Laughing Outside Crying Inside Novels & Stories

I have my headphones on as I direct flight routes. A pilot named Everett Wright suddenly switches into the voice channel I'm on. Then, he publicly mocks me for being inept in bed. "Hey, Jacob! Your wife said you're practically hopeless in bed and that you're done in just a second! Are you seriously a one-second shooter? Ahahaha!" When the rest of the crew hear Everett's words, they can't stop themselves from laughing too. Thinking that this isn't humiliating enough for me, Everett flicks on a private channel purposefully. I can hear my wife, Charlotte O'Brien, suppressing her moans and pants. "Hurry up, honey! Why did you switch to my husband's channel? Stop messing around and just turn it off already!" Charlotte's voice is tinged with a hint of affection. She doesn't care about whether or not I got humiliated—she just enjoys the thrill of being able to flirt with her lover in public.

SYNOPSIS Anna thought she was saving her mother when she agreed to donate a kidney. Instead, she lost everything. Her mother died, and Anna was left with a strange, unnatural heartbeat that no doctor could explain. The hospital insists nothing is wrong, but Anna knows the truth. Something inside her is not human. Across the city, billionaire Adrian Wolfe wakes up with a new heart and a second chance at life. But the heart inside him does not feel like his own. It reacts. It pulls. It leads him to someone he has never met. Anna. When their paths cross, everything begins to unravel. Secrets buried inside hospital walls. A surgery that was never what it seemed. And a truth that changes everything. Anna’s heart was stolen. And it is now beating inside Adrian. As her artificial heart begins to fail, the line between love and survival disappears. Because the only way for Anna to live… is for Adrian to lose everything.

Six months ago, I was accidentally poisoned by wolfsbane. The poison is deadly, and my days are numbered. My body gradually weakens. Today, my wolf is completely gone, and I have three days left to live. On the last day before I draw my final breath, I agree to donate my kidney to my sister. Thrilled, my mate swears that he'll make it up to me someday. My sister is being swamped with insults on the college forum after she was caught plagiarizing my Belladonna thesis. But I come forward and claim that I'm the one who plagiarized it. Mom and Dad are pleased, saying I've finally become mature. At last, I've become the perfect mate and daughter in their eyes. But why are they crying after my body has turned cold and lifeless?

Raven Statham has one week left to save her grandmother’s crumbling bakery before her mother sells it. Drowning in debts, rejected by investors, and clinging to the only legacy she has left, she turns to the one corporation known for rescuing failing businesses — D’Angelo Enterprises. What she doesn’t know is that the CEO is not just a businessman. He is Kade D’Angelo, the Reaper of the criminal underworld, a man who kills with the same ease he breathes, a man bound by a vow: marry before thirty-three, or lose his throne to his estranged brother, Damon. When Raven accidentally witnesses Kade murder a man in cold blood, she becomes a liability he cannot ignore. And when she tries to flee, she unknowingly signs the wrong contract — not a business partnership, but the marriage contract prepared for a mafia heiress sharing her surname. By the time she discovers the truth, five black cars are outside her bakery, Kade D’Angelo standing among them like the devil she had met by accident twice already. *** Excerpt from the Book: The door opened. A familiar smell drifted inside before the man did and my stomach twisted. Kade walked into my home, filling the small space with his presence. His eyes found mine immediately, cold, unreadable. Kade's lips tilted, just slightly. "I see you're just finding out about the document you signed, Miss Statham," he said. "What do you mean marr—" I started, clutching the file, eyes wide with disbelief. "Good," he interrupted, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Because we're getting married. Tomorrow.”

I was in the middle of signing a contract when my phone rang. It was my younger sister, Lily Carter. Her voice was cautious, almost hesitant. “Hey… did you get divorced?” The question caught me off guard. I was about to answer when another voice suddenly cut in on her end of the line, a woman I didn’t recognize. She called out Lily’s name sharply. “Did you forget all the rules I set for you? During work hours, your only job is to serve me. Who said you could hide in the restroom?” A crisp slap echoed through the phone. “Now tell me,” the woman demanded. “What are the rules?” A second later, Lily spoke, her voice small and trembling. “First, during work hours, I have to lower myself when I speak to you. “Second, everything I earn has to be handed over to you. “Third, my phone has to stay on at all times. Whatever you say, I have to do it immediately.” The woman let out a mocking laugh. “At least you remember. One more. When we’re outside, you call me Mrs. Shaw, the boss’s wife. Make sure everyone in the company knows exactly who I am.” Hearing my sister’s quiet sobs, something inside me snapped. I immediately switched to a video call and dialed my husband, Daniel Shaw. “So,” I said coldly when he picked up, “you’ve been using your position at my company to keep a ‘wannabe Mrs.’ on the side, haven’t you?”

Let me introduce myself. I'm Ginger Snapper, I’m twenty-five years of age. I work for Eclipse Magazine. I have been with the magazine for five years, as well as with my blog. I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I’m adopted, and I have always known since I was five. For me, it was fine because I didn’t remember my parents, just that my mom was now my real mom’s best friend. I grew up in a loving home and was given what I needed in life to succeed. She gave me a chance to do what I love. She gave me a family and support to chase after my dreams. So I am grateful for all of that. So, I also volunteer as a mentor to young children in my free time to help give back. I stood up and went to the door to see who was there. When I got to the door, there was a note taped to my door. I looked in the hall to see if anyone was around, but there was no one. So I grabbed the note and went back inside my apartment. It was just a small note folded over a couple of times with nothing written on the outside of it. I unfolded the note and read the note, and I was shocked at what I read. “There is so much about yourself you don’t know. You need to start looking into where you come from. You're in danger and don’t know why you're in danger. You'd better start learning who you truly are before it's too late. I know my mother was killed in a freak accident, and I never knew who my father was.

In my last life, Enzo Saletta saved me from the fire. Chiara Bellini died in my place. For months, he cared for me like a devoted husband. He guarded my hospital room. He bought gifts for our unborn child. He told me none of it was my fault. I believed him. Until the night after I gave birth. Our son was asleep beside me. I was too weak to move, still aching from labor, but for one brief moment, I believed we were safe. Then I smelled smoke. The door would not open. Outside the locked door, Enzo’s voice cut through the smoke. “You took Chiara from me. Now burn with your child.” I screamed his name until my throat bled. No one opened the door. The flames swallowed me and my newborn son. When I opened my eyes again, I was back inside that burning warehouse. Five months pregnant. Smoke in my lungs. Chiara still alive. This time, I did not call Enzo. I waited until he came. I watched him carry Chiara out first. Then I crawled through the fire alone, bleeding for a child he would never get the chance to kill. Everyone believed I had set the fire. Everyone called me jealous, vicious, and insane. But they had forgotten one thing. Before I became Enzo Saletta’s wife, I was the woman who helped build the Carmine family’s security system. Chiara deleted the main footage. She did not delete mine.

The night before our Mating Ceremony, my fated mate, Alpha Ryker of the Howling Moon Pack, ordered me to give him the Moon Soul Crystal—the very thing that protected my pack, the Willow Creek Pack. He said he needed it to power up the Howling Moon Pack's Blood Moon Altar. He also promised he'd keep me and my people safe. But he didn't know that we, the healers of the Willow Creek Pack, can only create one Moon Soul Crystal in our entire lives. Making one takes a crazy amount of moon energy. It's the treasure that keeps our pack alive. My mother, worried about me using up my moon energy while I was pregnant, gave up her own Moon Soul Crystal instead. But just three months after Ryker and I were mated, she got sick, fast. She was dying. I knelt in front of Ryker, crying, begging him for the Silverleaf Herb from the Howling Moon's forbidden grounds. It was the only thing that could save my mom. But he just looked at me, his eyes full of disappointment, and kicked me away. "I asked for the Moon Soul Crystal to test you," he snarled. "And just as I thought, you married me for our pack's treasures! Your mother's not sick. You're making it all up!" "You don't deserve to be the Luna of the Howling Moon Pack!" It wasn't until after my mother died, when he was arguing with me, trying to kick me out of the pack, that my mother's things fell and scattered everywhere. Her Soul Stone, the symbol of a wolf's spirit, shattered. That's when he finally realized he was wrong. He fell to his knees, begging me not to leave, crying for me to forgive him.

On the day Andrew Zelenski confesses his feelings to the pretty transfer student, everyone thinks I'll break down. They expect me to come running while crying and trying to stop him. I don't show up even after he confesses, though. Andrew has no idea that while he's busy confessing, I'm wearing his roommate's hoodie and sitting on his roommate's bed. I look at his roommate innocently and ask, "How are we going to sleep tonight now that I've wet your bed?" Spencer Lithgow looks away from me as his Adam's apple bobs. He throws a towel at me. "Go dry your hair. You can sleep once I've changed the sheets."

When Elowen learned that she had been switched at birth, that her life as a princess was nothing more than a mistake, she quietly accepted her fate. She accepted being treated as an error. Accepted being hurt so deeply that even crying had to be done in secret. She believed she would fade away like this — silently, unnoticed, forgotten. Until one day — when despair pushed her to the edge — she felt a faint chill, as if someone were standing behind her, protecting her without a word. From that moment on, Elowen knew she was no longer alone. — Adrian survived a horrific car accident. His body lay motionless in a hospital bed, while his soul became bound to a wounded girl he had never known. He couldn’t hold her. Couldn’t shield her from harm. Yet when she was starved, warm food appeared in her drawer. When she was bullied, her tormentors met with inexplicable accidents. When she curled up crying in the dead of night, an invisible hand gently rested on her forehead—so tender it hurt. Adrian was there. Quieter than any living person. He witnessed every wound, remembered every tear, every trembling breath she tried to suppress. Affection grew in silence—slowly, carefully—as if one careless step closer would cause the girl to shatter. One was alive, yet denied a life. One was dead, yet still learning how to protect someone. Some forms of protection need no light. Some kinds of love cannot be touched. — Then one day, Elowen spoke seriously to her “Ms. Ghost”: Elowen: “Ms. Ghost, if you’re lonely…” “Maybe you could bond with a male ghost.” “I’d give you my blessing.” Adrian: … Then the “Ms. Ghost” coldly placed a hand on her forehead. Adrian: “Call me Mr. Ghost.”