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Begin your story with somebody getting (or taking) the blame for something they didn’t do.

Posted in High School on Oct 31, 2022

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✍️ 40 stories

Line Between Love and Loyalty

Submitted to Contest #165

Where I grew up loyalty was everything. It’s imbedded in the culture there. Written into us like the scars on our skin. You learn early that the lines between love and loyalty become almost indistinguishable in the grand scheme of things. You lived and died by it. In our world it’s us and then there’s them and it’s us we’ve got to protect, at all costs. I think that’s what happens when family is all you have. I thought about that as the judge stared down at me from her seat on the bench. Her brown eyed stare was hard and unwavering. Her face...

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Bad beat

Submitted to Contest #165

-"Good morning, Libby! Sit down." -"Sorry I am a little late. I was visiting my brother." she sighed. -"I hope it was a nice visit. You look a little depressed if you ask me." -"That's why I'm here, isn't it?" she sighs again as she dropped herself into the chair opposite me. -"Well, you do not always have to be depressed to come over here. I love it when people come and tell me they're feeling good." She gave me a sour smile and shrugged. -"What's on your heart?" I asked. -"I lost a bet." she replied. -"Oh, I hope you haven't lost too much ...

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This Is All My Fault

Submitted to Contest #165

This Is All My Fault By Kristi Sturgeon This story is a character study of Judas Iscariot and therefore has a small bit of gore.  It also contains death and suicide. Tuesday, April 2nd      I did what the men asked and was well-paid for it.  We agreed on a signal, and I gave it, and they arrested my boss on some kinda trumped-up charges.  But I didn’t think it would go this far.  I mean, I thought they’d put him in jail for a few days and let him go–you know, just enough time to teach him ...

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Mr. Brown's Ruler.

Submitted to Contest #165

Mr Brown’s Ruler. “I did it, sir, I didn’t steal it, sir, I just borrowed it,” she lied. It wasn’t that she was lying about the stealing she was lying about the entire act. Mr. Brown the over officious math teacher; was taken aback, aghast, and speechless for once. He had been absolutely sure that I had stolen his ruler. He had seen me hovering around his desk as he had walked past the class earlier and when he returned his treasured twelve-inch ruler was missing. I was a liar and thief, a child of a broken marriage. One of those kids from t...

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Act of Contrition

Submitted to Contest #165

“Hello, my son,” came a geriatric voice from behind a mesh screen. “Please begin in your own time.”  What am I doing here? I wondered.  “I hurt someone,” I said. The wooden bench creaked beside me. Surely he’s heard worse.  “I’m so sorry to hear that. Would you mind telling me when the last time you came to confession was?”  While trying to think, my phone glowed with a notification. My chest and stomach swapped places before I read what I received, a harmless alert from the weather app. Light rain recommencing in fiv...

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The Summer Time Lie

Submitted to Contest #165

Co-conspirators, conceivably, therefore I believe we, no, no, let me rephrase, I insist, we share any available credit. The elusive blame perhaps belongs to another a bystander or simply a victim of fate. I don’t want to take the credit for something I may have merely dreamed of after a spicy meal, and then recorded in this creative essay. Regardless, this tale, this imagined incident I expect, if it actually existed, has moved beyond the “criminal statute of limitations.” Certainly you have watched a Law and Order television show or one of ...

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The Devil Herself

Submitted to Contest #165

As the cuffs tightened on his wrists, Damien scanned the crowd with desperate eyes searching for the one person who could clear his name. He wasn’t a killer, for fucks sake. All he’d done was ripped the son of a bitch off his woman and hit him once. Ok, twice. Maybe it was a half dozen times. But he hadn’t killed anyone. And she knew it.  As the cop gripped his arm and dragged him towards the cruiser Damien finally saw the face he was looking for. Rage flowed through him again at the sight of her beautiful face bearing a bruise from th...

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Tea and Mimosas

Submitted to Contest #165

      The tables on the patio are close enough so that the nearby eavesdroppers don’t have to lean to get a listen. The afternoon sun is reason enough for people to wear their sunglasses, hiding their stare from that one table. It’s doubtful those two at the table would notice; they have more pressing matters than some onlookers absorbing their conversation.            Scrolling through her phone, the woman stops on a screen, showing it to the man ...

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The Path of Blame

Submitted to Contest #165

Frankie looked her dog in the eyes, eyes the same deep sienna brown as her own, and said, “Okay Audrey, today we will find complete happiness in the solitude of nature.” She tied back her long sandy blond hair.Audrey whined and stood up as her harness was fastened under her belly, the tail that curled over her back wagged like mad, wiggling her butt along with it. For a moment she forgot her manners and leapt straight up on legs like springs- like Tigger- until her eyes were level with Frankie’s. The dog said, ‘oh boy oh boy oh boy...

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The Favorite Son

Submitted to Contest #165

He saw it all happen in slow motion: the chubby hands pressing against the wooden drawers, the cupboard shaking, the blue vase tumbling at the top. He jumped over the couch and pulled Charlie away from the imminent disaster. For a fraction of a second, the vase remained suspended in the air. The toddler landed on his diaper-padded bum as the vase came crashing down. The sound sent a shockwave through his ears.“Uh-oh,” Charlie uttered, looking at the pieces of blue and white ceramic that had exploded across the floor.Toby held him back by the...

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When The Smoke Clears

Submitted to Contest #165

“Was it you?”  She remained silent “Hey! I asked you a question, did you do it or not?” Malia’s body stiffened, staring off into the distance, more silence followed. “It had to have been you. No one else had access to the house except for you. Why? Why’d you, do it?” Her gaze remained unbothered, like for that split second, she was deaf, and the words spoken around her were not registering in her mind. But with each second of silence that passed, only made Emily’s anger grow. With a quick scoff and look of disgust Emily took a long stri...

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Jacky Smith

Submitted to Contest #165

There wasn’t much room for anything else other than beer bottles and glasses. It was raining outside and Jacky’s head was killing her, it was as if a vice was clenched down hard on the outside of her skull, it was bad. She got up slowly from the ground, she was dazed, soar and sick. She got up and walked over to the sink where she drank some water. She was shaking. Her mind casted back to last night, everything was foggy and the only clear thing that she could remember was that she had a couple of friends over for a few drinks, then, that wa...

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Maverick Murdered

Submitted to Contest #165

“Guilty.”A strangled gasp escaped my lips – Lilia! My own sister – a murderer? The idea made no sense to me, no sense to me at all. None of the evidence had seemed to fit… Lilia had always been sweet, a kind and considerate older sibling I would have never changed for the world. And to kill Maverick, so unexpectedly? They’d been married four years, had dated since sophomore year of high school and were inseparable. Or at least they had been. If Lilia had been a murderer, and had wanted rid of her beloved, she’d had many opportunities before....

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I didn't do it..

Submitted to Contest #165

On her morning nursing rounds, June passed by Room 215, where Mrs. Edwina Smith, a middle-aged woman in the hospital for an inflamed pancreas, appeared to be slumbering, her enormous chest and abdomen rising and falling. Then the woman grunted and her eyes flickered open. Cleo, the new nurse, was drawing up insulin, her black nail polish shining in the florescent light. By some instinct, June noticed the loaded syringe… it was too much… she was sure.. but no, she didn’t want to confront the new nurse, with her choppy jet black hair and her l...

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Saving Each Other

Submitted to Contest #165

“My husband didn’t commit suicide. I poisoned him,” said Mary Farber to Detective Ruth Barnes a week after her husband Bruce died. Mary knew she had to protect Bruce beyond the grave in whatever way she could. Her beloved husband was a proud man; reputation was everything to him. He built a successful career as a financial advisor and served on the board of the Greater West Chester Chamber of Commerce and the Chester County Board of Commissions for years. People in his community knew, respected, and genuinely liked him.  When she arriv...

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