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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of teens & young adult short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Teens & young adult Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Looking for the best short stories for teens? Our collection of funny, suspenseful, and relatable young adult short stories will meet your needs.

Teens & young adult Short Stories – Page 3 of 10

Family Dinner

Perrin P

Weekly Contest #355

Jared looked at his son, Bobby, subtly in his peripherals. They sat next to each other at the breakfast bar, his son‘s cereal untouched. Oh I know this look, Jared thought, He’s trying to get out of Saturday night‘s dinner. Family dinner meant a lot in Jared‘s family. There was nothing more important to him, his Wife, his kids (bar Bobby at the moment, but it was just a phase), his parents and his Grandparents before them.I don’t care what his excuse is this time I will not let him off the hook. For the past couple of months Bobby had used ...

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Underground Words

Weekly Contest #355

After a long night traveling, we’ve finally made it to my grandmother’s house in New York. I’m staying over for the week since the hotels me and my friends were looking at the time was really…expensive. We came to New York to meet my grandmother and because at first I was invited but then my friends BEGGED to come. We took the plane to New York, then the bus to Brooklyn. I never felt more tired a day in my life. Luckily my grandmother was pretty cool with them. Short introduction: My name is Amiya. My three friends; Aliyah, Camaria, and R...

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Candy Thriller: Bud

Weekly Contest #356

Lenny’s Dad pulled up in our driveway one Saturday afternoon, still driving that rusty, green Nova with the sagging ceiling. Lenny and I had been friends in grade school before his mom and dad got divorced and he had to move to another part of town and go to a public school. I still went to the private school, although I didn’t much like it. It was a religious school where they did a lot more bible thumping than teaching. My Saturday visits to the movie theater with him and his Dad were a sort of relief from the monotony of continual judgeme...

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Bad Rubbish

Weekly Contest #355

Trigger Note: Contains themes of grief, death, bullying, and mental health. Well, it’s weird I suppose; not knowing how to feel. Sadness, a welling of empathy from my chest, regrets; maybe nostalgia? I really didn’t know at the time – he was dead; I wasn’t… Was good riddance to bad rubbish too strong of an idiom to be thinking? Yes, it was – but then again it really wasn’t.Four teenagers, a car going too fast, three bottles of something way too strong, and no seatbelts. Kyle was no longer in the land of the living; and I was struggling...

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The Wake, and After

Samantha Mazzotta

Weekly Contest #355

Note: Sensitive content: contains depiction of death. When she was very small, Tabatha Presenza saw death for the first time. She saw it as a wisp hovering just above Nonno Grumble’s nobbly chin as he lay on the rollaway cot in the living room, his eyes still opening from time to time, unseeing, pupils still glimmering as the final fever burned his life away hour by hour. All night, her grandfather’s chest rose and fell unevenly, yet the wisp never moved. Even when Mamma and Tia Rosa carefully dripped precious morphine onto Nonno’s tongue, e...

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Typical Treatment

Faith LeMone

Weekly Contest #355

It’s busier than usual tonight. The event room is booked out by awedding party and the diner is packed. Madi has five tables, which isoverwhelming but worth the money. The crew of waitstaff includes her,Johnny, Alex (for the event room), and Liam; but with customers andhosts, it feels like an overfilled moving bus. Madi doesn’t mind though,less room to ruminate.Madi’s long near-black hair is slicked into a braid on the top of her headwith wispy pieces left out to frame her face. If you look closely the backof her neck is red from the pulling...

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Beautifully Broken

A.J .

Weekly Contest #354

Trigger Warning *This story contains suicidal ideations, mentions of self-harm, mental health, and grief.* 1 year, 8 months, and 17 days.I hovered my pen above my journal before setting it down and flipping through past pages.1 year 8 months 16 days.1 year 5 months 2 days.1 year 1 month- you get the picture. Taking a deep breath, I looked out the window. There wasn’t much to see; it was the middle of the night. It should have comforted me, but I didn’t need daylight to see the horrors. Quinn's leg somewhere out in the desert sands. The...

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To Be Loved

Addison Spencer

Weekly Contest #354

“Honey, you’re a mess,” Madam Lian said. Lipstick smeared the right corner of her tooth. She motioned for her to come closer, Lian’s finger wet with spit as she wiped away excess mascara from Elise’s eyes. The only sign she had even been crying. “This isn’t the time for tears; the clients have been pushing this showing forward for months, and we can’t afford to let them down.” Her eyebrows pushed together as she rubbed away. Her sharp fingernails were almost breaking skin at each forceful push inwards. Whether it was concerns for Elise, or c...

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Getaway

Joori :D

Weekly Contest #354

“One day, I’ll get out of here.”“Out of where?”“Out of… this house. This city. This country. This world.” My eyes were glued to the full moon glimmering in the sky.“Where would you go? Venus?” Selvie asked, sitting beside me on the grass.“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll backpack across the world.” I answered.“Planet wise,” She specified.“Mars is scientifically more livable.”“Isn’t the point of leaving is to go somewhere different?” “Well, then maybe I want to go somewhere where I can be different. Where things are different. Not a completely new un...

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Wistfully Willing

Key Keats

Weekly Contest #354

The sealed envelope taunted me from across the room as I sat at the foot of my bed, knees held tightly to my chest. Several memories had passed since I first took up this position. Despite knowing they had been filmed through my eyes, I still struggle to believe that the person I am now, and the person whose eyes I must have borrowed, were one in the same. Hues of blue, then yellow. Vibrant greens the color of emerald. Then, debilitating red, flashed through my mind as I glared into the wooden floorboards of my childhood home. There were cou...

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Hidden Fears

Weekly Contest #354

The Last Unicorn. An interesting name for a tavern and inn, but certainly one to be remembered. Perhaps it was the warm wood walls that rose from the stone foundation, carved with intricate patterns of swirling vines that drew Blackbird’s eye, or it could be the deep, forest green shingles that dripped over the roof and awnings like ruffled leaves that lured him to its doorstep, frosted with bright snow. The light inside was a welcoming gold, and a sign mounted over the door swung in the wind. Upon it was painted a unicorn, a cloven hoof lif...

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Lola

George Ruff

Weekly Contest #354

The June sun beat down on the two exhausted bodies resting in the lush grass beside the pond. The water had been refreshing as the two of them frolicked in the cool water. They had raced from one side of the pond to the other several times. Lola had won every time. Sometimes she would give Alex a head start, and surge past him as they neared the opposite bank. Then she would hop up on the bank and bark encouragement at Alex to hurry up. The expression on her face was less of what took you so long this time and more of “You can do this ...

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A Curse of Pleasantries

Mary Knutson

Weekly Contest #354

The front door hung crooked on its hinges, but it kept the wind and rain out so Maggie supposed it worked well enough. She grabbed the basked off the counter and, with a firm tug on the door behind her, stepped into the dappled sunlight. Green leaves glistened with last night’s rain and fallen twigs crunched softly underfoot as she made her way through the small, wooded yard leading towards the muddy path into town. Light danced through the small gaps in the trees above as the birds and squirrels chittered their morning tune. It couldn’t h...

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The Architect

Jessica Schoelkoph

Weekly Contest #354

They say we grieve to the depth that we love, but how do I grieve someone who isn't dead?***Xavier and I met in our freshman year of college. He was from Iowa and I from Idaho, and we bonded over the fact that no one can ever correctly identify either of our states on a map. We were both in the architecture program at Cornell University, and when the opportunity to study abroad came up during our senior year, we jumped at the chance. Wanting to make the most of our time and limited cash, we chose a school in Florence, Italy because of the we...

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File name: Caelum Altera. Case number: 2085 1141513151225

Logan Hill

Weekly Contest #354

Trigger Warning: Sensitive topics. Mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse, references substance abuse, and mental health topics. There’s a quiet click, and the quiet hum from the internal mechanism of the cassette tape begins to play softly in the background. There’s a quiet shuffling as it’s placed on a surface, and someone clears their throat as they settle into their chair. “Statement of Caelum Altera, regarding his uh… his ability to…” “To manipulate space and time.” “Right. Regarding his ability to manipulate space and time...

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