Jamie Finds Acceptance

By Patricia Marie Allen

I remember when it started. It was a Saturday in the September of my eighth year. My sister had a nine o'clock dentist appointment and my brother was spending the weekend with friends. I should have been able to sleep in, but Dad got a call from work. He worked in the maintenance department and something had gone wrong with the compressor and it had to be fixed before Monday at six a.m. He woke me at eight and told me that he had to leave and it would be up to me to get the Goodwill bags out on the porch for the Boy Scouts by nine.

Chapter 2

I have no idea how long I slept. I remember Taylor shaking me and it was still dark. He made me sip something with really sweet molasses like flavor and lots of stuff like cinnamon and ginger in it, it made my throat tickle and made my cough a bit.

Jesse sat in his apartment. He was daydreaming again. It was always the same dream. The girl stood on a hill, her long white dress and shoulder length brown hair blowing in the wind. She always had a look of absolute love in her eyes.

Becoming Free

by Andrea Lena DiMaggio

A Second Chance   by Kelly Blake   Edited and Proofed by Drea DiMaggio and Alison Mary Artwork provided by the Incorrigible Belle Meade

...I knew what had happened. As one of the cops approached me and started to speak to me, I heard not a single word. I merely saw his mouth move as tears began to fall from my eyes.

I remember little else from that evening other than finding myself in my old room, now occupied by Corie, and Kate alongside me in the bed. Owen and Meg were gone. We would never be able to speak, or touch, or laugh, or cry with them again. My life, and Kate’s, as we knew it, had come to a most bitter end.

The Runner Part 3

By Trashy Trisha

Marty found Tammy stretched out on the girl’s room floor. Being the concerned and loving partner she was, Marty jammed Tammy in the ribs several times with the toe of her shoe before announcing to the gathered crowd that yes…indeed…she was alive.