Young
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ABOUT ME
STORY BY Young
After I Understood the Cats, I Kept the Apocalypse's Last Three Days from My Husband
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Three months into the outbreak, my husband left while I was in labor to find a doctor and never came back. I delivered our daughter without him, then spent every day since wondering whether I had asked too much, held on too tightly, or simply been the wrong person to save. When a stray cat began speaking to me in a language I could suddenly understand, I expected warnings about food and danger. Instead, she told me the dead would go quiet in three days. Then my husband returned, carrying his guilt and a plan that could take him from us again. If I wanted him to stay, could I keep the truth from him without repeating the choice that had broken us?
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After Calling My Brooding Roommate My Wife
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When I started calling my brooding college roommate "wife," I meant it as a joke about how carefully he folded my laundry and how reliably he saved me a seat in the dining hall. Rowan never laughed, but he never told me to stop, either. Then, one careless moment in front of our friends made him ask whether I'd ever meant any of it. By the time I understood why the question mattered, Rowan had already begun pulling away. I wanted to fix what I'd made between us, but I couldn't do that by pretending a joke was a promise. So what would Rowan hear if I finally called him by the name I meant?
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Time to Confess
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The morning my family's hotel company filed for bankruptcy, my father's former head of security showed up with a duffel bag and a house key. Seven years earlier, I had confessed that I loved Eli Mercer, and he had turned me down without leaving room for hope. Now the Vale name was on every local news site, my accounts were frozen, and my father's lawyers wanted me to keep quiet about the decisions that had brought us there. Eli offered me shelter, but not rescue. His rules were simple: tell the truth, earn my own way, and don't mistake a locked door for an invitation. I could follow every rule except the one that mattered. If I confessed again, would he still say no?
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Winter Snow, and the Goodbye I Could Never Undo
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The first snow of the season fell on the night I found my husband kissing the woman who had helped him convince me our marriage was worth saving. By morning, I knew the affair wasn't the only thing he had kept from me: he had also promised our family inn to a developer, using the future we had built together as if it belonged to him alone. I could forgive a kiss more easily than I could forgive the way he had made my trust part of the deal. But leaving him meant losing the place I had spent ten years making a home. When the snow melted, would I still be able to tell the difference between choosing myself and abandoning everything I loved?
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The Princess's Knight Complex
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At my best friend's wedding, she introduced me to her husband's youngest uncle as if she were handing me a solution to a problem I hadn't admitted I had. I didn't need a rich man, a rescue, or another person who mistook my habit of showing up for everyone as proof I never needed anyone myself. But when Graham Vale appeared beside the ballroom doors with rain on his shoulders and a quiet offer to help save the neighborhood arts center I had spent years building, I couldn't decide whether to trust him or keep him at a safe distance. Graham had spent his life refusing to be anyone's family obligation. I had spent mine rushing in whenever someone else was in trouble. If we both stopped playing the parts our families had assigned us, would there still be a reason to stay together?
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One Kind Choice, Sweetness Returned Year After Year
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When I found twelve-year-old Wren Calder alone in a house with no working heat, my husband told me it was temporary. His cousin had said the same thing after his divorce. Wren's mother had said her father was handling it. In the months since, my husband and I had brought groceries, winter boots, and the occasional promise that someone would be back soon. Then Wren asked me to help her decide which parent to call if the power went out again. I could no longer pretend that a bag of food was the same as a safe home. But reporting the truth could cost me the marriage I had built, while staying quiet would leave a child to carry the consequences of every adult's choice. How much can one act of kindness ask of a person before it becomes a promise?
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Heroes, the World Has Changed
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I had buried six generations of heroes before the latest ones arrived at my gate with a camera drone, a legal warrant, and a sword that was still humming from the elevator ride. They called me the Demon Queen, though I had held that title long before their kingdom had a name. Their warrant promised a clean, public execution. Their cameras promised an audience. I could have burned them where they stood, but the city beyond my walls held people who had never asked to be caught in another hero's legend. So I offered the newcomers a different way to end the war. They had one day to decide whether they wanted to be heroes in the world that actually existed, or heroes in the story their sponsors had sold them. I had no reason to trust them. I had even less reason to believe the old rules would let any of us walk away alive.
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A Saint Who Won't Love a Man Isn't Much of a Saint
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The morning the Church accused me of seducing Saint Adrian Vale, I was standing outside his locked bedroom with blood on my sleeve and a key that did not fit the door. By noon, the high altar had become a courtroom, the Archdeacon had produced letters in my handwriting, and the faithful were calling for my neck. They said the gallows would let the Radiant judge whether I had profaned the saint. Adrian could have stopped them with a single sentence. Instead, he looked at me across the chapel and said nothing. I knew what silence cost him. I also knew what it cost me. If I survived the charge, I would still have to decide whether the man I loved had chosen his calling over me—or whether someone had made sure he never got the chance to choose at all.
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The Clear-Eyed Niece Won't Be Ungrateful or Steal the Golden Child's Role
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The first night I lived with my aunt, I saw bright words hanging above her daughter's head: THE GOLDEN CHILD ARC BEGINS. I was ten, newly orphaned, and grateful for a room with a window and a place at the dinner table. I promised myself I would never compete with Mara for the love that had made her shine. Years later, when I discovered that my aunt had used my mother's education trust to give Mara the future I'd been told I couldn't afford, I had to decide what gratitude really required. If I asked for the truth, I could cost the family that raised me its home. If I stayed quiet, I would lose the last thing my mother had left me. Could I protect my cousin without paying for her life with mine?
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On New Year's Eve, Never Take Your Neighbor's Envelope, or...
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At midnight, my neighbor handed me an envelope thick with cash in front of half the block. By morning, he was calling it a bribe, and the video of me accepting it was already making its way through town. I had three weeks to keep my family's last piece of waterfront property out of his hands, and the only leverage I had was the paper trail I'd spent years helping him hide. But the envelope didn't just put my vote in question. It made me look like the one person who had already agreed to sell everyone else out. If I could prove what my neighbor was really buying, I might save our homes. If I couldn't, I'd lose the people I was trying to protect. And as the town turned against me, I had to face one question: would my sister believe me before the deal became permanent?
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