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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2022
Submitted to Contest #155
She pulled down the sleeve of her sweater to cover bruises she didn’t want the principal to see. The plush leather chair at the desk before her—a gleaming cherry block holding a stack of leather-bound books about bullying, a glass lily-shaped paperweight, a Newton’s cradle, and a gold nameplate that said, “Winona Smitherman, Principal,” as if anyone who ended up here wouldn’t know her position—bore down upon her like a funnel cloud. Despite the cushions beneath its burgundy burlap upholstery, the chair on which she sat felt as if made of gra...
Jasen doubled over in his patio chair, clutching his abdomen, a bead of sweat glistening in the mid-afternoon sun and swelling in the furrow between his brows. His raspy groan hit her like the blare of an air horn at close range. “Jasen, you okay?” she asked, breath leaving her. “Jolly good. Just a…a smidge of pain…” ...
Submitted to Contest #154
Nothing had ever terrified him more than realizing, upon checking his safe and subsequently tearing apart the house, that the glass daffodil had vanished. He had put his own life, and, more importantly, those of his entire family, in jeopardy. He’d inherited the daffodil from his father, who’d inherited it from his father, who’d inherited it from his father, who’d received it from a rumored witch. He remembered, as a child, sitting beside his adopted brother on his grandfather...
Katie sent her the most determined stare she’d managed in years, her left hand’s two remaining fingers curled around her pumpkin spice latte. The voices of the café’s other patrons dulled to a murmur. Liliana examined the branch-like gray stripes on the marble tile below. “You’ve gotta take me,” Katie said, voice also more forceful than Liliana had ever heard it. Liliana remained silent; the request had come out of nowhere. When her late grandmother had told her about the por...
Submitted to Contest #153
She shouldn’t have answered the call from an unfamiliar number, or, at the very least, should’ve hung up when the caller revealed her identity. Alexina had worn out her welcome five years ago, when she’d used the “skills” she’d practiced throughout childhood—often at Hannah’s expense—to lure the man Hannah loved into her arms. Since then, they’d shared no phone calls, no texts, no emails, no visits, no information whatsoever. She should have resumed the boycott. Instead, the couch beneath her groaning as she leaned forward, she’d blurted, “I...
Her chest caved when she saw the letter. From Brantley-Donovan University, to Haleigh. The sight of the school’s name conjured images she’d tried to shelve away—her and Haleigh huddled in the foyer of Gillian’s Diner, drizzle falling from a sky intent upon shoving its way through the wall-length windows. Police clustered around what they didn’t want to see, the remnants of a crime as senseless as it was shocking. A half-eaten chicken club on a chipped table streaked with scarl...
Submitted to Contest #152
Beside her, Hayden stared out his window with intensity that she would’ve found sufficient even if he expected their missing son to dart up amid the emerald blur of passing trees. He’d folded his arms over his chest, jaw set, a vein bulging in his neck. His demeanor didn’t surprise her; he’d made sure that she knew he didn’t agree with this. There were no such things as “oracles,” he’d said. Soliciting Charissa would lead only to wasted time, effort, and money (the last, she knew, mattered most to him, though she hadn’t thought it wise to fe...
Karma had forsaken her. The thought echoed in her head as she paced across the living room, certain that the carpet would soon dissolve beneath her. She wanted to think Drs. Parkins and Bellinger quacks; or that both of them, or both of their labs, had happened to slip up on the same patient. But logic wouldn’t allow it. She had no options, no treatments, no hope of seeing the next year. Unless… &nbs...
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