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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#79: The Family You Choose

They say blood is thicker than water — but is it always?

The truth is that not all families offer healthy relationships to each other, and sometimes the harsh act of cutting them out of your life may be the best course of action. Fortunately, we can still meet people who love us no matter what and become our new families. Not to mention adoptions, blended families, and all the wonderful ways people connect with and support each other, regardless of whether they share any DNA. It's fair to say that family is a lot more than blood!

This week, we’re going to turn family life upside down and examine all the ways that family succeeds — and fails — for our characters.

This week's prompts

Write about someone who decides it’s time to cut ties with a family member.

Sad – 260 stories

Your main character is approached by their long-estranged parent who wants to reconnect. How do they react?

Dramatic – 193 stories

Write about someone who discovers the only family member they have left has just betrayed them.

Sad – 160 stories

Write about two characters who’ve gone through something so intense they now feel like family.

Adults – 190 stories

Write about a “found family” who are finally able to get together again after a long time apart.

Fluff – 100 stories

Stories

“Chosen Family” by Nikki Eva

Submitted to Contest #79

My mother was the most beautiful woman in our neighborhood. Her doe eyes, the hair that always fell perfectly into place, the way she laughed louder than anyone else in the room. She had made a personality out of being gorgeous, naive, and clueless. She married my father when she just turned 18 — two months before I was born — and she would give him everything only for him to become a little too fond of every blonde he encountered. And when she realized that she would never have that man to herself, she just pulled him a little closer. As lo...

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“Granny D” by Louie Pepperoni

Submitted to Contest #79

“Remember,” my father advised my 10-year-old self, “when it comes to your grandmother, you have to be the parent.” I had never been a parent before. How does a child supervise a 70-year-old? Can I ground her? Take her knitting needles away for a week? It was like having a younger sibling, not a grandparent. Grandparents are supposed to be loving and want to spoil their grandkids with cookies and candy. Instead, my grandmother, or “Granny D” as we called her, was a toddler with a driver's license. Bundl...

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“Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis” by Carter Sherman

Submitted to Contest #79

TW: Alcoholism***There’s a type of fungus that can zombify ants. It sounds like a made-up thing, like a subplot of The Walking Dead that was cut before it ever saw the outside of the writers’ room. And the fact that its scientific name is nearly impossible to pronounce and a complete hindrance to spell doesn’t make it the easiest subject to research.I’ll never forget the first time I saw a picture of it. Senior year AP environmental science. It was a jarring way to start class on the part of my old bio teacher, Mr. Ramsey, who projected the ...

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“"Why Now?"” by Jen Flynn

Submitted to Contest #79

“Why Now?” The first time he tried to come back into her life, Rebbecca was eight. Eight years old, but had lived a hundred with the beatings of her and death blows dealt to her mother; emotional scarring, like a cat scratch healed white on her arm, but never fades. He’d been in prison since she was four, and the memories scared her to the point where she had wet her pants. He wanted to see his daughter, but for reasons that were selfish. He figured if he inserted himself back into her life, he wouldn’t be bogged down by child support. It ...

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“Meeting Again” by Kiki Abbi

Submitted to Contest #79

I look through the glass pane windows and see a face I never thought I'd see again. Her brown curly hair that in the radiant sun resembled a blonde shade. Her bright blue eyes that looking into them could send your body through a million waves. The ocean itself would envy. She was a sight for sore eyes, a magnificent creature, my father would say. And she was my mother.A couple hours earlierI faintly hear my alarm ring. As I slowly awake, the noise becomes louder and louder ringing in my head. I let out a loud sign and roll on my side, turni...

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“The Troubled Child” by Suhan Bangera

Submitted to Contest #79

'Is he really coming, daddy?' I asked, still unable to believe what my father had just muttered. 'He is hon. He will be right here in front of you by this evening,' my dad answered while gently pressing my nose like a button. He was packing some things in his car, preparing to get my brother. 'That's great,' I jumped out of excitement, but that was momentary since a horrific doubt started bothering me the very next second. 'Daddy, how long will he stay this time? Last time he barely stayed for a month.' 'He will stay until he doesn't cause a...

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“Written ” by Philip Ebuluofor

Submitted to Contest #79

He was around ten when one day, without telling her kids or husband where she was going or when she would be back. Maybe she believed that they were too young to understand or that she was truly mental as people were suggesting. They were five in the family then, two boys and three girls and okwudili the oldest was just ten then. He was to hear his mothers voice again twenty something years later. Their father mr. onyema was a motor parts dealer, not poor, not rich. He was okay in Nigerian standard. They were just normal family like many o...

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“Better Off” by Kor Watkins

Submitted to Contest #79

There was an insistent knocking on the front door of my condo, and it irritated me. I could hear it back in the home office, and since I was the only one at home, I guess I needed to answer it. I opened the door to see my mother standing there. I had not seen this woman in several years, and certainly didn’t want to now. “What,” I barked, hoping she would get the hint, even though she never did. The Universe revolved around her and her only. My parents had politely asked me to leave the house when I was sixteen, all for having the nerve to...

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“Santa Doesn't Live Here Anymore PT 2” by Annie James

Submitted to Contest #79

On March 24th, 2020, my phone dinged, letting me know I had a new alert from Facebook. I opened the app and glanced at the request with mild disinterest until I saw the name. “Timothy Harmon has sent you a friend request.” He wore a green and black sweater with a puffy Santa Claus face on the front. On anyone else, it would have looked hideous, but Dad looked just like the picture on his sweater, with a full white beard and a red Santa hat on his head. It suited him perfectly. I remembered how he used to dress up as Santa every year at...

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“ The Value of Beauty” by Estefanny Almanza Fuerte

Submitted to Contest #79

I have so much to, I thought as I looked at the list in front of me. John, Andrew, and Elizabeth I looked over one more time. I need to make sure that I check on them to make sure that everything was going OK. I placed my tools into my bag, and then I got them out, just to put them in again. I did this action another five more times. I know that the action was not going to help me. It was just to make sure that everything was in a way that I liked. Why did I have to deal with my OCD? A big part of myself knows that nothing would change by ha...

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“Keep Me Steady” by Cassie Valencia

Submitted to Contest #79

The letter came out of the blue just after her sixteenth birthday. It wasn’t the first letter she’d received from somebody in her first family - her sister wrote to her frequently - but the name at the bottom...well, she hadn’t seen that signature in over half a decade. Juliette hadn’t even realized who the letter was from until she was nearly halfway through with the first page. There were still six more to go after that. Her knees buckled and she had to reach out for her sister’s arm to keep herself steady, which elicited a chorus o...

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“A Mother's Love” by Jess Marie

Submitted to Contest #79

A soft kiss on my cheek ended the remnants of a fluttering dream; perhaps I had been flying just a moment ago. I looked at my wife in a daze. This was the type of post-work nap that left me wondering what day it was. “Honey, your parents called. They want to come over.” The impossible words left her red lips so tenderly that she could have been comforting our daughter Lucille. Now I was certain I was stuck in a dream; one where you wake up several times, but you are actually asleep ...

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“Leah's Choice” by Gwyn Everett

Submitted to Contest #79

I shuddered a sigh in the dark. Tears stung my eyes, wetting my pillow from the steady flow of lingering grief. Diana stirred beside me, her chestnut hair framed her face as she turned over to look at me.Concern colored her tired voice. “Leah? Are you ok?” “I don’t know,” I breathed. The admission was a hammer to my heart. I curled up against her chest and she kissed my hair.“My love, I’m here,” her hand traveled my upper arm in slow, methodical squeezes. I focused on her touch and tried not to imagine the mahogany casket of my father i...

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“Father's Touch” by Tracey Fletcher

Submitted to Contest #79

"I don't want to see you." Six words that finally hit the nail on the head, a coffin that was now sealed on all ends and ready to be buried. Words that made me feel like I needed the earth to open up and swallow me, because surely what I had tried to manage, this rocky relationship with my father, couldn't be salvaged after these words that he just threw at me, looking at me squarely in the eye, emotions and sensitivity out the door. I was 21-years-old, but I wanted to cry out like a baby deprived of food. It wasn't like we had ever had a ro...

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“Im not coming home” by Sara Blanch

Submitted to Contest #79

2000 years, 6 months and 2 days ago...that's the last time I had seen my parents, well my true mother at least. I had never asked to be a changeling, of course...that was the nature of changelings. 4000 years ago a light angel baby had been situated in the mortal world as a scientific experiment done by the Royal Scientific Insitute of the Light Angels...that light angel had grown up and realised her true origins through years of painstaking research, a fact that annoyed both my true mother and my adopted mother to no end. I was the fi...

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$50

Prize money

905

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Feb 05, 2021 EST

Won by Reha A 🏆

Title: Puzzle Pieces

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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