Cried Laughing Novels & Stories

"I am." The laughter shifts. It doesn't stop but it changes — it becomes something wetter, the way weather changes, and I realize I'm also crying, which I didn't notice beginning, and I am laughing and crying simultaneously at my kitchen table at eleven in the morning on a Tuesday, and my mother is watching me with the expression of someone witnessing an inconvenience. "You know what," I say. My voice is strange. Layered. The laughter and the crying and underneath them something that is very quiet and very, very done. "Take it."

A low, broken smile slipped past my lips, and before I could stop myself, a laugh escaped my throat. At first it was soft, but then it grew louder. I bent forward slightly, one hand clutching my stomach, the other pressing against my head as laughter shook my body. “Hahahaha…” Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes as I laughed, the sound echoing in the empty house. My mother froze. She stepped back, her brows knitting together in confusion. “Grace… you’re—” I didn’t listen. I just kept laughing, my shoulders trembling, my chest aching as if the laughter was tearing something open inside me.

I close my eyes and laugh through the tears. “Good luck keeping up.”

Hope yells too, "You'll regret it!” "Yes, you'll fucking regret this!" I yell and then I let out a laugh when I realize how hysterical and insane we look right now. I laugh so hard, my tears decide this is the right moment to come out. Then I'm laughing and crying at the same time, "You'll fucking regret it, you will regret it...” My voice starts to lose power and, before I know it, I'm only crying. Hope hugs me again and strokes my back while I have the meltdown I’ve been avoiding for hours.

It was hilarious. After what felt like a decade of crying her eyes out, she was finally laughing. . . . _________________

She couldn't even cry, not because she didn't feel sad, but because she was too sad that her brain couldn't even tell her eyes to shed tears. When she was very heartbroken to hear the news, she suddenly heard someone laugh, and she looked up to see that person. It was Tyler who chuckled at her before saying, "This is the good news I've been waiting for, and since I got what I wanted, I'll leave in peace now."

Laughter erupted from deep within me, my body wriggling beneath him as I desperately tried to escape his playful torment. "I-I am!" I gasped between fits of hysterical laughter, my belly aching from the sheer joy of it all. "Please, Jace, please!" Tears of mirth streamed down the corners of my eyes as I laughed uncontrollably, my voice fading into silent laughter as I struggled to catch my breath. Jace finally stopped tickling me, a mischievous grin spreading across his face as he watched me try to stifle my laughter.

His laugh, his smile, his voice. I closed my eyes, and the tears came.

I dropped onto the bed and hugged the old bear tight. And I broke. Tears spilled fast, soaking into its dirty fur. My shoulders shook as sobs tore out of me. I tried to bite them back, but they came anyway, ugly and loud. I cried until I couldn’t breathe right. Until my head ached. Until I was too tired to keep it up. Then, just like that, I laughed. A bitter, broken laugh that made me sound like someone else. “Look at me,” I whispered, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve. “Crying like a child. Like that’s going to change anything.”

A hard, painful laughter that had nothing to do with joy. My hair fell over my face, and in that moment, if anyone saw me, they’d probably think I was some horror movie character—lost, broken, deranged. And before I no it The laughter turned into sobs. Deep, gut-wrenching cries. My entire body shook as the tears streamed down my face, soaking into my sleeves as I wiped at them uselessly. My cries filled the car, raw and uncontrolled, like a child who had lost everything. “Daddy… Mummy… I miss you,” I choked out. “My daddy can’t be a killer… Daddy, just come back and explain… Please…”