"I hate you! Get out of my face!"

Wow. That's just the way any teenage girl wants to start her day: the most popular guy in school declares in front of the entire gym class that he hates her guts.

Well, that's just the story of my life these days. Everyone who's anyone hates me. As if to emphesize that point, a red ball crashes into my face, knocking off my glasses.

"Simmons! You're out!" the gym teacher's voice echoes though the gym.

So, I go settle on the bleachers with the rest of the people out of the most...

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Absent.

He sat right at the front, but would never once look up at the board all while knowing full well the snippy teacher would think him rude. He would only doodle inside his beat-up notebook he'd kept since seventh grade, and I would never know what exactly it was he was so intent on drawing.

It's a project, he would say.

He is not here today. He and I do not interact much, but I know he is beautiful. He is beautiful and I have loved him since I laid eyes on him. I have loved him and loved...

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He hadn't wanted the light there.

She had insisted - there was light on her, light on her voice, lifting her up, letting them all see her. He was playing too (had a solo during one of the songs, actually) so why shouldn't they see him?

He'd tried to protest that it wasn't traditional, and she'd just given him one of those looks, the one that made him certain that if ever (...when) she did get signed the record label wouldn't be able to force her into one of those moulds they seemed so fond of.

He'd stood his ground,...

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I am the apple of her eye.

All of them in fact.

I have five aunts, and a mother.

Mom calls me the Little King, her little Emperor, the man of the house. Where is my father? I don't know or care.

My aunts have always been there. Mom defied everyone when she got pregnant, as far as I know my aunts have never been courted.

They are my court. They laugh at my jokes, they bring me snacks, they make me cocoa, they run my baths. When I write stories they print them and paste them in a book,...

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In hindsight, the solution was obvious. Of course it was. It always is. But at the time it seemed like an impossible thing, a thing that would never be solved. A thing that would haunt her and taunt her forever and ever amen.

The crossword in Mrs Grey’s daily paper may not, to others,especially perhaps her husband, have seemed like much of an importance, but to her it was everything. It was the thing that, for just an hour or so each day, made her feel clever. It made her feel like a proper human being instead of the tired...

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When I took Peter his final cup of coffee of the day knowing that tomorrow he'll be somewhere special instead of his smelly flat, I had a strong conviction that I had made the right decision, even though it was unlikely anyone else would understand. That's because they didn't have the knowledge I did. Secret. Life changing. Extraordinary.

In the morning we walked downstairs to the waiting car, Peter was chatting merrily unware his life was going to change forever.

Meanwhile I was perplexed why I couldn't open the door to my padded cell. Peter would be scared in the...

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Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.

"Ladies? Gentlemen? Entities?" Helen paused. No response.

Helen glanced around. The large workroom -- some schizophrenic combination of retro and avant0-garde -- was loud, clicking and warbling and chatting in a very large number of tongues.

Helen cleared her throat. It should have been for effect, but it was because her throat had suddenly dried, as if she had swallowed the entirety of the Sahara back on Terra. "People! And non-people! Listen!"

To their credit, many did. Many didn't, but that...

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Marvin lunged towards the stand upon which sat an old, analog phone. He almost made it. Melinda tackled him from behind and they fell, hard, onto the wood floor. The phone kept ringing, its strident cry begging someone to answer. Marvin kicked back at Melinda but she evaded his foot and bit his ankle. Marvin howled and turned back to try and disentangle his leg from her grasp. As soon as he turned, Melinda sprang up from the floor and jumped towards the phone, kicking Marvin in the head as she passed. His head hit the floor with a dull...

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One person shouldn't be able to change your life forever. I think we all know people who have been affected outside of their control - torture, rape, molestation... it's a little fucked up to put love in the same category, isn't it?

Maybe the crucial difference is that it's a sweet anguish. That's why I feel sick to my stomach, I can't sleep at night, my conscious is fixated on one person and one event. It makes me smile when I don't feel like crying. This seems like such a high school thing. Aren't those the cuts that make the...

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The day had dragged on. Lari looked around the street as she left work. She felt as if she had just ran a marathon with cement shoes on. You wouldn't think that being a marketing assistant would make someone so tired.

The street was full of the regular faces. People that she saw everyday, but never really looked at. Lari sighed as she waited for her bus. I need a vacation, she thought.

A young girl walked by, licking a dripping ice cream cone and holding a large red balloon. The girl didn't care that she had dripped chocolate down...

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