A Short Story in YA Covers

A little story for you guys, told with the help of some very lovely young adult book covers.*

 Once upon a time, there was a girl stuck in a glass bubble.

 Like most girls who live in bubbles, Anna was chronically depressed.

But thanks to a team of stylists and makeup artists, Anna spent her mostly depressed days in extravagant getups most unbubbled teenagers couldn’t even find at their local Hollister.

 

One day, during a freak hailstorm, Anna’s bubble shattered.

But all was not perfect, and Anna realized too late that without her gravity bubble, she would easily float away.

And so she sunk into another depression.

Out of options, Anna traded her delicate ballet flats for weighted boots that would keep her feet planted firmly on the ground.

She stepped outside to find a harsh world.

Whipping winds tossed her hair over her face. She batted it back with a flick of the wrist.

But the wind persisted.

“This is war,” she said to the night wind.

Then she put her hair into a ponytale.

Anna set out on bike—no easy feat considering her weighted boots—to find another human on this desolate planet.

Soon, she came to a turquoise lake. When she leaned over the water, she imagined herself back in the bubble, still rocking those impractical yet fabulous dresses. And still wearing her hair down instead of in a ponytail like a bad “before” shot in a cheesy teen movie.

She slipped on the slick earth. In an instant, she was under water. It all happened so fast, and Anna’s heart was pounding so hard and her lungs were squeezed so tight that she didn’t know which way was up.

Strong arms circled her. Were they holding her down or pulling her out?

And then she was being carried from the lake. She curled into a ball, her lungs still fighting for air.

A boy lowered her to the ground, pinched her nose, and leaned in close, closer, closer—

“I don’t need mouth to mouth, you idiot!” Anna yelled, which made her cough, which made lake water pour out of her mouth. “You’re supposed to check for a pulse first.” But then she saw the look in the boy’s face—a mix between hurt, annoyance, and murderous rage—and her eyes found the ground. “Thanks,” she whispered.

With that, she was in his arms. Her hair had come undone in the water and the wind pushed it behind her face. Somehow, with this stunning boy in front of her, little annoyances like that—or the fact that her boots clashed with her haute couture gown—didn’t seem to matter.

And because she really didn’t care about the boots at all, she bent down and removed them. The boy, whose gorgeous looks seemed to grown on unused brain cells, removed his, too.

Soon they were in the air, the wind swirling around them. “Crap. Gravity,” the boy said, holding on to her tightly.

The wind picked up, tossing them in separate directions. Her hand grabbed for his, but he was being pulled further and further away.

           

At the last minute, wings unfurled from his back. “What the—” Anna stopped when he rammed into her, driving her back toward the earth.

They ended up in a tree, in possibly the most uncomfortable and awkward position to ever have graced a YA book cover.

“Are you my guardian angel?” she asked. The boy (whose name she learned was Gus—it seemed only proper to exchange names considering she was sitting on a tree between his legs, resting on his stomach) laughed. “No, not an angel. I’m a mutant. I used to be human and now I’ve been … altered.”

Well, she thought, he might not be human, but he was hot. So they got down from the tree (safety first), put on their heavy boots, and made out like crazy.

But after a while she kind of wasn’t into it.

“I could kiss you forever,” Gus said. Anna crossed her fingers behind her back. “Me too.”

When his tongue was done mauling hers, Gus and his mutant wings flew away to save other girls in need. Anna sat on the cold ground and went back to being depressed.

It wasn’t until she felt something icy against her cheek that she noticed the butterfly incased in ice. “Just like I used to be,” she said, thinking of her glass bubble as she held the cube. “You’re better off staying in there, little guy.”

As she spoke to the butterfly, the ice began to melt. But Anna was too sad to notice so she talked and talked to the frozen butterfly until it wasn’t in ice anymore.

Before she could tell it she was sorry, a gust of wind rushed across the plain, and the little butterfly was swept up, up into the sky.

*To read more about any of these books, click the cover.