Mha Laughs

As Jastrelle's golden girl, I draw lots to pick my groom, and fate finally hands me Felix Ledger, the childhood sweetheart I've wanted forever. During the impromptu wedding, a funeral convoy belonging to a scion of a rich family in Jastrelle passes right outside. I hate the omen. Felix laughs, pulls me into his arms, and places the veil over my head himself. "I'll take it as a good omen. With you, I'm covered from first breath to last," he says. His adoptive sister, Winnie Ledger, hears him, bursts into tears, and bolts outside. The funeral convoy runs her down, and she dies. Felix barely reacts. Three years later, Dad is framed, driven into bankruptcy, and falls gravely ill. He dies, and I lose everything. At the funeral, Felix sends everyone off, shoves me into the open grave, and buries me alive. He spits, "You rigged everything to get me. You left Winnie ruined. She bolted outside, and that funeral convoy ran her down. For three years, remorse has eaten me alive. I want you torn apart! "With your last protector gone, I can finally make you suffer a hundredfold the pain Winnie felt and ease my hatred!" When I open my eyes, I'm back at the groom-selection ceremony. Dad smiles as he hands me the lots. I shake my head, look out the window, and point at the funeral convoy passing outside. "I'm not choosing anyone. I'll marry that dead man!"

When my body is engulfed in flames, my firefighter father is watching a new movie with my sister. My mother is baking them a cake. I hear laughter in the living room, and I can smell the caramel popcorn in the kitchen. Today is my family's weekly family day—it's a day for my sister and parents to be with each other. The doorbell rings, and the perpetrator gives me a chance to ask for help. My limbs are bound, and stones fill my mouth. I stand at the door and desperately wait for my parents to open it. They don't get up. Instead, they sit on either side of my sister and hug her. "We promised you we'll only be with you on our family days. No one can disturb us." "What if it's Danica?" Ravenna Sutton, my sister, asks. "Her? She hasn't answered her phone in days—who knows where she's off being wild? I'll think of her as dead if she still doesn't return tomorrow!" Ravenna giggles. Mom feeds her some popcorn, and Dad discusses the movie's plot with her. The perpetrator drags me back upstairs and laughs mockingly in my ear. "Looks like I did something unnecessary. They genuinely don't care about you." Smoke permeates every corner upstairs, and the flames start to lick at my body. Mom and Dad protect Ravenna as they run downstairs. They have no idea their birth daughter is screaming in pain amid the blazing fire.

On Christmas Day, I put on a reindeer-themed lingerie set, ready to spend an unforgettable night with my CEO boyfriend. Noah Levine eagerly unbuttons my top, kissing my body with feverish intensity. Just then, his phone rings. He answers impatiently. "What is it?" A sweet voice comes through from the other end, speaking in Farylian. "Noah, what time are you coming tonight? I have a Christmas present for you." Hearing those words, my eyes fly wide open. That woman is my younger sister, Heidi Miller. Noah's expression turns serious, like he's handling a work call. He responds in Farylian. "What present?" The voice on the other end laughs softly. "The present is me, wrapped head to toe in red ribbon. Come over and help me unwrap it. I can't wait anymore." That night, Noah doesn't touch me. He helps me dress, kissing my cheek with reluctance. "Work call. Something urgent at the company I need to handle. We'll pick this up another time. "Remember to wear this outfit next time, though. It's very enticing." His lie sounds calm and natural. He clearly assumes I don't understand, but I know Farylian. I hear everything crystal clear. I pretend to nod calmly. After he leaves, I accept the company's overseas assignment. In three days, I'll vanish completely from his world.

My boy friend Caleb Ford's childhood sweetheart, Julia Leclair, is losing her hair from chemotherapy. So, he orders me to cut mine off and make her a wig. "Julia's allergic to synthetic wigs. You've been growing your hair for ten years—it's perfect." I refuse, but his friends tie me down. Someone shaves my head to the scalp, buzzing through my thick, glossy hair until nothing's left but a butchered mess. Julia sits in her wheelchair and laughs, saying I look like a toad. Caleb smiles and nods in agreement. He adds with a chuckle, "It's just some hair. Was that really necessary?" But back when I was bullied for having uneven, choppy short hair for six straight years, it was he who stood in front of me. He had his arms spread wide as he shielded me from harm. Now he's the one wielding the blade. One by one, their little circle chimes in. They tell me not to hold a grudge against someone who's sick. Caleb snaps impatiently, "Stop trying to talk sense into her. She can get lost! Did you see that fit she threw over a few strands of hair? It's not like they won't grow back." I turn around and walk away. I never look back. Later, I hear that Caleb begs for my forgiveness by kneeling his way up 9000 steps until his knees are ruined.

Grace Anderson is a striking young lady with a no-nonsense and inimical attitude. She barely smiles or laughs, the feeling of pure happiness has been rare to her. She has acquired so many scars and life has thought her a very valuable lesson about trust. Dean Ryan is a good looking young man with a sanguine personality. He always has a smile on his face and never fails to spread his cheerful spirit. On Grace's first day of college, the two meet in an unusual way when Dean almost runs her over with his car in front of an ice cream stand. Although the two are opposites, a friendship forms between them and as time passes by and they begin to learn a lot about each other, Grace finds herself indeed trusting him. Dean was in love with her. He loved everything about her. Every. Single. Flaw. He loved the way she always bit her lip. He loved the way his name rolled out of her mouth. He loved the way her hand fit in his like they were made for each other. He loved how much she loved ice cream. He loved how passionate she was about poetry. One could say he was obsessed. But love has to have a little bit of obsession to it, right? It wasn't all smiles and roses with both of them but the love they had for one another was reason enough to see past anything. But as every love story has a beginning, so it does an ending.

After seven years of marriage, Marisol Speight's husband, Lucian Muller, is unpredictable and treats her with cold indifference as if she's nothing. She once believed that after marrying Lucian, she would one day win his heart and live a happy, fulfilling life. However, on a snowy anniversary that only she remembers, she finally realizes that Lucian and his family are happy enough without her. She'll never be anything more than an outsider who can't blend in. He hates her for making him break his promise to marry his childhood friend; their son mocks her for falling short in every way when compared to said childhood friend… Marisol is doubly betrayed by her husband and son. They're as intimate with another woman as they never were with her. She laughs self-deprecatingly at the mess that is her life. Then, she loses hope in them and asks for a divorce. She gives up custody of her son and leaves, later becoming a globally renowned fashion designer and genius painter—her work isn't accessible to just about anyone. Unexpectedly, her husband and son refuse to let her go despite her already giving up on them. Her son cries, "You're my mom! You can't hold other children!" Her husband, who has always been cold and indifferent, turns clingy and refuses to agree to the divorce. "You're the one who chose me, so you have to bear the responsibility for life! You want a divorce? Dream on!"

Aria Carver has never known that she's not related to the Kent family by blood. When her childhood sweetheart and the rest of the world turn on her, the Kent family kicks her out and tells her to search for her biological parents in the hole she'd crawled out from… Aria laughs it off. She's about to stun everyone by revealing her secret identity, but it turns out the "hole" the Kent family had mentioned is actually the richest family in Janovin, the Carver family! Over the course of a single night, she goes from the Kent family's fake daughter, who's despised by everyone, to the actual daughter of the richest man in the country. She also has six brothers who absolutely adore her! Her eldest brother is a domineering president. "Let's pause the meeting right here. Get me a ticket back to the country—I wanna see who are the people who have the nerve to bully my sister!" Her second-eldest brother is a famous celebrity. "Cancel the function. I'm gonna take my sister home right now." Her third-eldest brother is a god in his industry. "Postpone the competition. Nothing's more important than my sister." This rocks the country! The Kent family regrets every wrong move they make, and Aria's childhood sweetheart tries to win her back. But before she can reject him, Landon York, the president of York Group and the son of the renowned York family, proposes to her. It makes her the talk of the town!

I stand in the hospital after my two older brothers decline all 99 of my phone calls. They finally appear, bringing with them the biological sister they found. My gentle eldest brother, who had once rescued me from my so-called abusive parents, raises his hand and slaps me across the face. "Cynthia, you're actually pretending to have a terminal illness just to compete with Sarah for our affection? And you came to this kind of place to frighten us?" I clutch my swollen cheek and listen as my second brother, who always says he'll trust me no matter what, holds Sarah in his arms and laughs out loud. "Are you trying to fake being sick to get our attention after seeing that Sarah is in poor health? "Just cut the act. You've been living in luxury since childhood and have always been in perfect health. How could you possibly be ill?" Sarah Crawford speaks up thoughtfully, "Don't blame her, you two. I think she just feels like I've stolen away your love for her, which is why she has become so unreasonable..." I look at the two brothers who have doted on me for ten years and suddenly feel that nothing matters anymore. After all, I only have seven days left to live. In seven days, everything will return to normal after my departure. But by then, they'll be the ones unable to accept it.

For years, Novalyn Hart has been hopelessly in love with her best friend Rowan Oberon. The boy who once saved her, the man she quietly built her entire future around. Now he’s a brilliant doctor, engaged to the perfect woman… and when Novalyn finally confesses her heart, it’s far too late. Shattered and humiliated, she stumbles straight into Rowan’s older twin brother, Sebastian Oberon, a cocky, dangerous playboy with the same face but none of Rowan’s warmth. Sebastian doesn’t believe in love. He calls it a weakness, a beautiful lie people cling to so they don’t break. He laughs at her devotion to Rowan… and at the pathetic way her heart still beats for him. But one reckless night changes everything. Novalyn finds herself drawn to Sebastian, the man she was supposed to hate, the man who shouldn’t matter. The more he pushes her away, the more her heart betrays her. And Sebastian? He’s starting to want something he swore he’d never touch. And when Rowan realizes he’s losing the girl he never thought he wanted, his jealousy turns dark. For the first time, Novalyn sees the side of him no one warned her about. Now both brothers want her. Both are breaking for her. Both are willing to burn for her. But when love turns into obsession, which brother will Novalyn choose? The one she waited for, or the one she can’t stay away from?

Back in college, Damian Cross and Alexandra “Alex” Vega shared a reckless kind of passion—one built on stolen nights, whispered names, and a promise that it was nothing serious. No commitments. No future. Just fire. Pero hindi alam ni Damian, that fire left something behind—twins. A boy and a girl Alex raised on her own, telling them their father died years ago. While Damian built his ruthless empire and became one of the world’s most powerful billionaires, Alex buried their past and became a decorated soldier. Until one mission went wrong, leaving her unit dead… and turning her into one of the most sought-after bodyguards in the country. Seven years later, Alex’s world shatters again—her daughter is diagnosed with leukemia. Desperate for money for the surgery, Alex takes the job she almost rejected: protect a billionaire being hunted by enemies. She nearly drops the file when she sees his name. Damian Cross. Damian, on the other hand, isn’t thrilled either. He laughs in disbelief when he’s told his new head of security is a woman—until she walks in. The same fierce eyes. The same fire. The same woman he thought he’d lost forever. Now, Damian must face the truth: the bodyguard sworn to protect him is the only woman he’s ever let too close… and she’s hiding the biggest secret of all—his children. As bullets close in, old wounds reopen, and sparks reignite, Alex must choose: keep the walls she built for seven years, or let Damian back in—and risk breaking more than just her own heart.