ugly jokes

When I started college, my new roommate secretly used my phone to take a selfie. She sent it to the guy I was in an online relationship with and added the caption: [Baby, do you think I'm beautiful?] My boyfriend replied with a giant question mark, followed by a voice message full of curses. "Just thinking about dating someone with that face makes me want to puke!" "Let's break up, you ugly freak. Stay far away from me!" By the time I got out of the shower and tried to explain, I realized he had already blocked me. My roommate, holding her own phone, smugly told me, "The streamer I've had my eye on just added me. He says he wants to start an online relationship." When I looked at the account, I saw it was none other than my ex-boyfriend.

Emily’s world wasn’t just broken. It was strategically dismantled. Three years of love. One devastating betrayal. A single moment that would leave a scar forever. The day Emily caught her boyfriend Jaden and her best friend Mika tangled in bed, something inside her died. 2 years later, she has worked to be everything Jaden said she could never be— a star actress, loved by many. As Emily climbs the treacherous ladder of the entertainment industry, her betrayers return with a sinister plan. Mika, consumed by jealousy, doesn’t just want to compete – she wants to annihilate. Even if it meant becoming an actress herself. And Jaden? He’s the perfect weapon in her arsenal. But in the entertainment industry, Power surpasses power. And there he was, Noah. Noah. The king of the entertainment industry. Feared by many and had the lives of many wrapped around his fingers. He met Emily 2 years ago for the first time, snot mixing with tears, her broken glasses sliding down her face- she kept screaming at him “You can’t die! Not today!”. She saved him, and he owes his life to her. But now, she doesn’t remember him. Also she has changed. She almost looked nothing like the ugly woman he saw that night— Mascara streaking down her blotchy cheeks, glasses bent and crooked, hair disheveled, looking utterly destroyed, a walking catastrophe of raw, ugly pain, far from what he was seeing now— who is this woman? This isn’t a love story. This is a war. And Emily? She’s the prey. Would Noah be her Prince Charming that saves her?

My grandmother only knows how to draw one thing—infants. They're ugly, but people line up to buy the paintings. I watch as she takes those women into unlit rooms. Then, their bloodcurdling screams will ring out. Oddly enough, they always thank my grandmother when they're leaving. One day, I finally find out what exactly my grandmother paints. I discover the truth when I see an infant crawl out of one of the women's bellies—it looks just like the one my grandmother has painted.