My husband is a professor at Weston University. He promised to write me a letter of recommendation this year so I could get a job there as well. Just as the recruitment period was about to end, he suddenly told me he wanted a divorce. "Megan, my mentor's wife is gravely ill. Her last wish is to see her daughter get into Weston University and carry on their family's legacy. The quickest way to make that happen is for her to take the position as my wife. So let's get a fake divorce first, and we'll remarry later, okay?" I looked at him and suddenly burst out laughing. "Fine by me." In my previous life, I followed my husband's advice, divorced him, and accepted a position in a remote rural area. I was never transferred back for the rest of my life. It wasn't until I died alone and miserable on the distant frontier that I discovered his mentor's wife had been alive and well the entire time. "Sure, I'll agree to the divorce." After all, his mentor's wife's life is obviously more important.

After Elena Brooks rejected Diane Foster's enormous check for the 88th time, she finally realized that "Dummy" or her husband had regained his memory.   The last time Sophia Grant, the Grant heiress, came to visit, Marcus hurled a glass at her feet and roared, "Ellie is the only woman I'll ever love. All of you, get out!"   This time, Elena heard only his deep, controlled voice. "I agree to the marriage alliance."   She froze.   That wasn't the voice she knew. The familiar, slightly goofy warmth was gone, replaced by calm, cold authority.   It was exactly how the Hale heir was supposed to sound.   'Has Marcus regained his memory?'   Richard's excited voice came from inside the room. "Good! Brilliant!"   Marcus continued, "But Elena can't know. I'll keep her around on the side."

My CEO husband has been totally swept up in a wild new romance lately. Not only has his hairstyle started to look exactly like those boy band trainees straight out of an idol survival show, but he's also swapped his crisp after-work suits for loud, flashy hip-hop outfits and started dousing himself in sweet-scented cologne, of all things. When I found out his little girlfriend was actually my daughter's best friend? I saw red on the spot and immediately demanded a divorce. My husband had the nerve to call me ungrateful, sneering that I should be grateful he's even letting me keep the title of Mrs. Jacobs. Even all our friends were trying to talk me down, telling me not to make a rash decision I'd regret later. Hold on, they had a point, actually. I'm still his legal wife, and hundreds of millions worth of assets are already under my name. What the hell do I even have to complain about? That thought made perfect sense to me.   So when the day of the grand celebration banquet my husband threw for his little girlfriend's twin pregnancy rolled around, I coolly slid a medical report right in front of him that said he was completely infertile, with zero sperm count at all.

Today marked the 99th time my boyfriend threw a fit and threatened to break up with me. The first time? I'd busted my leg so bad I couldn't even leave my dorm, but he still demanded I drag myself out to eat with him. The second time, my mom was in the hospital sick, and he blew up at me for missing his calls. This time? I'd been hammering out a last-minute report at the library that morning and answered his text a little late. I should've seen the red flags piling up a long time ago, but this time? He went way too far. He snarled, "Get your ass over here right now and explain yourself, or we're done." When I didn't so much as flinch, he hit me with another, even uglier threat. "If you don't show up, I'll make the hospital cut off your mom's treatment!" He jabbed a finger in my direction, voice rising to a shout. "And I'll dump you on the spot and hook up with another girl immediately!" He knew damn well my mom was my only family, and still he had the nerve to hold her life over my head like that. All because I answered his text a few minutes late, he actually went through with it. He got the hospital to pause my mom's treatment, which landed her in the ICU, fighting tooth and nail to stay alive. On top of that, he blocked every single way I had to make money. With nowhere left to turn, I fumbled for my phone and punched in a number I'd memorized and replayed in my head a hundred times, heart hammering in my chest.  With my back against the wall, I dialed a number. "Mr. Campbell, that offer you made me last time... does it still stand?"

We'd been married three years, and Landon had never so much as laid a finger on me. "Marrying you was just to stop people from saying the Jensen family goes back on its word. Don't get any big ideas and start acting like you're actually Mrs. Jensen. I already have someone I love."  I went along with whatever he said, no questions asked. The day before he officially took over as CEO of the Jensen Corporation, his buddies were all nagging him to get the divorce over with. "Come on, it's high time you got a divorce, right? You're the CEO of the Jensen Group now, surely you can call the shots on your own marriage?"  "Exactly! Tiffany's been clinging to the Mrs. Jensen title for three whole years. It's time to give it back to Scarlet.” That was when Landon stepped foot in my bedroom for only the second time ever. "Tiffany, it's time we got a divorce."  'Ugh. He'd finally brought it up. If he'd waited much longer, my baby bump would've started showing for sure.'

"Whoa, hold on! You're actually breastfeeding at the company's annual party?" My baby was allergic to formula, so I had to feed him breast milk exclusively. But the company's lactation room had been hogged by other people forever. I'd just found an empty storage room to nurse in when Naomi Prescott barged the door open with a whole crowd behind her, snatching at my clothes. The second she yanked the jacket covering my baby aside, peals of mocking laughter from the onlookers stabbed right through me like a thousand tiny knives. Naomi leaned in close to my ear and snickered, "Aw, Charlotte, we're all coworkers, no need to get so huffy, yeah?" The entire office was waiting for me to crack and make a fool of myself, but I stayed eerily calm. 'In my past life, I'd been so crushed by this exact shame that I jumped off the roof of this very building. This time around, I was ready.' When she reached for me again, I caught her hand, and ripped open the collar of her button-down shirt in one sharp motion. "You got that right, we're all coworkers. Why don't you nurse him for me, huh?"

The day I found out I was pregnant with triplets, I was staring at the sad balance in my bank account, panicking about how on earth I was gonna afford to raise three kids all on my own. Then, out of nowhere, my CEO husband's divorce papers showed up the very next second with his text messages. Finley: Two hundred million dollars. Sign the papers, get out of my life, and never show your face in front of me again. I froze for a whole beat, then my face split into a grin so wide my cheeks hurt. "Are you kidding? This is the answer to my prayers!" I stuffed the check and divorce certificate into my bag, didn't even glance back as I left the city. After that, the whole city was buzzing with the same rumor: The notoriously cutthroat, decisive Mr. Fox had gone completely off the rails, and he was hell-bent on tracking down his ex-wife of all people, the one who'd bolted with a fat check and skipped town while carrying his three unborn kids! 

Five months after my husband was declared killed in the line of duty, my mother-in-law dragged me to the hospital. She'd already booked me an appointment for an induced abortion, her eyes puffy and red as she pleaded with me. "Selena, he's gone, but you still have your whole life ahead of you. Get this pregnancy terminated sooner rather than later, and I'll help you find a good man to settle down with again." My throat felt tight, all the words I wanted to say stuck behind a lump. I clutched the abortion form in my fist so tight my knuckles went white, too choked up to say a word. Then, out of nowhere, a tiny, wobbly, childish voice piped up right in my ear. "Mommy! Don't get rid of me! Daddy isn't dead at all!" It felt like I'd been hit by a freight train. The abortion form slipped right out of my hand and clattered to the linoleum floor with a soft thud. "Daddy's at the suburban rehab center! They're so close to brainwashing him into being some other woman's husband!" the voice added. "In my past life, you believed Grandma and didn't go looking for Daddy. I never got to be born. When Daddy found out the truth later, he almost went crazy!" I didn't hesitate for a second. I hauled my pregnant belly straight to the suburban rehab center, moving as fast as my legs could carry me. A nurse blocked me right outside the training room, and through the door window, I spotted a woman holding my husband's hand, her voice soft and syrupy sweet as she spoke to him. "Captain Walker, don't be nervous. You have to let go of what happened before if you want a fresh start."

After a drunken roll in the sheets with my best friend's younger brother, I ended up as his secret girlfriend. Eight years into our clandestine relationship, my family forced me into a blind date.   "Coby, they've handed down an ultimatum. I have to get married this year."   He froze, then pressed a feather-light kiss on my forehead. Still the same tired refrain, "Let's wait a little longer."   But the moment I scrolled through my feed, I stumbled upon the intern Elaine's post. The picture? His and Coby's marriage certificate.   Caption: Ultimate heartthrob—scored. What I'd been aching for over eight long years, he'd gotten in three short months. Swallowing the sour sting in my chest, I hit like. I typed out a comment.   Aurelia: [Congratulations! May you share a lifetime of bliss and have a baby soon.]   Then I gave in and agreed to the wedding date my folks had arranged.   My phone buzzed. Coby's voice, panicked for the first time. "Aurelia, don't get the wrong idea. I was just playing a game with friends and lost, so I had to get the marriage certificate with Elaine…"

Three years into my divorce battle with Victor Cross, I was still digging my heels in, flat-out refusing to sign the papers. He sighed, weary and exasperated, as he tried to talk some sense into me. "There's no love left between us. If we keep dragging this out, we'll both end up getting hurt." But in my past life, I was eaten up by bitterness and resentment. I clung to my position as his wife like a lifeline, refusing to let go no matter what.  That standoff only ended when Victor's mistress had a baby. I stormed into the hospital and threw a massive, furious fit. That was the final straw for him. All his remaining patience snapped, and he had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. He didn't even bother to see me until I was on my deathbed. His voice was cold as ice when he spoke. "If I'd known you were this stubborn and fixated, I never would have married you." So when he stood in front of me once again in this life, that same tired, fed-up edge to his tone, saying, "She's pregnant. I don't want this to turn into an ugly public spectacle. You can have anything you want, anything except the title of Mrs. Cross." For a second, I just stood there staring at him. I gazed at that face, so familiar it was burned into my bones, and all the fight suddenly drained out of me, leaving me hollow. The man I'd fought tooth and nail to hang onto in my past life? In this one, the only thing I wanted was to get as far away from him as I possibly could.  "I agree to the divorce," I said, my voice flat and hollow, all the fight draining right out of me.

After I accidentally slept with my future brother-in-law, our families hastily arranged a bride swap to cover up the scandal. I married Ethan Hale, the man my sister loved, while she was sent to wed a gravely ill Ashford elder in the hope that the marriage would help him recover. Feeling humiliated, my sister took her own life on her wedding day. From that day on, Ethan despised me. Throughout our 30-year marriage, he shut me out, humiliated me, and acted as though I didn't exist. When I finally died after decades of misery, he had someone deliver one final message. "Evelyn Reed, stay the hell away from me in your next life." When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the banquet where everything had gone wrong. Before I could do anything, Ethan hurled his wineglass to the floor. Shards skittered to my feet, and he fixed me with a look of pure hatred. I knew then that he had traveled back through time too. This time, he got his wish and cut all ties with me. In front of both families, he announced, "Let's move up the wedding dates. I want to marry Isabella as soon as possible. As for Evelyn, she was supposed to marry into the Ashford family anyway." The room fell silent, and everyone turned to stare at me. I simply looked up and said, "Fine. I'll marry him."

I was wrapping up my master's degree and hunting for a job when I brought it up to my boyfriend. I asked if he could write me a letter of recommendation for my applications in his capacity as a Maple University professor. He scowled and snapped at me, "People need to be fair. Stop always looking for backdoor shortcuts." I was mortified by his words. After that, I poured all my energy into prepping for interviews, grinding day and night to get ready. But right after I finished my interviews, I passed the Maple University bulletin board and saw a notice that made my blood run cold: my classmate, Ramona, had successfully landed a job at the university, listed as the spouse of my boyfriend. And to make it even worse, they were actually legally married, with a valid marriage license. All of a sudden, I was the other woman. When I confronted him about it, he said, "Ramona's my advisor's daughter, this isn't a backdoor deal. As for that marriage license... once her job is fully settled, I'll get a divorce and marry you, I promise." I huffed a cold, bitter laugh, turned on my heel, and joined my lab mate's research team to go abroad for further studies. This time, I was ditching that rotten deadbeat and our messed-up, dead-end relationship for good.

I was the villain's daughter. A freak accident catapulted me back to the very first page of the story.  In the future I remembered, Dad loved the female lead, but she didn't love him back. That unrequited obsession twisted him into a monster who locked her away. He died young, leaving me an orphan, bullied and abused by everyone. Now, I had to strike first. So I flipped the script, turning his own basement into a cage for a school bully. My villainous father stared at the bad boy squirming on the floor, his lips quivering. "Lyra! Who the hell is this?" I blinked, all coy, and purred, "My crush, of course." I'd beat the villain at his own game, leaving him no way out. Later, I used that basement to lock up the school heartthrob, trap the queen-bee bully, and even chain up a street punk. Until one day, when I decided to pull off a big score, only to find that the basement door had been welded shut by my father, who'd suddenly switched sides…

The album I'd slaved over with Calum Ashford, huddled in a basement polishing for months, had finally won the Crystal Song Award. I sat in the audience below the stage, my heart thrumming with anticipation as I waited for his acceptance speech. He'd promised me before that when we won the award, he'd tell the whole world the story behind our promise song, the one that marked the start of us. Warmth swelled in my chest. I'd already decided that as soon as the ceremony wrapped up, I'd tell him my own secret: I was actually the heiress of an entertainment company. I watched him step off the stage, and then… Right in front of every single person watching, in the room and across the airwaves, he gestured towards my best friend. "I want to thank my one and only muse, Meryl Ronan. I wouldn't be where I am today without her." I knew exactly why he was saying that. Meryl's dad was a heavyweight in the music criticism scene, after all. Here's the thing Calum had no idea about, though: that very titan of music criticism had been in my dad's study just last week, crawling and begging my dad to use his media connections to hush up the scandal of his son getting busted for drug possession.

Gavin Carter was a powerful CEO in Portwell, notorious for his icy demeanor.   At every corporate reception, I stepped in and drank on his behalf.   "Ms. Ross can really hold her liquor. No wonder she's Mr. Carter's right-hand woman!"   "She's definitely going places."   No one knew I wasn't doing it to get ahead. I did it because Gavin had a chronic stomach condition, and even a few drinks would leave him in pain and unable to sleep for hours.   We had been together for 7 years, yet he had never made our relationship public because he said he didn't want his private life interfering with work.   Then the new intern began posting photos of their private get-togethers all over her feed.   Gavin claimed he couldn't stand women who were always snacking, yet he had treats delivered to her at the same time every day.   Another snack delivery from the CEO. I'm so spoiled.   He couldn't stand high-maintenance women, yet he rescheduled her department's performance review so she could sleep an extra 30 minutes.   The CEO said I get to be the exception. How lucky am I?   Coworkers piled into the comments to tease them and offer their congratulations.   That was when I realized that making a relationship public didn't get in the way of work after all.   I liked her post and handed in my resignation letter.

After I lost my sight in an accident, my usually cold, distant husband suddenly turned red-hot for me. Every single night, he'd gently coax me into trying all kinds of new positions. That evening, I was curled up in his arms as we soaked in the tub together, hot water sloshing around us, when my vision abruptly clicked back into place. I stared at the teardrop mole right under the man's left eye, and my heart did a full-on somersault in my chest. That wasn't my husband. That was Gavin, his twin brother. All these years, every date, every heated make-out session, every night tangled up in the sheets… it had been Gavin all along. The thing is, though… I'd known the entire time. It wasn't like I had no clue. After all, my real husband never had a ripped eight-pack anyway…

The new junior assistant accidentally splashed water all over me, and my CEO husband, Arthur Callahan, immediately slapped her hard across the face. "Clumsy idiot. Get the hell out of here, now!" I rolled my eyes and teased him for overreacting. I thought all the gossip spreading dumb rumors about him and the assistant hooking up were total clowns. Later, he walked me to the door personally, but I had left my bag behind and had to turn back to get it. The second I pushed the office door open, my blood ran cold at what I saw playing out inside. The little assistant who had been sobbing her heart out just minutes ago was now straddling my husband's lap, looking like the cat that got the cream. My usually aloof, ice-cold husband was cupping her soft, youthful face in his hands, dabbing ointment on her cheek. "Lyra, I'm so sorry. That vicious harpy I'm married to is so possessive and controlling. I was scared she'd target you, so I had to..." "Mr. Callahan, you don't have to explain. I understand completely..." My breath caught in my throat. I spun around, ducked into a quiet empty hallway, pulled out my second phone, and punched in a number.  "Put the financing for Callahan Corporation on hold for now. Also, draw up a divorce agreement for me."

At my birthday party, my mother told me to draw from a mystery box to choose my husband. To stand up for my twin sister, Liam replaced every single slip with the name of a penniless security guard from our neighborhood. Everyone waited to watch the drama. Liam, looking down on me with arrogance, spoke up and told me to choose between becoming his mistress or marrying that security guard. "You may have the same face as Gwyneth, but you are cruel and deceitful. The only reason I am even offering you the chance to be my mistress is out of consideration for Gwyneth..." he said. I curled my lip into a smile and cut Liam off. "I will marry the security guard."

Three days before the wedding, I called off the engagement with Dashiell Halston. He gave a helpless smile. "Just because I fastened the back clasp of Lila Pembroke's dress?" I nodded. "Yes." His smile grew more weary. "Lila is clumsy... she couldn't reach the last clasp at all. There were so many people at last night's gala, I had to help her." When I stood silent, he pushed a Victoria's Secret gift box toward me. But I turned my head away and did not take it. From our small hometown to Paris, from awkward youth to full adulthood. Eighteen years. It was time to let go.

My father said he wants me to take over the company, but only if I first work on the front lines to learn how things operate. To blend in with everyone else, I deliberately picked the cheapest clothes I had in my closet. My internship went fairly smoothly, and I even agreed to date another intern who had been pursuing me. But at a formal dinner one night, my supervisor had too much to drink and rested his hand on my thigh. "Listen here, kid, I know you don't have much money, but I think you've got real potential. Why don't you come work closely with me? I can guarantee you'll get a promotion next month! Your boyfriend told me you're eager to get ahead, so don't act like you're too good for this." I looked over at my boyfriend in shock, but he silently turned his face away. The other colleagues around us were even cheering, saying how lucky I was to get noticed by someone in charge. I shoved his hand away as hard as I could, ran out of the private dining room, and called my father right away. "I've seen enough. That entire department is worthless. Fire every single one of them."

We had been together for eight years, and my boyfriend had blocked my phone number eighty-eight times. This time, the reason was simply that I hadn't answered his call while I was at my best friend's birthday party. As usual, I should have rushed to buy a gift within an hour, then swallowed my pride and waited for him outside his office building. But today, I blocked his number instead. Lines of comments floated across my vision. A: [Oh honey, don't block him! Go apologize right away! He just never got enough love growing up, so he keeps testing how much you care about him.] B: [He's going to be heartbroken when he sees you blocking him, his eyes will turn red! Go find him, just sweet-talk him a little and he'll stop being mad!] Liam Reed tried to call me over voice chat. He stayed silent for more than ten seconds before hanging up. The comments flashed even faster.   A: [Oh my gosh, he loves you so much it hurts, he just won't say it! Cowards always lose the people they love!]

I chased Soren Haverford for seven years, and he never so much as looked my way. But the moment my identity as the false heiress was exposed, he asked to marry me of his own accord. On our wedding night, I overheard his friend speaking as if he were the one to pity.  "Soren, you went and married her just so the real heiress wouldn't get pushed around by the impostor. If Rhodora knew the man she just signed the marriage license with wasn't you at all, just some penniless nobody from the sticks, she'd probably cry her eyes out!" Soren's voice was as cold as ever. "Rhodora has held the Winslet family's name for long enough. It's time she gave it back to Vesper. Once I get her out of the way, Vesper will never have to worry about her again." I slipped off my ring and turned to leave, only to walk straight into the arms of a strange man who was my actual husband. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a ring worth more than most houses, and slid it onto my ring finger. "Hello, wife. I'm here to take you home."

Two days before the engagement, my fiancé knelt down to smooth the hem of my gown, and his fingers brushed lightly over my ankle.  "Zoe, why have I never seen you wear high heels? You have such lovely feet." I was adjusting the waistline of my dress in the mirror and replied absently, "I'm not used to them. They hurt to walk in." "Try them. High heels would look stunning with your mermaid gown." His palm slid slowly up my leg and came to rest behind my knee. "Get the thin ones with red soles, they peek out as you walk, so elegant and striking. You'd look absolutely breathtaking in them." I looked up and met his focused, eager gaze in the mirror. "Since when do you know so much about this?"

When I saw my older cousin jump into the river without hesitation to save the drowning man right in front of us, I knew... she had been reborn too. In my previous life, my cousin and I spotted the man at the exact same moment. She turned and walked away without a second glance. I, on the other hand, rushed into the water and pulled him to safety. It turned out the man was the wealthiest tycoon in the country. Not only did he give me an unlimited black credit card, but he also asked me to marry him. Meanwhile, my cousin was punished for refusing to help. She lost her job and sank into overwhelming debt. Watching me drive luxury cars and carry designer handbags, she finally snapped. She kidnapped me, hacked my body to pieces, and dumped my remains into an outhouse, where maggots feasted on my flesh. When I opened my eyes again... I was back on the very day of that river rescue.

I am the suitor who clings relentlessly to Ronan Hamilton. Even when he belittles me in front of everyone, or deliberately acts affectionately with a younger female student, I still refuse to give up. Only because every single night I dream... dreams where Ronan and I are married, and he treats me with such kindness. As the dreams grow more frequent and vivid, I lose control and begin pouring all the feelings from those dreams onto the real Ronan standing right in front of me. "Ronan, don't be surprised if Talia really ends up being the one standing beside you someday." Someone teased him. "I studied hypnosis to help Ariana overcome her trauma. As for Talia? She was nothing more than a test subject." Ronan replied casually. I stayed quiet for a long time, then opened my phone and placed an order for a copy of Hypnosis Fundamentals. But the moment I stopped chasing him, he went completely wild... swearing with every breath that he was the one I was meant to marry, my future husband.

I was lying in bed, scrolling through my phone with my rounded belly, when a local news alert popped up. "Murder of Wife in Willow Creek Apartment Complex Solved: Man Stabs Pregnant Wife to Death After She Refuses Intimacy"  I tapped to open it, only to realize the story was dated for tomorrow. And the name listed as the killer was my husband. I thought it had to be a prank or a website glitch until I saw the familiar wedding photo included in the report. In the picture, my face was covered with heavy pixelation. My heart seemed to stop beating. Just then, the bedroom door swung open. My husband stepped inside, licking his lips, with a grin that sent chills down my spine. "Honey, I want you tonight."

On the day I was supposed to marry Ray Reynolds, my sister got her cancer diagnosis. She said that before she died, she wanted to be Ray's wife for just one day. My whole family was heartbroken for my sister and insisted we had to fulfill her dying wish. Ray went even further, he swapped brides right there on the spot and went through with the wedding with her instead. My heart turned to ash. That same night, I booked a flight out of the country and vanished without a trace. It wasn't until my sister died a few years later that he even remembered I existed. His once nominal wife. We ran into each other again at a victory banquet. He was wearing that same soft, doting expression he always used to, and reached out to grab my hand. "Selene, I finally found you. Are you still mad I married your sister back then? She's gone now, so don't hold a grudge against someone who's already dead. As for the wedding? We can just throw a new one, it's not a big deal." I jerked away from him in a split second, then turned and laced my fingers through another man's hand. "Mr. Reynolds, keep your hands to yourself. I'm married, and my daughter just turned three."

While my boyfriend was in the shower, I saw a random wild hair on our bed, making me grab his phone and fire off a message to his buddy group chat, posing as him. Donald: Guess who I'm hanging out with tonight? I fully figured they'd name me right off the bat. But the reply that popped up hit me like a ton of bricks. A: Is that the sophomore girl who's been obsessing over you? She's so hung up on you, way easier to score with than your girlfriend. Want us to head over tonight? My gut was screaming this was way worse than regular old cheating. I was just about to dig through his chat history with that girl when a message from her popped up on its own: Hey, I said yes to the threesome. I'd do anything for you. The next message that pinged in from the group made my blood run cold: Just be extra careful this time, yeah? We don't need another body on our hands, got it?

Thud. That was the seventh time my stay-at-home dad had clumsily dropped me smack on the floor, and Mom was dead set on getting a divorce, no room for argument. Dad scooped me up off the ground, a whole fake wronged look plastered across his face as he apologized over and over. "Selene, Elara was begging so hard to see you. I was so focused on calming her down that my hand slipped. It was a total accident, I swear." I was just about to throw a little tantrum and beg Mom to pick me up when, all of a sudden, I picked up on Dad's internal monologue, loud and clear. "Finally, I'm gonna be free of this little dead weight. She cries and throws tantrums nonstop, such a damn nuisance! "Selene's multi-million fortune has to be split right down the middle with me. If she doesn't set me and Celeste up for life, she can forget getting off easy!" I blinked a couple of times, then wiggled around and snuggled deeper into his hold. "Nevah mind, nevah mind! Please don't divorce Daddy, okay?"

Three months into my new job, I figured out all my coworkers were calling me "old maid" behind my back. That stupid nickname came from Adrian's stuck-up, holier-than-thou secretary. The joke? I was 32 years old, eight years into a relationship, still waiting for a ring and a wedding that never seemed to happen. I cornered Adrian, voice tight with a mix of anger and humiliation. "Do you know your people are calling me 'old maid'?" He didn't even bother glancing up from his work. "Sabrina's always been like that, she's just blunt, runs her mouth without thinking, it was nothing but a silly joke. You're 32, are you really gonna pick a fight with a young girl?" Then he looked up at me in a lazy, amused smirk, tugging at his lips. "Come on, though. It's actually kinda accurate, isn't it?" I sucked in a sharp, cold breath. It felt like an ice-cold hand had clamped around my heart, squeezing until I could barely breathe. All eight years I'd poured into us, all the youth I'd spent waiting for him? It was nothing but a cheap punchline to him. I didn't let him see how badly his words stung. I spun on my heel and walked out without a word. I handed in my resignation that same day, then blocked him on every last social media app, phone contact, and chat platform we used. For the first time ever, that perpetually calm, unshakable man totally panicked, his usual unflappable facade shattering to pieces. "Evelyn, wait, I'm begging you, come back—"

When Nathan Green lost both his legs in a car crash, I thought our lives would be bound together for better or worse. I traded my own fully functional legs for his via the system, and he swore up and down he'd dote on me for the rest of his life. That day, I'd rolled my wheelchair to his study to bring him a warm glass of milk, when I caught him chatting openly with his best friend through the closed door. "When are you gonna call it quits with your side piece? If your wife finds out, she's gonna lose her mind, right? You owe her your legs, for Christ's sake." He exhaled a puff of smoke and let out a cold, mocking chuckle. "What, you gonna hit me with that moral grandstanding bullshit too? You have any clue how gross it is to fuck a useless gimp? I've tolerated this garbage for seven whole damn years! Lena's young, hot, full of energy, and I don't even have to lift a finger… Being with her is the only time I actually feel alive. Hell, even our son doesn't want a useless deadbeat like her for a mom. Says she's a total embarrassment to him around his friends." The warm glass milk bottle slipped straight out of my numb fingers, and shattered against the floor with a sharp, ear-splitting crash. His eyes locked straight onto me through the gap in the door. He didn't so much as open his mouth to mumble an apology, and I didn't fly off the handle screaming for an explanation. I just held his gaze, every word sharp and unshakable when I spoke. "Nathan," I bit out, my voice cold and unshakable, every trace of the softness I'd carried for seven years gone, "let's get a divorce."    

The night before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, my fiancé's secretary tipped every single bottle of wine I'd set aside for the wedding guests down the drain, and swapped them all for milk. My face dropped instantly, and I demanded she give me a damn explanation, right on the spot. But my fiancé, who'd always doted on me before, stepped right in front of her, tucking her safely behind his back like I was the one about to attack her. "Elowen was just doing something nice. Don't ruin the mood for everyone," he said. His crew of good-for-nothing buddies all burst out snickering, too. "C'mon, chill out, it's not that deep! It's just a few bottles, right? Don't be so selfish." But I didn't miss the nasty, scheming glint in all their eyes, plain as day. Looks like it's high time I dumped this deadweight and picked a new fiancé.

I'm the only delivery driver in this horror game, and I know every shortcut to every instance like the back of my hand. The new crew of protagonists jumped on me and kidnapped me right in the middle of scanning a shipping label, demanding I show them the way around. I stared at my totally packed schedule and turned them down flat. Next thing I knew, they pried open my delivery van and smashed every single parcel inside to smithereens. "You should be honored that we're even letting you lead the way! Do you have any idea who our leader is?" I had zero clue who their leader was. All I know is they just smashed the S-tier boss's carefully handpicked personal urn to smithereens. Oh, they were so screwed.

After my husband passed away, I brought Jace Rainer, the starting quarterback for the university football team, home with me. Everyone tore into me for it. Even Jace curled his lip and called me a washed-up widow, sneering that he'd never be caught dead living off a woman like me. He talked a big game about turning me down flat, yet every luxury gift I dropped off, every thick stack of bills I pressed into his hands? He took every last thing without a single question. So I fully leaned into my role as his sponsor and poured everything into an all-out pursuit of him. On his graduation day, I pulled strings and landed him a department manager position at Spencer Corporation, no hoops to jump through at all. The very next day, a message arrived from him. Jace: Naomi, if you're bored and lonely at night, go take a jog around the block. Stop chasing after younger men like me, got it? I opened my social media feed and stared at the photo he'd posted. He'd had his signature beauty mark beneath his eye surgically removed, all for some long-time crush of his. I nodded slowly to myself. Then I turned around, walked straight down to the county courthouse with the CEO of Spencer Corporation, and we got our marriage license that very same day. Halfway through our wedding ceremony, Jace came storming up the aisle, eyes red and streaming.  He swatted the wedding ring right off my finger. "How could you stop loving me?" Before I could say a word, my little girl, Nathalie, stepped forward, stood on her tiptoes, and slapped his hand away so hard there was a sharp, audible crack. "You got rid of your beauty mark… so you don't look like Daddy anymore. Why would Mommy love you now?"

My boyfriend suddenly changed his profile picture to a little black cat. The moment I saw it, I broke up with him. He let out a disbelieving laugh. "It's just a profile picture. Is it really that big a deal?" I met his gaze and nodded. Charlie's expression immediately darkened. "Mary Barnes, I hate it when people throw the word 'breakup' around. Say it again, and I'll make it official." In the past, whenever he got angry, I was always the first to back down and apologize. So this time, he was convinced it would end the same way. No matter how dramatically I acted, he believed I'd never actually leave him. But he was wrong. This time, I meant every word. "Fine," I said calmly, "then let's break up." Because just minutes earlier, I'd noticed that my best friend had changed her profile picture too. Hers was a little white cat.  A black cat. A white cat. A perfectly matched pair. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they were trying to say. That cheating jerk and that shameless mistress deserve each other. As for me? I was done.