters and flashing cameras. He's also my childhood friend who has pursued me for ten years. I calmly send him a message. "Christian, does your offer for a contract marriage still stand?"

In my previous life, my girlfriend's childhood friend impersonated a rich heir and messed around with the fake power he had. I exposed him, and he crashed his car into me. In my final moments, my girlfriend's sister begged on her knees, pleading for my girlfriend's aid, hoping she could save me, but my girlfriend did nothing. "He wouldn't do that. Zacharias is beyond this. He would never dirty his hands for a nobody like this guy. He might be my boyfriend, but that doesn't mean he can do anything he wants. He'd better know his place." My girlfriend's sister remained on the ground for three days. In the end, Zacharias dragged her away, violated her, and killed her. Even at my dying breath, my girlfriend was still covering up for her childhood friend. She refused to believe Zacharias hit someone with a car and violated her sister. And then I was reborn. This time, I did not beg and plead for my girlfriend to give me a moment of her time. I called my brother instead. "Hey? Yeah, it's me. Some bastard impersonated me and is dragging my name through the mud. I need you to take that guy out. Also, I'm not marrying Annabelle Lawson. I'm taking her sister instead." I gave the Lawsons a lot of resources so they could grow, and what did I get in the end? An ungrateful woman who would leave me stranded and dying all for another man. With all their resources pulled, Annabelle and her childhood friend would be saying goodbye to their good old days and hello to their personal hell.

Despite using my cornea, my husband, Felix Halward, forced me to kneel on glass shards. Despite using my heart, my daughter declared that I was not fit to be her mother. Before my artificial heart stopped beating, I called Felix, only to have him snap at me, “Liana, could you stop kicking up a fuss? If you want to die that badly, do it somewhere far away! I’m not collecting your corpse!” I shut my remaining left eye as I lay on the snow. Later on, Felix, who had stopped loving me, plucked out his own eyeball. My daughter, who had denounced me, tried taking her life multiple times just so that she could see me again. However, I no longer longed for their love.

My fiancé dumped me the moment he found out about my rare blood type. "That condition of yours? Yeah, it'd just drain my wallet." I was spiraling when Vincent showed up—like some knight in shining armor, pulling me out of the wreckage. He didn't care about my blood type. We barely dated before he proposed, and for a while, married life felt perfect. Until a year later, when I overheard him talking to a doctor. "Vincent, you already took 400 milliliters of Sophia's blood last month, and now you want another 200? Are you insane? Even if you love Emma, you can't just drain an innocent woman dry for her!" "A little more won't kill her. Stop overreacting." My head spun. My whole body went cold. That's when it hit me—our perfect marriage had been a lie from the start.

Mating with Kaelen, the strongest Alpha around, I thought I'd be the happiest Luna ever. That was until my Silver Moon Ceremony, the one that would officially make me Luna of the Night-fang pack. That's when I found Kaelen on his knees before some red-haired she-wolf. He was doing a blood-bond ritual, one that drains all your spirit, all to protect her kid. His kid, in her belly. For this cub, he was even willing to push back our Silver Moon Ceremony, making me look like a fool in front of the whole pack. He conveniently forgot that I was pregnant too – with his actual first heir. So, the night our Silver Moon Ceremony was supposed to happen, I started a different ritual: the Moon Eclipse Unbinding. Come the full moon, I'm using an ancient ritual from the old texts to cut our mate bond for good. And when I do, Kaelen will feel the same gut-wrenching pain I'm feeling.

After Nathan Seville stands me up for the seventh time we're supposed to register our marriage, I finally cut all ties with him—completely and on my own terms. If he shows up at a gathering, I don't go. If he's invited to perform at the college anniversary, I leave early. The moment my company decides to work with him, I resign on the spot. Even on Christmas Eve, when he shows up at my house with gifts, I make up an excuse about needing to visit someone. Calls? Blocked. Socials? Deleted. My strategy is simple—cut it all off. I don't reach out, and he has no way of finding me. For the first 30 years of my life, I spent most of it loving him with everything I had. I cared for him, supported him, and waited for him. But after being left hanging for the seventh time at the City Hall, I finally wake up. I don't want to live like this anymore. Even if I end up alone, it's still better than spending night after night waiting in an empty house that never feels like home!

My CEO wife insists on taking a young, fresh intern under her wing. She wants to train him personally. She says to me, "Don't overthink this. I just value his potential." She's always been stern and stoic, but she starts dressing in pink and pulling her hair back in high ponytails. On our third wedding anniversary, she and the intern even willfully disappear for 48 hours. When others are searching for her like mad, she shares photos of her riding a carousel and holding cotton candy. She captions them, "I found the purest of joys in the most joyful of places—all because of you!" Our company loses a huge project because of this, and I lose my wife. I slip a divorce agreement between the pages of the intern's application to become a permanent staff member. My wife signs it without even looking and says, "Knowing what Elliot can do, he's more than capable of carrying out the role of a vice president." I calmly hand her my resignation. "You're right. That's why I'll make way for him."