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Maleia Mathews

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2026

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8 Stories

103 karma pts

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The Things He Couldn't Say

Contains mental health This story reminds me of a boy at my high school who also has an eating disorder. Evan Park had become very good at saying, “I’m fine.” He said it when his mother asked how school was. He said it when his older sister noticed he seemed quieter than usual. He said it when his best friend, Marcus, asked why he kept turning down invitations to eat together after class. “I’m fine.” Two words. Simple. Convincing. At least, Evan hoped they were. Evan was sixteen and had grown up in a Korean American family in Northern Califo...

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The Forbidden Cave

Anika Lots of people in my town have heard of the legend of the Forbidden Cave. Whenever I hear people say it, I always wonder why it was forbidden. When I was eight years old, I asked my mother about the forbidden cave. She was surprised that I asked, yet she told me the story. She said that the legend of the Forbidden Cave started way before I was born. A explorer named John Kingdom was traveling around the globe to find a cave that was filled with treasure that has never been found in years. He had a map of an island that would him there....

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The Hour Between Midnight and Morning

Weekly Contest #372

At 2:17 in the morning, seventeen-year-old Amaya Reed woke up because someone was knocking on her window. Three slow taps. Tap. Tap. Tap. She opened her eyes. For a few seconds, she didn't move. The room was completely dark except for the thin silver line of moonlight slipping through the curtains. Her alarm clock glowed on the nightstand, the numbers bright and red against the darkness. 2:17 A.M. Amaya pulled the blanket closer to her chin. Tap. She froze. Another knock. Her first thought was that it was a tree branch. Except there were no ...

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The Rest Stop Between Us

Weekly Contest #371

Avery had always thought rest stops were places where people only stopped when they had somewhere else to go. That was why the huge highway rest stop seemed strange when their family's car pulled into the parking lot just before sunset. Avery stepped out, stretching after hours on the road. Being bigender meant that Avery sometimes felt more connected to different parts of themself at different times, but they had learned that they didn't need to explain every part of who they were to everyone they met. They grabbed their backpack and headed...

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The Night at the Laundromat

Weekly Contest #371

Nora had never planned to spend the entire night in a laundromat. Especially not with Caleb. But plans had a funny way of disappearing after midnight. It started with a broken washing machine. Nora had been trying to finish her laundry before school the next morning when the machine in her apartment suddenly stopped working. She stared at the pile of clothes scattered across her bedroom floor and sighed. Her mother was working the night shift, her younger brother was asleep, and Nora had an important presentation in the morning. There was on...

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After the Mall Closes

Weekly Contest #371

The last thing seventeen-year-old Minaret Carter expected to hear that Friday night was the sound of the mall's security gates locking. She and her boyfriend, Jackson, had been inside Westbrook Mall for nearly three hours. They'd gone shopping after school, grabbed dinner at the food court, played games in the arcade, and wandered through the stores while talking about everything from college applications to their favorite movies. Neither of them had noticed how quickly the evening had disappeared. By the time they left the movie theater, th...

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The Hotel in the Offseason

Weekly Contest #371

The road to Bellweather Bay was supposed to end at the ocean. At least, that was what twenty-four-year-old Clara Bennett had been told. Instead, it ended at a locked iron gate beneath a crooked wooden sign. BELLWEATHER BAY — CLOSED FOR THE SEASON Clara stared through the windshield at the empty road beyond it. Rain tapped against the glass. She had been driving for nearly four hours, hoping to spend a quiet weekend away from the city. Her plan had been simple: rent a small cottage, read a book, walk along the beach, and forget about work for...

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The School Where We Stayed

Weekly Contest #371

The school had been empty for almost six months. Everyone in town knew the story. Westbridge High had closed after a pipe burst during winter break, flooding half the building. The students had been moved to another school across town, and the old building had remained locked ever since. But Brandon knew something nobody else seemed to care about. The school wasn't completely empty. At least, it didn't feel empty. Whenever he walked past the tall iron fence on his way home, he could swear he saw lights flickering behind the second-floor wind...

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