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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of high school short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

1770+ High school Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Looking for stories that high schoolers actually want to read? The high school short stories in this collection are real and relatable for any teen.

High school Short Stories – Page 7 of 119

God Save the Queen.

Submitted to Contest #277

Jess stood at the edge of the group of teenage girls. Only a close observer might have noticed that all the conversations, the jokes,the friendly jostling and hugging was going on around her. She was there ...but not really part of it. She had become expert at this blending in, and her fixed smile, her careful mirroring of the gestures the other girls used, the carefree hair flick, the head tilt, was designed to fool all but the most attentive watchers.Because Jess knew it was a very bad idea indeed to be noticed, or singled out, or not to b...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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June 23rd

Submitted to Contest #276

I hate weddings. I’m just not a fan. Everything about them makes me nervous. What if he drops the ring? What if it doesn’t fit? Is that a rain cloud? Someone’s got to secure that giant piece of poster board that keeps flying away. I guess it’s beautiful, I get it. it signifies eternal unity, but I feel like that could be done without putting on a show that, if you fuck it up, will be the only thing talked about at the reception as your guests stuff their faces with grabcakes and champagne. That’s why seventeen-year-old me didn’t go to my gir...

6 likes 0 comments 0
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Some Kid's Angst

Submitted to Contest #276

What made you read this? It’s a stupid story. You should go back, choose something else, before you realize how silly this story is going to be. This is your last chance. I'm about to start droning on.  … You’re still here? Why? Nevermind, I don’t want to know why. I don’t need to know that you’re only reading because you pity poor little me. I’ll pretend you’re reading because I’m good at writing. Even if you like my writing you might not like what I write about so I’ll warn you that this story isn’t worth the time it takes to read. Wh...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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The Strength to Fall

Submitted to Contest #276

The gym was filled with the usual noise—the quick squeak of sneakers on hardwood, the relentless bounce of basketballs, and the hum of teammates talking. It was game day, and my head was a whirlwind. I should’ve been focused, ready, but my mind kept racing to places I didn’t want it to go.For years, I’d been carrying the weight of something I didn’t fully understand myself—bipolar disorder. It wasn’t the diagnosis that bothered me, not really. It was the fear of what people would think if they knew. No one saw the constant shifts in my mood—...

6 likes 0 comments 0
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A Precious Encounter

Submitted to Contest #276

This story isn't one of fiction, but a real life blessing. People come and go. Some people come into our lives only to turn out to be a lesson, others cross our path to help us get somewhere. But there are some, rare as they are, who come into our lives because they were meant to, at this precise moment in time, for a reason. These rare gems are the people who are indispensable, and who never leave your side no matter what. They are worth it all, they are worth opening up to, trusting, being vulnerable with, sharing both laughter and tears w...

6 likes 0 comments 0
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From Being Horrible in French to an Expert in Wendat: The long and Winding Road of Becoming a Linguist

Submitted to Contest #276

I never did well in French in elementary or high school. I was no doubt a source of amusement to my fellow students when I had to say something in French in front of teacher and students. One year I was forced to take a summer course in the language. The main thing I remember from that class was that there were people even worse in the language than I was, something my classmates and my family would not have thought possible.  Failing French was one reason (along with physics and a few other courses) why I failed grade 11 my f...

10 likes 11 comments 11
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Lavender Eyes (warning; includes mental health issues, violence, suspense)

Submitted to Contest #275

Alaya wasn’t at all happy with her life. First of all, her dad had died in a car crash and it had hit her mother and her hard. Second of all, for Alaya that hit was depression. And lastly, her mom was going to lose her job as an Indigenous Site tour guide because younger, better workers were coming in.Also have I mentioned the thugs of classmates that had banded together on Alaya and she had just barely gotten away from? Well, now I have.Alaya by no means looked like she had problems; that morning she had chosen old jeans, a hazel shirt and ...

4 likes 3 comments 3
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(Not What I Was) Expecting

Submitted to Contest #275

“You’re not the weed girl,” I said as I stood in the second-floor girls’ bathroom with my brows stitching together. It was my usual third period trip to the bathroom on a Thursday to pick up my weed, and instead of seeing Miranda, I was staring at what looked to be a senior with mascara running down her cheeks. I was a junior, so just from her face I couldn’t place her name. She was blonde and tall and looked like her perfume was called “Bubblegum Kiss” or something like that. I immediately wanted nothing to do with her, or her teary eyes, b...

55 likes 41 comments 41
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Monster Resources

Submitted to Contest #274

Monster Resources Not far down on The River, way up high, there’s a place you can’t get to by boat because the surrounding cliffs might get you first. Into the side of one of these cliffs, you can see, spanning an area 500-foot long, a winged image in flight etched into the rock face. If you’re not too afraid of the buckshot that rains down maiming or blinding you from these cliffs or the boulder-laced rapids drowning you, you might get there. You can try to scale these cliffs, only to slice your way through the fog and foliage that pounce u...

2 likes 0 comments 0
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One Of Us

Submitted to Contest #274

Are all ghosts scary? I know about Casper the friendly ghost, and the ghosts in Harry Potter. But what about the real ghosts, the ones that live with us and we don’t even know it? Are they scary? Do they have bad intentions? On Halloween I found out. It was Friday after school, and my best friend Benjamin and I were walking home together. We were talking about my birthday party ideas, and noticing the decorations on everyone’s houses in the neighborhood. “Today is Halloween,” Ben observed, nodding at a house with pumpkins and graveyards and ...

5 likes 0 comments 0
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Don't Swim Tonight, My Love

Submitted to Contest #274

Cold wind whips through my clothes like a pin-ridden lash as though I stand naked on this desolate beach. I wouldn’t notice if I was. I could hardly think of anything so abstract as my body with this horrible sight before me; the dark and vast ocean fusing with the unlit sky into an abyss, threatening to swallow me whole without thought or struggle. Eroded by the wind and sea spray, my body is dissolving. I am no longer a person. I am more vulnerable than even a newborn baby, who has a mouth with which to sob - I am nothing more than eyes, a...

5 likes 0 comments 0
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Scoped

Submitted to Contest #274

Harry sat unmoving at his bench, staring at the petri dish containing his latest biology lab assignment. Everyone else busied themselves peering into microscopes, passing notes or asking questions.Harry only appeared to be staring. Lost in a reverie, he could have been anywhere. His parents’ argument that morning replayed over and again.Nothing new, their arguing was consistent and boring. A bad soundtrack to his life.‘But the things they said… How can people talk like that? They even hear each other?’Harry doubted it. He didn’t understand m...

17 likes 14 comments 14
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Deerman

Submitted to Contest #274

Disclaimer: This story uses mild language, scenes of terror, and implied gore. The blaring horn of a pickup truck echoed through the country roads late one October night. In the small farm town of Greenville, Illinois there wasn’t much for teenagers to do after the high school football game. “Pump the gas would ya, Cody and Tessa are already like a hundred feet ahead.” Ashlen scolded her boyfriend Max in the driver’s seat while Kenny Chesney was full blast on the radio. Fog rolled over the cornfields on both sides of the road shrouding the ...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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Nothing to Worry About

Submitted to Contest #273

I’m so happy that Eric and I are friends again.As soon as I step foot out of my eighth period English class, he’s already waiting outside for me, leaning up against the wall by the door. With a huge grin on his face, he trots over and leans down to playfully headbutt me in the chest, I grunt lightly and push his head away. He stumbles on his feet, laughing, then collects himself and walks beside me down the hall, slipping his arm around my shoulder.“How did you get here so fast? The bell just rang.”“I left early. Three guys started fighting ...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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Purge

Submitted to Contest #273

You fall out of bed like a corpse. The sunlight stings your bloodshot eyes. You haven’t sleep because your stomach was twisted into knots. Groggy, you gaze at the phone lying awake on your nightstand. The battery’s nearly drained. It’s only showing two bars. You dialed a number. The one your friends group told you not to. You stare at the digits on the keypad. You switch it off and throw it in your backpack.It takes ages to pull yourself up from the cold, wooden floor. You need to get changed for school. You’re terrified to look in the mirro...

5 likes 1 comment 1
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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