ONC 2024: In college, it was a case of wrong place/wrong time. Eight years later, they have a second chance. But will they take the leap? ___ Prompt 14: "My muse, believe me, waiting for you has been a form of freedom." ___ Excerpt: "Don't look back." Ian stares at me through the screen with his dark, intense gaze. "Don't long for all the things that might have been. Don't chastise yourself for the decisions you've made." For a moment, his words render me silent. "Appreciate all those little indentations that make you who you are," he says with a tender expression. "And remember your superpower." "What superpower?" "Let yourself dream again." A tender smile crosses his features. "Focus that intense drive of yours on the future like you used to do." He's right. For so long, I've been living in survival mode. One foot in front of the other. Stuck in this nightmare, I haven't been able to see any other way forward. Until now. "You're free now," he says, "to make better choices that will make you truly happy." For a moment, I let my mind take me wherever it wants to go. Right now? It wants to be in Boston, beside him. But can I leave everything behind?

I waited by the window watching for the headlights of a car pull in the drive. They finally shone in the window pane, I sighed and hopped down off my windowsill. I heard the front door shuffle open and feet stumble through the door. My heart began beating faster with every step that the drunk bastard made. "Where are you, you fat bitch? Get down here now! I aint gonna fucking wait for you, sleaze ass." My cheeks burned red. I wanted to jump out of the window and fall to my death. Tears rolled down my face as my father kept calling me names. I heard footsteps pounding and shuffling up the stairs.I opened the window and sat on the sill. I let my feet and legs dangle over the side, I looked down at the ground. The drop would be long but not fatal, I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. "One...two-" Hi my name is Lena Decker I am an 18 year old girl. My mother died a few years ago, my dad became a junkie and also became extremely abusive. I meet someone very special. Read on to learn.

"If you love me, you won't leave me." Jessie has believed those words from her boyfriend, Josh, since senior year of high school. She loves him and doesn't want to leave him. Not even when he shouts at her and hits her. Jessie's best friend, Kolleen, can't stand seeing her in that situation. With a bit of convincing - and the worst beating she'd ever received - Jessie agrees to move into an apartment with Kolleen. But not long after, Jessie is scared the worst of her nightmares will soon become a reality. Josh goes missing, and suddenly Jessie would swear she's being followed. One night changes everything, and one person soon changes Jessie's outlook. A responding officer from that fateful night begins to seek her out, at first claiming it's part of his job. As she spends time with her new friend outside of his job, she starts realizing that her feelings are evolving. After being abused for over a year, Jessie is terrified she's falling in love. What's even more terrifying is that he might be, too. She isn't ready for love. Not yet. She makes up her mind that if he is falling, and if he does love her, he'll wait for her to be ready, and if she loves him, she won't let herself hurt him. Can the words that used to cage her in really be the key to her freedom? --- Featured On: @NA: Take a seat and let it be | Mature Content and 18 reading list @NA: You deserve the world | Mental Health reading list Ambys Top Picks New Adult 2023

This is a Fantasy-Romance, Action-Adventure Gay Novel where the story runs along with a man named Oliver Bay. Upon dying, he was transmigrated into a different world. He suddenly found himself married to a soon to be Demon King, Set, a surprisingly gentle and naive God of Chaos. Together they will rule the Demon realm, have an adventure, create an heir, and discover love? * * * Awakened by a phone call, Oliver slowly rose up from the bed blinking his eyes a few times. He stared at the familiar white curtain of his room as it protected him from the sun's rays of sunlight that penetrated the glass sliding door by the terrace. He releases a sigh of relief as he realized he is in his cozy room. "It was a dream." He breathes out in relief. His dream last night was so realistic he almost believed that he died, transmigrated, married a Demon God, and most of all turned into a Demon himself. Recalling his dream, Oliver closes his eyes. "hmmm, I could almost still feel my tail swayin---AHHHHH!" Screaming as he stared wide-eyed at the majestic man laying beside him. He had a frown forming on his perfect eyebrows, clearly, it showed he was displeased at the sudden outburst. Oliver opened his mouth and close it again like a fish out of the water. Both he and the man were naked, their tails were tangled whilst swaying. "Are you always this lively in the morning, my Mania?" He asked with his deep penetrating voice. What is happening??

We all have a story to tell, a closet full of skeletons that beckon us with devilish claws. They taunt and terrorize those who are helpless to overcome them, who do not have the strength to fight against it. Hell, I'm one of those people. I let the past get to me, drag me into an oblivion of loneliness and distance from other humans. I may not seem like it; in fact, I'm probably the friendliest person you'll ever meet, but try to get close and I'll only push you away. That is...until I met him. The man who was just as messed up as me inside, who I suddenly became desperate to be near even if his presence was a toxicity. Somehow, he seemed to feel the same. But I knew that it had to end at some point. If I let you in, you'd just want out. If I tell you the truth, you'd fight for a lie. If I spilt my guts, it would make a mess we can't clean up. If you follow me, you will only get lost. If you try to get closer, we'll only lose touch. But you already know too much, and you're not going anywhere.

"I never used to believe in angels. But since I fell in love with you, I've started to change my mind." Life is new; Pierce the Veil is one member short and Mike is not the same person he was, and it doesn't take much for Vic to begin to crumble. His one chance lies with the only person he's brave enough to love; his best friend Jaime. This love is either going to make him or break him, and it's down to Jaime to save Vic from the darkness he is beginning to fall towards. But time is cruel and unpredictable, and the road is beginning to break into sharp pieces, causing everything they know to turn upside down. The strength of their love and of their souls is about to be tested; and it's all about to spin out of control. TRIGGER WARNING: Some self harm/suicidal thoughts

Luna Fall, moves from England to San diego and she isn't happy about it. From the moment she sets a foot into her new school she has the feeling that she stepped into some sort of cliché high school movie. when she bumps up to the mysterious Vic, her intuition tells her that something is off about him. She soon finds out that the whole school ignores his existence in fear of the popular Ryan. But then her teacher choses Vic as her lab partner and they accidently become friends. Luna has to chose between her new friends and Vic and nobody exactly knows what will happen if she starts hanging out with Vic. Will she be able to help Vic or does she chose for herself? [Warning: triggering content like self harming] [This was the first real story I wrote about 3 years ago so please be gentle on me]

*This is Paradise sequel* I have this bad habit of getting close to people and thinking that they're always going to be by my side; but eventually they always leave. I have this bad habit of loving people a little too much, when they don't even love me back; and when they leave me my heart feels like someone threw it from the sky. I have this bad habit of caring for people, when they don't even care about me at all. Perhaps, if they saw through my eyes they'll see the scars I have deep down inside. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I wish feelings didn't exist. Why do feelings exist anyways? I always fall for everything and let it destroy me. It's my fault after all, but I still have hope that one day I will find a person that shares the same bad habits as me. ~ A.E

I cut through my skin making an "x" on my wrist. "This is why I don't trust people... " I thought. "He doesn't understand the pain I go through, no one does." I cut through my skin again making a deeper cut as blood rushed down my arm. "Everyone I meet leaves me. He's just like all the others. He would stay if he cared. It's all my fault isn't it? I drove him away with all of my nonsense, carelessness, and stupidity." Negative thoughts rushed through my head as the blade ran through my skin one last time before I blacked out. I woke up in a hospital bed. Sitting in the chair next to me was the one and only: Luke. The one person I didn't want to see here. The one who caused this mess. "Baby, I was so worried about you! As soon as I got a call, I found the earliest plane back here. Are you ok? Baby tell me you're ok!" He choked between sobs. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought he was...

Completed March 19, 2016 "When people hurt you, the first thing on pretty much everyone's mind is revenge. It's not necessarily bad, no, it's just human nature. But how far would you go? How far would you go to take vengeance on your enemies? Would it involve their family? Their love life? Their existence? No. If you're going to take revenge, make it equal pain, equal hurt. No less and definitely no more. They're now your enemies, yes, but they are still human. They deserve family. They deserve to keep their lives. And when it comes to love? Don't you know to not mess with someone's love life? Even though Jameson hurt me, Jameson hurt me bad, I vow here and now to not get involved with anyone's love life. They're still human. They still deserve the right to life, liberty, and love. I shouldn't be the one to get in the way of that. And I won't, I never will." That's the promise Cody Marie made to herself: to never get in the way of loves destructible path... But it's not up to her. It's up to fate. And how can Cody Marie keep her precious motto when fate throws her in the way of one of her most all time hated people, the fuckboy himself, Mike Fuentes?