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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019
Part 1: Jenna My sister had always been the strong one. I looked at her next to me in the limo from the corner of my eye, but the truth was that I didn’t need to look at her to know her expression – her face was as familiar to me as my own. Her eyes are brown, like mine, but hers are several shades darker, so dark that sometimes I can’t see her pupils. Right now, her gaze was out the window, not moving, n...
Mallory sat at her desk, watching the clock in the corner of her work computer. She thought about how she had her routine for the end of the work day down to a science. At this point, she thought, she had mastered the art of deception. Not the bad kind of deception that could potentially hurt someone, but the kind that gave her an air of mystery. No one in the office knew what she really did after work.
Maggie stared at the ceiling. She never knew what to do in these situations. The space in the bed next to her was empty, the blankets rumpled. She knew that she most look horrible – last night’s eye makeup smeared across her face, hair mussed and going in every direction. She listened to the unfamiliar apartment around her. She couldn’t hear the shower running, but the guy she’d slept with...
My alarm went off at 6am. I hit snooze and dozed off for a blissful extra nine minutes. When my alarm went off again, I quickly shut it off, trying not to wake my husband, and I rolled groggily out of bed, grabbing my glasses off my bedside table. In the bathroom, I decided to take a hot shower before I got dressed. It was March in New England, which meant that the mornings still held onto the chill of winter fo...
The window was drafty. It needed to be replaced, and I could feel the cold chill of December seeping into the apartment. As if on cue, I heard the heat click on, roiling through the baseboards. I pulled my husband’s old gray hoodie tighter around my body. On me, the sweatshirt was hugely oversized, more like wearing a blankety dress than a zip up hoodie. But it was warm and thick and it reminded me that he was still here, if not literally here right at this moment, bu...
Her suitcase was open. Clothes were strewn everywhere. What would she need? What was the weather like in Minnesota in the fall? It would be cold, right? So that meant sweaters, hoodies, jeans, and probably coats and hats and mittens and long underwear. Did she even own long underwear? Probably not. If she did, they’d been thrown away or donated a long time ago. She glanced at the clock. De...
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Logan asked, pen poised above the sheet of paper that he was about to sign. “Yes,” Kate replied. She stood leaning against the counter, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes fixated on the Trump 2020 banner hanging outside the house, blowing lightly in the breeze. She’d never been more sure of anything.*“Don’t ...
The day had been unseasonably warm for October, but the night air was cold. I put on extra thick socks and my coziest hoodie, and I packed two extra blankets with my sleeping bag. Then I watched outside from my bedroom window, peering outside through the blinds, waiting for the flash of headlights coming down the road. Moments later, Jade pulled up outside my mother’s house. She was driving her mother’s old bla...
Author’s note: This is a follow up to my short story At Home, submitted in December 2019. On Saturday morning, Haley took extra time in the shower. She shaved her legs and underarms, she used the vanilla scented soap that she knew Ben liked, she conditioned her hair. It had been months since she’d taken more than a quick five minute shower before getting back to Ava, their two-year-old d...
The man I’d once believed was my soulmate was moving into the apartment below mine. If the circumstances had been wildly different, this would’ve been exciting – I’d drop my popsicle on the deck, throw a t-shirt on over my bathing suit, rush down the stairs of my deck to greet him, and throw my arms around him, like a long lost lover, or a reunion, the great love of my life I thought I’d lost forever. But the circumstances weren’t different, they were what they were, and presently he was moving boxes into the apartment with his wife and y...
Sitting in the conference room, Becca hadn’t felt this nervous since the day she’d interviewed for this job three years ago. Back then, she had been a blissfully ignorant 22-year-old recent college graduate with no clue what she wanted to do with her life, other than to successfully get a real full time job and move out of her bedroom in her parents’ house. Their boring suburban life was killing her soul slowly, she was ...
As Kelsey sat next to Ron in the waiting room, she couldn’t stop thinking about their last session. “No,” Ron had finally admitted to her. “I’m not attracted to you anymore.” Kelsey had felt her eyes immediately well up with tears. Dr. Davis looked on quietly, not interrupting this long awaited moment in which Ron finally told her the truth. It had been weeks of this – sitting in Dr. D...
Our first date, if you could call it that, was at a casino. Not normally my kind of place, I found the thick, smoky air and old folks dragging around their oxygen tanks to be depressing, but he said that he worked there as a third shift security guard, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. The idea of going to a real sitdown restaurant for a first date filled me with dread, unable to handle how awkward it would be...
In a family of activists, being the one who stayed home, who didn’t make signs and stand outside the state house and walk in marches and participate in protests, was like having a spotlight on you. You were the one who was careless and flippant, the one who was too dumb to watch the news and actually be able to understand and process what was happening. The world was changing, I knew that, but I was also hyperaware of my powerlessness. I knew that standing outside the...
“I’m sorry,” said Lana. We were sitting at the kitchen table, which felt oddly formal for two people who normally ate dinner in front of the TV. All of the other rooms in the house were dark. The kitchen light was bright, old, and yellow, and it made me feel like I should’ve been in a musty basement instead of our luxury apartment. I wasn't surprised by the results. He’d never looked like me. “Who’s is he?” I asked quietly, actively forcing myself to not grit my teeth. Lana said nothing. She looked at me with b...
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