I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life—our wedding day. From the early morning, my parents (my fiancé doesn’t have parents) were busy running around, handling all the last-minute details at the venue. It’s worth mentioning that my dad was against the wedding. He thought my fiancé was a gold digger, marrying me only for his money. All the guests had arrived, and we were supposed to start the ceremony, but I hadn’t seen my fiancé all day. I kept calling him, but he wasn’t answering. The ceremony was…
Author: World Wide
That night, after Liam fell asleep, I pulled out Ben’s old laptop. He always said he didn’t use it anymore, but something told me to start there. I didn’t want to believe anything bad, but “the lady with curly hair” had wedged herself into my head. And that “shiny car”? It wasn’t just a kid’s imagination. Liam notices everything. I opened the laptop. Password was still our wedding date. My heart did this weird skip when the screen lit up — like I was crossing some invisible line. I felt sick. No secret folders. No sketchy emails. But then I…
I just wanted some gum and maybe a chocolate bar—nothing major. I popped into this little corner shop on my way home, the kind that still has handwritten price tags and that familiar dusty smell of old candy wrappers. There were two people ahead of me, so I waited by the fridge, debating between mint or grape. Then the guy in front of me left, and I stepped up— But I wasn’t next. There, paws up on the counter, tail flicking behind him like he owned the place, was a cat. Not just loitering, not just wandering in off the…
I was already halfway through knitting a tiny yellow hat when my phone buzzed: “She’s in labor.” No name, no punctuation. Just that. From her fiancé, Raul. I dropped everything and rushed to the hospital with a bag full of baby gifts I’d been collecting for months. My heart was pounding—not just because I was about to become a grandmother, but because maybe… just maybe… this would be the thing that finally brought us back together. We hadn’t spoken properly in almost a year. Not since the fight. She’d told me I always made things about myself. That I didn’t…
I wasn’t supposed to be home for another three weeks, but my unit fast-tracked my leave because of some medical stuff back home. That “medical stuff” turned out to be my wife, Amara. She’d collapsed at work and was rushed to the hospital. Her mom was vague over the phone, just kept saying, “She’s okay, but… you should come.” So I flew home in my dusty uniform, still smelling like sand and engine grease, heart pounding the whole way. I didn’t even go home first—just straight to the hospital with my bag still slung over my shoulder. Her room was…
We were only supposed to be visiting for the weekend. My aunt’s farm was the kind of place where time moved slower—big skies, old barns, and the occasional goat that stared at you like it had questions. I figured the kids would run around, collect eggs, maybe fall in love with a chicken. I didn’t expect this. We’d just finished breakfast when Maeve wandered into the yard holding a tiny black-and-white kitten like it was a rare gem. Her little hands were shaking, but her smile was steady. “He was crying by the shed,” she said, her voice soft. “So…
When I was a kid, my grandfather used to say that animals understood things better than people. “A dog never lies,” he’d mutter, usually while nursing a coffee on the porch and tossing stale bread to the chickens. “Neither does a goat. You ever seen a goat pretend to be something it’s not?” I’d shake my head, wide-eyed, and he’d grin like we were in on the same secret. His name was Charles Whitaker, but everyone in our town just called him “Gramps.” His farm sat on the edge of Hamilton County, a patchy 12-acre stretch of stubborn weeds, rickety…
People thought we were out of our minds. Eight kids. Two adults. One rusty trailer full of mismatched boots, worn-out baby toys, and a sourdough starter I barely knew how to use. We had no real plan—just a chunk of land out past nowhere and a shared dream that maybe, just maybe, we could build something real. We weren’t farmers. I’d barely kept a houseplant alive. But life in the city was squeezing the soul out of us. My partner was working double shifts, I was drowning in laundry and noise, and the kids… man, they were growing up in…
He didn’t say much on the drive out. Just stared out the window, his hand resting lightly on the armrest like it was holding onto something I couldn’t see. I asked him a few things—half-hearted questions about the old place, about what he expected to find—but he just gave this small, quiet smile. The kind people wear when they’ve packed too many words into a suitcase they haven’t opened in a long time. We hadn’t talked much before this. Not really. He was my biological father, but we met just a few months ago. I was 24 when I found…
