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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#202: A Friend Indeed

We often assume the great loves of our lives will be romantic ones. But how true is that really? Some of our most valuable, enduring, and complex relationships are right in front of us — and they're entirely platonic, in the form of the friends who've stuck with us through thick and thin.

June 8th happened to be Best Friends Day, and so this week’s prompts take a moment to reflect on the importance of friendship, in its many forms — whether your characters are besties, frenemies, or somewhere in between.

This week's prompts

Write a story about lifelong best friends.

Character – 60 stories

Write about two friends who were once inseparable, but now find themselves growing apart — or even friends turned enemies.

Dramatic – 79 stories

Set your story at a wedding reception, where a group of high school friends are meeting for the first time in years.

High School – 16 stories

Write a story about two friends who find themselves competing for something: a job, a prize, a love interest, etc.

Funny – 16 stories

Write about two people striking up an unlikely friendship.

Character – 95 stories

Stories

“Harvey” by Michael Heavener

Submitted to Contest #202

I won't say Harvey was my best friend. Jim, my buddy on boy scout camp staff, had been my constant companion since third grade. But Harvey earned my respect in so many ways. In the time I knew him in high school, Harvey's looming presence was my salvation a number of times. In medieval times, he'd have been my jousting champion. From the outside, Harvey was what people call "a bruiser," the kind of bigger-than-life physique that might make him a good bouncer at a rave. He wasn't exactly Andrea the Giant, but he was two inches taller than m...

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“Ash to Redemption” by Kylie Milne

Submitted to Contest #202

Ash to Redemption It was the second time the shed had caught fire. I was surprised that the Anderson's entire property hadn't burned down when another "accident" occurred on the 31st of October in 1995. And I knew from that moment when I locked eyes with Mr. Anderson's only daughter Sarah, that the fire was no accident. We were kindred spirits, Sarah and me. We were the only ones who hadn't been brainwashed by her father's wealth and her stepmother's lack of manners to the rest of us who didn't come from "money," as my father a...

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“A Trip to Target” by Elizabeth Melchior

Submitted to Contest #202

Walking through the sliding doors of a Target store is a familiar experience. It is predictable and safe, especially when they are the same doors you have walked through consistently throughout your twenty-six years of existence. However, walking through them for the first time after living somewhere else for a year can feel like a fever dream. The familiar gust of AC when you first enter now feels aggressive, the bright fluorescent and flashes of red carts and baskets zooming by seem surreal, and the same faces you have seen in passing all ...

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“The Rat and the Reptiloid ” by M B

Submitted to Contest #202

Skreet threw open the door of his ramshackle room above a rarely-visited fruit and vegetable shop on the edge of Vulane. The rent for the place was ridiculous, but it gave him more privacy than he had had staying in the inns and taverns, and privacy was a premium: An especially useful feature for a room to have when sneaking in large reptiles. “Mind your head, and - uh - horns,” the rat said as he led the reptile in.Draknor looked around and grunted. “Hurr, you live here?”Skreet’s tail twitched. “I rent it out currently. I’ve lived...

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“Hawthorn Girls” by Sarah Cline

Submitted to Contest #202

Hawthorn Girlsby Sarah ClineSpring, in west Texas, just before the end of things.I frowned and nudged the gas pedal as I neared the side road that branched toward the kudzu-wrapped church where Anne and I had met the summer before first grade.Our families didn’t know each other yet. Just chance, that we’d sat next to each other one Sunday, when an ornery summer wind muttered at the doorway.The preacher had been in rare form, jowls aquiver and sweat rolling down one temple. “And in lakes of fire, the sinners burn! And in ashes and torment, t...

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“Poochie” by Kimberly Walker

Submitted to Contest #202

Kimberly W, Walker6/4/23Re: ER trip yesterdayDear Hospital Administrator:Yesterday I was discharged from room 413 in the ER department at the University of Virginia at 7 a.m., which was okay after being there from 3:30 p.m. the previous day. Because of my insurance and my paralysis, I have to be transported by ambulance to and from. Given that I am a quadriplegic, a specific protocol needs to be established not just for me but for the safety of all patients.For:1. No one should be ignored when they ha...

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“Hoe In The Garden” by Kay Smith

Submitted to Contest #202

Imagine a meteorite hurtling blindly through space toward planet Earth, unintentionally about to wreak havoc upon it. Earth sits spinning serenely on its axis as the meteorite continues along its path, each oblivious to any discord one meeting the other might bring about. This scenario is not far removed from how events unraveled following my mother falling in love with and marrying a man who would have a lasting and deep impact on my life. At the time of my mother’s marriage t...

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“A Mountain Divides Us. ” by Chrissy Winters

Submitted to Contest #202

Nila snuffed her cigarette out on the bottom of her worn burgundy Doc Martin boot, and gulped a breath of blue tinged, ethereal misty air. She was sitting at the bottom of Silverburn mountain waiting, like she did every Sunday night.Tapping her foot impatiently she reached into her back pocket to check her phone. You’ve got to be kidding meThere were no messages and it was eight forty five. Devon was late. “Where the fuck is he?” Nila was fooling herself by asking herself that rhetorical little question because she k...

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“A Dime a Dozen” by Ashley Brandt

Submitted to Contest #202

“Divina, you’ll never guess what I heard this morning!” My best friend Savannah wrapped her thin arms around mine and huddled close. I could smell the new floral scented body spray she’d applied liberally after gym class; Her blonde hair was gathered up in a perfect ponytail, perky and shining as though she hadn’t just finished a mile. “What did you hear?” I asked, as I traded my literature book out for my science textbook. Our lockers were next to each other- that was how we...

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“Reconciling the Irreconcilable” by Carina Caccia

Submitted to Contest #202

Cognitive dissonance was not something with which they were familiar. Nothing, never, had ever challenged their reality; nothing, never, had ever fused them thus; and nothing, never, had ever made them friends. Blanche and Noir sat across from one another, in this pink room, this pink space, with two wine glasses filled with red. Drunk, brain fog, throbbing heads. What was real, what wasn’t? What a mess, cognitive dissonance. “He didn’t love her,” said Noir, sipping at his wine. “He must have,” said Blanche, twirling a strand of blonde hair ...

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“Donkey and Rabbit” by Dan Foster

Submitted to Contest #202

“I’m so bored, Rabbit,” said Donkey, munching on the orange bits with much bliss.The mellow Donkey and the grumpy Bunny wandered the forest without worry; Sharing a batch of carrots they yanked from Mrs. Elmira’s orchard before running like leopards.“I don’t know,” groaned Rabbit. “I figure we could play some prank on the big bad wolf.”“Not that again, Rabbit,” said Donkey. “I still have a wound on my posterior from the last occasion.”“Well, how about we sing a song?”“A song?”“Yah, you know. Like the huntsmen sometimes do,” said Rabbit, spit...

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“Growing a part” by Miriam Culy

Submitted to Contest #202

Sammie was staring intensely through her microscope at the petri dish before her. Her dreams of being a princess long behind her, she had swapped ballgowns for scrubs, tiaras for a facemask, satin gloves for latex ones, and a castle for a lab. The tissue cells she was studying had multiplied appropriately since her last observation, and a smile escaped the confines of her mask, spreading up to her grey-blue eyes. It had worked.With a stream of thoughts flooding through her mind, she pulled off her disposable apron and threw it in the hazard ...

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“Looking Different” by Cecilia Baker

Submitted to Contest #202

“Are we at the wrong wedding?”There was no point in denying it any longer. Violet looked way different from what Clara remembered. She didn’t think Violet even remembered her, let alone the rest of her friends at the table. They were in different classes, physically, socially, and economically. She wouldn’t have gone if the baby skin invitation didn’t reek of an open bar.“Why do you think that?” Max asked. “She looks pretty normal to me.”“Do you ever remember her being super religious? Or that blonde?”He shrugged. Hallie made a good point. T...

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“Coming Home” by Darlene Chaney

Submitted to Contest #202

Trigger Warnings: War/grief Catherine McKee stood outside the busy and nearly flooded train depot, anxiously waiting for the Rock Island Line to bring her husband home. Fortunately, her trench coat and matching hat kept her new Lane Bryant dress dry and her hairdo frizz-free; after all, she wanted to look her best for her soldier boy’s return home. It had been six long months since she last saw William and although the time they had spent together was cherished - it was short...

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“Waiting ” by Theresa Amante

Submitted to Contest #202

It’s calm and clean. A memory tugs at Tom’s soul: I’ve been here before....“Welcome back!” Said a voice behind Tom.The world begins to materialize from clouds. It’s not one color, but is color, you can feel it around you. Tom is suddenly standing on something solid and obscured by fog. A cat glides towards him; plumes of fog swirl upwards with each of their steps. “Hello, cat?” Said Tom, walking slowly towards it. “I’m not a cat, silly. I’m Peter!” The cat's voice was smooth like molasses, and held a southern twang.“What’s up with ...

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$250

Prize money

266

Contest entries

129

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 16, 2023 EST

Won by Victoria Macleod 🏆

Title: Emma

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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