Tragic

After an unexpected miscarriage, I left my ward in search of Victor. I saw him inside the doctor’s office. Just as I was about to knock on the door, I overheard their conversation. “Give my wife a hysterectomy. I don’t need her to bear me any children.” Victor Gayes pulled the woman beside him to face the doctor, his hand rubbing her belly. “The baby inside her belly will be my only child. You must protect it no matter what.” I knew the woman very well. She was Victor’s secretary of three years, Rachel Aniston. Victor reminded the doctor again and again, sternly and anxiously. “You have to give her the best medicine. I won’t allow anything to go wrong with this baby!” I pulled my hand back, all my blood running cold. To think Victor would do something so heartless to me, just after I lost our baby. To think my faith in him would become a dagger, stabbed straight into my heart. If love had another face, it would probably be letting these feelings go with a smile.

In their fifth year of marriage,Jessica went to renew their marriage certificate. However, she was told that the certificate was fake, and her husband's legal wife was someone else. The love that had seemed inseparable for five years turned out to be a lie. When she returned home, she overheard Anthony, her husband, talking to his lawyer: "Linda is building her career abroad, and to establish herself in the business world, she needs the title of Mrs. Harris. I have to help her." "As for Jessica, she's completely devoted to me. She's already cut ties with her family for me, and she will never leave." Hearing that, Jessica's heart turned to stone. By the time Anthony brought back the real marriage certificate, Jessica had disappeared, and he was unable to find her again.

On the day of my wedding anniversary, I was cleaning my house when I found a picture album. As it turned out, my husband had been religiously taking pictures with the girl of his dreams every year on this precise date. He had been doing it since he was forty years old and he was now sixty years old. His hair had progressed from a jet black to a faded white and yet, he kept up the tradition. There was a written message in his handwriting at the back of the picture that read, “Eternal Love.” Since he doesn't love me, I will no longer bother washing his clothes and cooking for him. I will no longer care for his children and grandchildren. I may have foolishly wasted half of my life, but it was not too late to make a change.

According to my mother, the men who were loved by the daughters of the Granger family were blessed with fortune beyond belief. In exchange, however, the women of our family were cursed with short lives, not being able to live past the age of 30. Only by having their husbands willingly agree to share their lifespans with them on their wedding day could they return to normal. I didn't want to die young, so I started picking out a husband ever since I was a child. I saved the brooding young boy next-door who was being bullied. I stayed by his side as he went from rags to riches, becoming one of the rising stars of the business world. On the day of our marriage, however, he abandoned me at the altar and went straight to his first love, the woman who used to bully him in the past. While I was searching for a new husband, he had the gall to threaten me with his status. "Penelope, don't push it. You're really testing my patience." Little did he know that he only had his fame and fortune because of me.

I die in the corridor of the private hospital my husband established after being forced to give my heart to his true love. Before my death, my six-year-old son tearfully begs him to save me thrice. The first time, he holds my husband's hand and says I'm coughing up blood. My husband sneers. "Looks like she's learned tricks—she knows how to teach children to lie now." Then, he has his bodyguards kick my son out of the ward. The second time, my son grabs his sleeve and says I'm in so much pain that I'm incoherent. My husband frowns. "It's just a heart transplant. The doctor said she won't die." The bodyguards step forward and drag my son out of the ward again. The third time, my son grovels at my husband's feet and grabs his pants, sobbing and saying that I'm already unconscious. My husband is infuriated. He grabs my son by the neck and throws him out of the ward. "I told you Nadia won't die! I'll throw her and you out of the hospital if you come here and disturb Ruby's rest again!" My son gives his most previous item—a guardian angel pendant—to a nurse to save me. The nurse accepts it and arranges for me to be admitted to the last available ward in the hospital. However, Ruby Sharpe has someone stand before it with her pet dog. She says, "Sorry, kiddo. Your father's worried I'll be bored without my dog, so this ward has been set aside for my dog to stay in."

I was dying from my fear of heights, but my husband, Don Vincent, was busy with his assistant, savoring the latest coffee flown in from Hawaii that morning. "You're a grown woman, Bella. What's the big deal? You're stuck on a roof, figure it out." Then he hung up on me. I collapsed onto the hot tar of the roof, my body shaking uncontrollably before everything went black. It was two hours before building security found me. When I got home, I asked Vincent for a divorce. He rubbed his temples, his patience worn thin, looking at me as if I were a child throwing a tantrum. "Over a cup of coffee? I told you, the heights are all in your head. You’re perfectly safe now. Stop making a scene alright? What's this nonsense about a divorce? I have more important things to deal with. Calm yourself down." I stared at his back as he left, tears already streaming down my face. Something important? Did he really think I couldn't hear his assistant, Sophia, murmuring in the background? Did he think I didn't know he took her to the last family gathering? I had loved Vincent for three years. Everyone knew he was the center of my world. They all thought an orphan like me could never leave him. But now, all the love I had was eclipsed by a profound, soul-crushing exhaustion. I was done. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in three long years. "Uncle, book me a flight to Seattle. I'm ready to leave Vincent."

My husband, Jonathan Rivers, was a notorious playboy in Polesburg's elite circles. Beautiful women surrounded him constantly, yet he claimed to have fallen for me at first sight, saying it was a love that would last forever. He dismissed all the other women around him for my sake. Everyone said I was his destined soulmate. Seven years into our marriage, I had seven abortions for him, simply because he said he did not like children. Then on Father's Day, I saw him on his secretary's social media feed. The same man who claimed to be away on business was there with a child beside him, calling him "Daddy" loudly. It turned out that when he said he did not like children, he meant that he did not like children with me. I dialed his number through tears. "Do you want another wife?"

I was a princess of the sea. And the moment I saw the werewolf Alpha, Dominic, I fell. Hard. I wanted to be his mate. To be part of his world. So I sacrificed everything I was to the Moon Goddess. But he locked me in the pack's isolation room for three days. To "think about what I'd done." All because I didn't rush to help his childhood friend, Harper. She took a dive at the pack banquet, and the room erupted in laughter. Harper cried and collapsed into Dominic’s arms. "Marina must be jealous of how good you are to me. She used her outsider magic to make me fall in front of everyone!" As he locked me away, Dominic's eyes were full of disappointment. "I've spoiled you, Marina. And now you're using my love as a weapon against my own people. Three days. When you're ready to submit, you will contact me through the mind link and apologize. Only then will I let you out." But he didn't know the truth. Burning sage soothes a werewolf's spirit. But for a mermaid, it’s poison. The smoke scorched my lungs. The poison flooded my veins. I suffocated in that sealed room. And no one ever knew.

I accidentally stumbled upon numerous explicit videos on my husband's computer while tidying up his desk. The videos showed him in bed with my unmarried best friend. The relationship between my husband and me had been platonic ever since I gave birth 40 years ago. His reason was that he was no longer capable of physical intimacy. Now, it felt like my entire life had been a sham, despite all my efforts for my family.

My sister gets into an accident and needs an emergency blood transfusion when I'm six months pregnant. After a round of tests, my blood is the only suitable one. I'm exhausted and too skinny after being tormented by morning sickness. I have to say no. However, my family forces me to do it. I have no strength to resist; I can only beg my husband for help. To my devastation, he stands by and watches me coldly. "It's fine for you to donate some blood since you're so healthy. Queenie isn't the same as you—she has a bright future ahead, so we can't let anything affect that." I pass out after the blood donation. The first thing I do when I wake up is make an appointment for an abortion.