Romance Short Stories

I remember those days

I remember la chanson the birds sang that day. The fallen leaves and all.I remember people talking about their days. the flight instructors who struck me the most, at least,…[...]

your go-to café

have you travelled far far away and need to find your way back home, darling? this would be listed among the most humane situations, no need to be coy about…[...]

Mission Zeus 5: The eyes of a scientist

Day 1,765 — First Entry I remember when things were normal. I was with my family, having dinner with Celine and the kids. Marcus had just won his baseball tournament…[...]

Wet Faces

Maybe he wanted too much. Even now as they sat wet-faced in his driveway with the engine still humming under the floodlights, Sam wondered why he couldn’t be satisfied with…[...]

Wedding Dress

The first person to notice the dress was the bartender.Not because he cared about fashion, but because he had spent the last hour watching the groom’s mother criticize every flower…[...]

Remember

Playfully pulsating in the lilac mist, two beings spun, entangled in light. Their individual consciousnesses intertwined as they had been for a span of time neither knew, floating in some…[...]

A Perfect Mother

I remember when my five-year-old daughter crossed a balance beam in gymnastics on the day Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake. It felt peculiar to be proud of my daughter in…[...]

Two Rememberings

Reedsy Prompt for May 22, 2026Include a wake or funeral in your story where the mourners have conflicting feelings about the deceased. (1,760 words) Me: Well, we’re here. Not a…[...]

Maybe I Should Keep the Mothballs

In my twenties, when I left the nest to rent a tiny flat, my mother, always practical, gave me a box of mothballs.“Keep them in your drawer to fend off…[...]

Angel in a Yellow Dress

June 12, 2024 ~ Cagliari, Sardinia“” The charcuterie board was pushed across the counter to my husband’s surprise. He had gestured to the meats and cheeses through the glass counter…[...]

How to Bake Sourdough Bread and Alienate Everyone You Know

Are you stressed out? Strapped for time? About three to five minor inconveniences away from total burnout?Now is the perfect time for you to start baking sourdough bread.Maybe you’re short-staffed…[...]

They haven’t even won my heart and mind

I feel the JACKAL sway below me, the dust-red road unrolling in front and the stunted mahogany scrub flashing alongside. We pass women bent double under towering loads of firewood…[...]

A Doorway on Lenox

Theo had been staring at the same sentence so long the letters bled together. Lineage in Postmodern Black Poetics. He mouthed the words once more, flat and sour on his…[...]

The Bear Necessities of Contract Law

Goldilocks Lockwood v. Bear FamilySmall Claims Court, Woodland DistrictCase No. 2024-SC-0847Transcript of the Plaintiff's Opening Statement THE COURT: Ms. Lockwood, you may proceed with your statement.MS. LOCKWOOD: Thank you, Your…[...]

THE COLOUR OF MOURNING

Jenna stood in the rain on the cliff path above Portreath. It was a soft, persistent rain, the kind that doesn’t fall so much as hang in the air, soaking…[...]

An Inland Sea

emotional and financial abuseI am in my regular spot this morning, the navy blue chair-and-a-half, staring out at the big lake. From here, it looks like an inland sea, a…[...]

The Blue After the Storm

April 23, 2026 - 6:20pmIt’s been gray and overcast today, which I honestly love. As an Arizonan living in Oklahoma now, I love the days where rain is expected. I…[...]

My personal nightlight

A phone call wakes you out of your stupor. The caller was June, your shy but well-meaning friend. Though it was late in the evening, you wondered why she’s calling…[...]

The Almost Emporium

“A person will have to give account for everything his eye saw yet he did not eat.”Talmud (Yerushalmi), Kiddushin 4:12 Don’t stand outside knocking! Come in! Welcome to “” where…[...]

The Easter of Colors

I went out into the garden this sunny morning and saw that the yellow plum blossoms had opened, dazzling white flowers. The lawn was green and the leaves on the…[...]

Call Your Father

The wall stared without question or expectation.There were scars hidden beneath its caked layers of paint, every one a silenced story consumed by the beige expanse. It stood despite them.…[...]

Higher Power

Shaking his head, Booker read the sign outside the meeting. Attendees streamed by him and into the building. The sign read, ‘Welcome to our local chapter of the AA. Note:…[...]

Remarks

The car is running because the heat is broken at the house and I needed somewhere warm to finish this. That is the reason I am giving myself. The real…[...]

Echoes on the Canvas

Owen squinted, surveying the sea of people below. The crowd had come to mourn the dead. It might have been a joke if not for the art. To his right,…[...]

The To-Do List

I rolled over in bed, still half-asleep, my cooling eye mask perched on my forehead, when a wash of sunlight slipped through the curtains and hit me all at once.Oh…[...]

Clara and the Songs

They were going to kill her. Not on purpose; this wasn’t malice. It was love, of a sort anyway. It was both ironic and tragic. Which is just the sort…[...]

Theophany

I never thought I’d ever have to forcibly remove someone from my home – or that I’d even have the strength to do so. But, when my unexpected guest overstayed…[...]

Afflatus

In a dimly lit warehouse on the outskirts of town, Carl sat in a bored stupor tending a metal stamping machine. The greasy behemoth shrieked with each press of a…[...]

The Secret Bluebells

My father died last month. Shortly after his death, my mother began to behave very strangely. She started to mutter to herself and tap the furniture as if waiting for…[...]

The Gap Year

2014 Laura was more than a little unnerved the first time it happened. What would anyone expect, to be visited by a decidedly thirtyish woman claiming to be her future…[...]

Under the Gold Lights

The ladder slipped before Miranda even had time to scream.One second, she was stringing gold lights across the barn rafters, the next the world tilted, wood cracked, and gravity yanked…[...]

There is no Color

Withering willows and gentle breezes, leaves falling and moving seasons. Life once had a shape and an enchantment, but lately everything feels as though it's turned into ashes. The sky…[...]

The Colors He Made

Kevin said he played guitar the way most people admitted things: reluctantly, eventually, and usually too late. That wasn't entirely fair. He'd said he played guitar *the way he admitted…[...]

Goin’ Back to Cali

Jack and Sharon are sitting on an ice chest holding hands, watching their rods and the Pacific, when Sharon’s rod suddenly bends. She leaps to her feet, grabs the rod…[...]

Black and Blue

Jen left therapy tasked with owning her triggers. Feeling overwhelmed already, she told herself, “You are only being asked to own them. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.” After all,…[...]

That Boring Beige

Dear Bella,I remembered that day, exactly eight years after your death. The day I was standing at the edge of the bridge after my suicide attempt, cutting my wrist in…[...]

His color is Vermilion RED

Owen W SullivanLife and Style At twenty-six years old, Owen W Sullivan works as a health receptionist in Baltimore. However, he is more into fashion, building his clothes around a…[...]

Black & White

Someone had stolen the light out of this world. Someone ripped it from the Earth, from the trees and the water, from the fields and flowers. They stole it so…[...]

See it with my eyes

Eyes shutStanding on the platform with her eyes closed, Myriam concentrated on the noises around her. Someone was coughing. A phone was ringing. People were talking about the newest political…[...]

Red Dawn Rising

Poppy could ignore the three alarms that had already gone off. But she couldn’t ignore her Siamese cat’s gentle pawing at her face. She knew it was only a matter…[...]

A New Life with Bright Colours.

A New Life With Bright Colours.I woke up early and looked out at the black night sky and I knew instantly that it reflected my life. I was living in…[...]

The Color of Grief

I crushed the cigarette in the ash tray on my desk as I reminisced on the world that once was full of light, hope, dreams, and color. My God there…[...]

About to Fall

A thick fog envelops Hyde Park as I ride my ginger pony around the deserted kiosk at Speakers’ Corner. Winter Wonderland closed last week, leaving its muddy footprint stamped on…[...]

The Gods who sleep at the Seams

The Gods Who Listen at the Seams Analise kept a whiteboard in her apartment that she'd filled and erased so many times the surface had gone permanently grey.Her cacti were…[...]

Blue

I didn’t think he would leave me stranded again. I thought the wheel of fortune had finally turned to my favor. I was a fool not to see the writing…[...]

The white shadow

The sun shines on my hands as I open the little book, the one that starts with a simple drawing of a boa constrictor eating an elephant, the one my…[...]

Black and White

CW: Police harassment They slouched in the flickering darkness, watching the final credits. For two hours, Mark Dirac had shared part of the universe with Blanche, breathing in her wild-rose…[...]

Charcoal Drawing

It doesn’t all go at once, you know. Think August to October. At first, you see the tips of the leaves turn a crisp autumn color, then the green of…[...]

Yellow, White, and Blue

Returning to the office after an accident makes you wish you were in another accident. In short, it totally sucks. Waking up at 6 am to get ready to go…[...]

It Ain’t Easy Being Orange

I used to be bolder than others. Even the boldest of the bold could not eclipse my brilliance.I don’t mean I was unapproachable; I was and am as sweet as…[...]

312 A.D.

The day was Anno divortium, that is — 312 days had passed since Melody found herself single after bringing nearly 25 years of marriage to a close. 312 days since…[...]

The Opening

IAccording to something he had once heard—perhaps as a child, perhaps later, perhaps not even from a person—the earth remembers what we forget, though the sentence had never settled into…[...]

The Last Leather Straps

Mirror imageWith a jolt Keith sat up straight in his bed. Breathing heavily, he wiped his forehead. His eyes wandered to the alarm clock.3.39“Go back to sleep.”Sarah’s voice was barely…[...]

The Water Takes Us

“If you go into the water, it will take your life. We are cursed to never enter the ocean.” My mother’s words echoed in my mind as I recalled a…[...]

Lady Luck

I liked Juliet. I really did. But wait, listen. Let me tell you what really happened because none of that was my fault.The Montague, Romeo's father, was born into a…[...]

The Fire We Stole

The sky hung heavy over Bangkok, a dome of rust and sorrow. The sun was no longer a sovereign flame but a pale coin pressed against the haze, its brilliance…[...]

The Forest Remembers

Knowledge truly is a curse. My leaves shake and shiver in the wind as a plea to my mother. But she does not answer. She has not answered in hundreds…[...]

The Meadow

It shook its branches — scattering sparrow feathers and faintly yellowed leaves — and pressed its roots deeper into the earth, searching for pockets of moisture. Its crown, warmed by…[...]

Glorious, For a While

Darkness is the home of our vague fears and anxieties, but it is also the home of the Gods. Our lives contain “accidents,” which only exist in our heads. What…[...]

The Brother Who Let Go

First, I have to tell you I am alive and I have two brothers. One Near-And-Beating Brother, who holds my hand beneath the damp, green and life-bearing soil. Whose hurts…[...]

The Quiet Afghan

It had been eleven years since Afshin had journeyed out of Mazar-i-Sharif, through the stony deserts and forbidding mountains of the Hindu Kush, to meet the friend who put people…[...]

The Market and the Misanthrope

Jack is alone in his studio apartment, on his phone, watching the odds creep low and lower.“Don’t overthink it,” he tells himself. “And don’t get greedy.” He understands that the…[...]

The Accidental Auction Bid

Rowan McCrae didn’t mind doing hard work.He minded being told to “smile pretty for the ladies tonight” by two separate grandmothers before eight a.m., but the work itself was fine.He…[...]

“What’s up, Doc?”

"What you are experiencing is a range of complex emotions. Here is a script, something to take the edge off your distressing feelings. Take that to the pharmacist, after you…[...]

The Thing About Opal

The aquarium closes at six. By seven it belongs to him.The octopus is in the east corridor. Large tank, blue-lit, the water always moving slightly from the aerator near the…[...]

I Went to the Woods

The forest sat alone in a cradle made of sand. It was a seven day drive across the sun-bleached wasteland, nothing but arid desert as far as the eye could…[...]

Therefore, she suffers so much more

My insurance payment is overdue by more than a week. Buying the clearance chocolate at the grocery store I work at during break is the only thing that kept me…[...]

The Minotaur’s Sister

My room was never silent, quiet but not silent. The labyrinth was always making some kind of noise. Being there every day for years meant that I was used to…[...]

From the Front lines to the Front Porch: Memoir of a Matriarchal Soldier

The dirt of Fort Bragg is a jealous thing; it stains the soul with a rusted, iron-bound persistence that thirty-five years of rhythmic "left-right-left" cannot shake. My journey began in…[...]

Catching the Train

“Tell me the truth.” Tears rolled down her cheeks like raindrops on a window. A view I usually loved. Not her tears—the raindrops. But her crying tore something deep inside…[...]

Ranch UFO Alien Encounter

It’s hard to believe that several years have passed since it happened. I often wonder what I really saw that day, when I was sitting up on a deer hunting…[...]

Flowers & Makeup

I'm a productive person.I can wear makeup because I’m not a bitch at my prettiest. And I don’t want to steal husbands and I never respond even if a husband…[...]

The Cost of Returning Home

“Welcome home, Lieutenant. We’re glad to have you back.”The captain flashes his teeth, and in return I offer a wide grin. Home. When I left this place, I imagined this…[...]

The Last Honest Thing

The room was always loudest in the beginning—laughter erupting, voices carrying, the sound of shoes meeting the floor. Each Tally in the room belonged to someone. A human, somewhere out…[...]

Under the Obsidian Beaches

I was never fond of the ocean.My brother often went when he felt lonely or distraught. He said it calmed him listening to the pulse of the waves. “Just listen,”…[...]

Home

My arms were sore and aching from carrying boxes from the storage room to my old jeep that waited in the yard, the once shiny black paint more like a…[...]

The Heart Always Knows

My best friend Lorelei and I are both writers, for me lifestyle features for a city magazine, for her freelance stories for many outlets. We always have so much to…[...]

Background Noise

I don’t know why I do this to myself. Here I am, yet again, quite literally, the odd man out. I came to this wedding as a favor to the…[...]

The View From Outer Space

I am so high up, so far above everything I used to be and know. I think I can see the earth, a point of light far below. I know…[...]

The Distance Between Staying and Leaving

The mornings all begin the same, and this morning is no different. The room feels too still, like even the air is tired, and before I’m fully awake, I can…[...]

Siren

This story contains themes of grief, bereavement, depression, and suicidal ideation. It also includes references to terminal illness, emotional distress, and a character’s increasing preoccupation with death. Readers who may…[...]

Standing on the Wrong Side of Hate

Alice couldn’t pinpoint the precise moment in time and space when she had become such a bitch. Perhaps she was just born that way. Perhaps it had been foretold in…[...]

Wistfully Willing

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…[...]

Echoes + Tropes

“Cut!” The actors relax and laugh at the director’s announcement, and I frown at them from my chair, annoyed at their contentment. “Hannah?” It’s my co-writer, Neal, who notices my…[...]

Getaway

“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…[...]

A Perfect Mother

I remember when my five-year-old daughter crossed a balance beam in gymnastics on the day Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake. It felt peculiar to be proud of my daughter in…[...]

Marta

I watched her cross the snowy field in the dusk. Violet color there, the indigo muted. I turned away. The kettle hissed in the stove in the wide kitchen. “You've…[...]

The Death of Iris Vane

Iris did not know, when she stepped out of her squished little brownstone on Cobble Hill, that she was going to die. Of course, everyone dies eventually, but for Iris…[...]

An Irish Wake

Neala loomed over Grandma Aileen’s casket and stared at the waxy skin etched with makeup-filled crevices. Each line on the old woman’s face held a story. Frown lines told of…[...]

Two Rememberings

Reedsy Prompt for May 22, 2026Include a wake or funeral in your story where the mourners have conflicting feelings about the deceased. (1,760 words) Me: Well, we’re here. Not a…[...]

You’re Always Here

Thirty-five minutes and twenty-nine seconds. He walks in when the clock ticks thirty, and her heart skitters with instinctive, awful familiarity. It is the little things like these that she…[...]

About the Colour Pink

Sally had always loved the colour Pink. The walls in her room were blush Pink; her pillows were coral and raspberry, and most of her clothes were too, in fact,…[...]

About to Fall

A thick fog envelops Hyde Park as I ride my ginger pony around the deserted kiosk at Speakers’ Corner. Winter Wonderland closed last week, leaving its muddy footprint stamped on…[...]

Beneath the light of the comet

The summer ET was released on video I was first in line at the rental store - itching to watch it - having been deemed too young to see the…[...]

Windows to the Soul

I ring the doorbell, my suitcase hunkered beside me on the footpath, a black, sullen thing. After a few moments, the door swings open. Jane, my eldest, looks surprised to…[...]

Blindsight

I wish I never got my sight back.That thought crossed my mind sitting outside the hospital, in the green Chevrolet Camaro my father left me. The sun rose, bathing the…[...]

Black and White

CW: Police harassment They slouched in the flickering darkness, watching the final credits. For two hours, Mark Dirac had shared part of the universe with Blanche, breathing in her wild-rose…[...]

The Hymn of the Lady of Gold

“I warned you this journey would be perilous, even for a dragon.” “And I warned YOU what my parents would do to you if you let me die,” Rena growled.…[...]

Lights

When I was much younger than I am now, my grandfather died, and two lights turned off. As the dwarfs slid down the sky, becoming blue and brighter, my mother…[...]

The Weight of Coming Home

The bus rolled into town just before sunrise, its tires hissing against wet pavement. Clara pressed her forehead against the cold window and watched familiar streets pass like ghosts she…[...]