Jennifer E Smith This Is What Happy Looks Like Novels & Stories

After being reborn, I tear up my school withdrawal form. I no longer wish to become a househusband just for Eliza Stewart's sake. She messages me when she hears the news, but I blacklist her number right away. She camps outside my house to confront me, so my family and I move to a new place immediately. Eventually, she compromises by asking me to join her in Northcrest for college. That way, I can still take care of her. I go behind her back and apply to be an education major at Southwell University instead. In my previous life, she dedicated herself to everything and everyone else, except for me. This time around, I just want us to go on our separate paths and never meet again. A few years later, I set off for the rural region of Westridge to volunteer as a teacher. Eliza, who is also volunteering there, sees me. Her eyes start turning red. She grabs my hand and refuses to let go. "Don't run off this time, Matthew…"

During my wedding, which is livestreamed all over the world, my fiancé, Marvin Keller, calls me a shameless woman who's gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Then, he calls off our engagement and marries my father's illegitimate daughter, Delilah Lambert. My mother is so incensed by this that she gets a stroke and ends up bedridden. Amid my despair, my childhood friend, Tristan Wright, proposes. He tells me he's had a crush on me for many years and is willing to treat my child with Marvin as his own. I'm moved by Tristan's promise and accept his proposal. Three years after we get married, I give birth to a stillborn. My mother is still in a coma and doesn't seem like she'll ever wake up. I'm hospitalized after getting into an accident for the eighth time. That's when I overhear Tristan's conversation with a private doctor. Finally, I discover the truth—he's never loved me. "You orchestrated eight accidents just to make sure Delilah would inherit her family's fortune? Are you out of your mind?" "I've done Lethia wrong with this, but I'll use the rest of my life to atone for my sins. She should be satisfied with that."

I stumbled upon my neighbor Henry and his girlfriend in the middle of something awkward. My face immediately flushed bright red, now that I had just turned eighteen. With my parents away on a business trip, they had asked Henry to keep an eye on me. But in the dead of night, I discovered him involved in something... something too awkward to mention.

Alpha Evan Scott, who once loved me beyond all reason, stopped loving me overnight. Because he had chosen the wrong wolf. What he never realized was that, on that very same day, I awakened too. If, in his eyes, I was nothing but an imposter who had occupied Julia Lawson's place for all these years, then it was time to return what was never meant to be mine. I followed fate's design all the way to my death. Only after that did Evan sink to his knees beside my corpse, his cries filled with unbearable regret. At last, I remembered. The truth was, he had come for me.

Based on the untrue writings of the Satanic Panic. The Satanic Panic was a moral outcry in the United States over supposed “satanic” influence in media that were warping the youth of America. Claims that playing an elf in Dungeons and Dragons could lead to demonic possession, that playing heavy metal music backwards would reveal satanic messages, and that therapists could uncover repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse, were all too common. Volumes and volumes of material were produced on this fake subject. These texts lead to What Hell May Come, which takes a look at what the world would actually be like if all of the claims of the satanic panic were true. Set in 1986, Jon St. Fond’s life is a living Hell. Deliberately abused and neglected by his parents, the only joy he has in life is an escape into a fantasy land of role playing games. Soon he discovers that his parents are part of a secret occult religion with hidden ties all across the world. As Jon and his friends dig, they learn more of the secret history of the world and discover the power of making deals with creatures from Beyond. However, power has its price, as Jon and his friends quickly discover. One-by-one they begin to become consumed by their own desires and hatreds. Jon learns there is method behind the madness of his life, as his Father begins to bring him closer and closer into the ways of the cult. Ultimately, Jon must make a choice between all the pleasures of the earth and the future of his soul. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

His hands were everywhere, and I let them be. “You know this is wrong,” he murmured against my throat. “I know.” I tilted my head back anyway. He pulled back, eyes dark. “Tell me to stop, Zella.” I looked at the silver in his hair, the jaw that could cut glass, my best friend’s father, twenty years too old and a thousand reasons too dangerous. “Don’t stop,” I whispered. Seven days before my Christmas wedding, I caught my fiancé with my cousin. By morning I had lost everything, my relationship, my job, my future. I walked into the London rain with nothing left. A stranger stopped his car. Offered an umbrella. Gave me a drink instead of the mistake I begged for. Then disappeared before dawn. I never expected to find him again in a darkened hotel room on New Year’s Eve… or to give him the one thing I’d never given anyone. The next morning, when my best friend introduced me to her father, Evander Ashford looked me in the eye and said, “Nice to meet you,” as if he hadn’t already ruined me the night before. He is forbidden. He is twice my age. He is the one man I was never supposed to want. But he is the first person who ever made me feel worth keeping, and the only place this broken heart has ever felt safe. Where Sin Feels Like Home — because sometimes the wrongest man is the only home you’ve ever known.

In my previous life, I was eight months pregnant when my mother-in-law and husband forcibly dragged me to grab decorative gift boxes from the Christmas tree. I told them there was nothing inside, but my mother-in-law slapped me across the face while my husband pulled me into the crowd. A stampede broke out. They clutched their gift boxes and fled to save themselves, while my child and I were trampled to death. They eagerly tore open all the gift boxes with high hopes, only to find exactly nothing, just like I'd warned them. But as I lay dying, I noticed something in the final gift box. A Black Widow spider with an hourglass pattern on its belly crawled onto my mother-in-law's hand. This spider carries deadly venom. Anyone bitten either dies or suffers permanent disability. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on Christmas Day. This time, watching my mother-in-law and husband gear up to fight over those Christmas gift boxes, I won't try to stop them!

My roommate had a peculiar knack for pestering everyone into liking her posts on social media, all so she could collect enough likes to claim some prize or another. It was her way of life—nagging, nudging, and guilting us into clicking that little thumbs-up. One time, the campus beauty queen liked my roommate's ad for a facial mask. Not long after, she was in a horrific car accident. The vehicle caught fire, and her face suffered severe burns, leaving her disfigured beyond recognition. Meanwhile, my roommate seemed to undergo a miraculous transformation, her complexion turning porcelain fair and flawless as though she'd been kissed by the heavens. Then there was the academic prodigy, a shoe-in for graduate school, who liked her tutoring service post. Shortly after, he was exposed for academic fraud, and his once-brilliant reputation was reduced to ashes. Strangely enough, my roommate's research paper suddenly won an award, catapulting her to fame and fortune. And me? I fell into her trap too. I liked her rental agency ad, and before I knew it, my world crumbled. A scandal erupted, revealing that I was the result of a mix-up at birth. It turned out she was the long-lost child of wealth and privilege—a hidden gem cast into the rough, now reclaimed by her rightful family. As for me, I was packed off to the countryside village she had escaped from and forced into a brutal marriage with an old man. My life became a living hell, and eventually, I died there, broken and forgotten. But fate wasn't done with me yet. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day my roommate begged me to like her post in exchange for yet another prize.

Ashlyn hasn't spoken a word since the age of eight, and her heart's never felt more protected. But, when the confident and ever so charming Derek stumbles into her quiet little world, her emotions-and forbidden desires-have never been so loud. For twenty years, silence is all Ashlyn Holland has known. Haunted by the memories of her father, and the harrowing song of the ocean that stole him from her, Ashlyn maintains a safe distance from the rest of the world. Treading carefully the sea of fear and anguish that surrounds her, Ashlyn is determined to do all she can to protect her heart from such a tragic loss striking again. In silence, she grieves. In silence, she is safe. In silence, she finds the strength to breathe. But the silence can only last so long... Derek Moreno is charming and devoted, and quick to see through every wall Ashlyn erects. With his arrival in town, defences fold and walls begin to crumble, the songs of her heart reaching new heights. Together, they crest twin tides of fate, the silence she'd once sought engulfed by his gentle touch, and the whispers of a love thought impossible. For the summer, Ashlyn welcomes the noise. The disruption. But, the ghosts of Derek's past will no longer remain silent, and their deafening power has the potential to drag them both into a current strong enough to drown them amidst their heartache.

> “Stay still, Little Thorn… I want to taste you slowly.” His voice was velvet and ruin. His mouth, a weapon. And I—fool that I was—leaned closer. Before death wore a suit and called itself a lover, I used to believe in beauty. Before the blood. Before the runes. Before I painted the image that killed my parents—I believed my art could save me. Now I know better. I was just weeks from graduating when the painting came to me like a fever. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t plan it. My hands moved, possessed, dragging symbols I’d never seen and a face I’d never forgotten—his. Eyes red as wine. A crown pierced with thorns. And a girl in the center… me. Offering herself. I signed it with a mark I didn’t recognize. I sold it to a stranger. And days later, my parents were dead—no wounds, no reason, just... gone. The police said stress. I say fate. Now I’m being hunted by a world I didn’t know existed. Vampires with ancient courts and older grudges. Symbols that whisper in my blood. And Lucien D’Aragon—the vampire who says I summoned him with my brushstroke. That I belong to him. He says I’m his prophecy. His ruin. His Little Thorn. But I’m not just prey. Something is waking in me. Something hungry. Something I was never meant to survive. If I give in, I lose everything. If I fight, I might finally learn the truth. About my art. About my bloodline. About what really happened that night. And why he keeps whispering that I was painted for ruin... but made for him.