Romane von Shaiyhah

My fingers hover over the knob and I feel his heat radiating through the wood, like the door itself is alive and waiting. I turn it slowly, slip inside, and ease it shut behind me without a sound.Vincent was standing in the middle of the small room, sleeves rolled to his elbows, top two buttons of his shirt undone. The overhead light is off, only the vanity bulbs glow, throwing shadows under his jaw and along the sharp edge of his collarbone. He looks like he’s been waiting an eternity and five seconds at once, with the same calm, ravenous hunger in his eyes.“You came,” he says, voice low and rough.“I said I would.”He takes one step forward and his mouth crashes into mine before I can speak, before guilt can catch up. The kiss is hard and desperate, tasting faintly of the scotch he must have finished downstairs after everyone went to bed. My hands slide up his chest, fingers twisting into his shirt, pulling him closer even as my brain screams to stop.He backs me against the sink,

Three years.That’s how long I let Vincent ruin me, one stolen moment at a time.It didn’t stay confined to our family home for long. Once we crossed that line, the hunger grew teeth. We became experts at lies, small ones at first, then bigger, more elaborate. He’d tell Laura he had a late client meeting. I’d say I was studying at the library or crashing at a friend’s. We’d meet in places that felt safe because they were anonymous, like cheap motels on the edge of town, his car in deserted parking lots, once even the back room of a bar during a weekday afternoon when no one was looking.Every encounter left me higher and lower than the last.The first year was raw need... we couldn’t get enough. He’d show up at my off-campus apartment with takeout as an excuse, and we’d devour each other instead of the food. He’d push me onto the kitchen counter, scatter my notebooks, hike my skirt up and take me hard and fast while I bit his shoulder to stay quiet. My roommate was usually in class, b

I didn’t sleep that night.Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his mouth on me again, the slow drag of his tongue, the way his fingers had curled inside me, the low growl of satisfaction when I came apart. My body still hummed with it, traitorous and alive in a way it had never been before.By morning, I was a wreck so I stayed in my room as long as I could, pretending to unpack, scrolling mindlessly through my phone... just anything to avoid going downstairs. But the loud rumble in my stomach forced me out.The kitchen smelled like coffee and bacon. Laura was at the island in her old college sweatshirt, hair piled on top of her head, laptop open. Vincent sat beside her, one arm draped casually over the back of her chair, scrolling through something on his tablet.They looked perfect together... Happy. My stomach twisted.“Morning, sleepyhead,” Laura said without looking up. “There’s coffee.”Vincent’s eyes lifted to mine. Just a calm glance like last night had been a dream.I poured

I was nineteen when Vincent first touched me, and I’ve never forgiven myself for letting him.I’d just finished my first semester of college with nineteen credits, two all-nighters a week, and a newfound ability to drink black coffee without flinching. The drive home had been long, rain-slicked highways and holiday traffic crawling north. By the time I pulled into the driveway, every muscle ached, and all I wanted was silence, a shower, and my own bed.But the house felt different the moment I stepped inside. It was a bit too quiet.My parents were away at a weekend conference in the city, some banking retreat Dad couldn’t skip. Laura had texted earlier, “crashing early. Thesis kicked my ass. Vincent’s coming over to help me finish edits. Don’t wait up, baby sis.”I wasn’t even planning to.I dropped my duffel in the foyer, kicked off my wet boots, and headed upstairs. The hallway was dark except for the faint glow under Laura’s door, probably her desk lamp. She’d always been the resp

Coach Rimer did not believe in speeches.This was something you figured out fast if you played for him. Other coaches gave you the fire-and-ice thing before a season… big vision stuff, talk about legacy, maybe a quote from someone famous that they'd googled the night before. Coach Rimer walked into the locker room on the first day of real practice, put his clipboard on the bench, looked at us like we were a grocery list he was mildly disappointed in, and said: 'Skates on. Ice in five.'That was it every year and we loved him for it.So when he kept me after practice on Tuesday and said 'Ellis, a minute,' I ran through a quick mental inventory of everything I might have done wrong. Shot selection, yes. My backcheck on the third line rush had been lazy. I'd been late to the defensive zone twice and Coach had definitely seen it because Coach saw everything, which was a gift and also a curse depending on which side of it you were on.He waited until the rest of the team had filtered out.

I have a theory about best friends.Not all best friends, I'm not qualified to speak for everyone, and Danny would probably have a lot to say if I tried. I mean specifically the kind of best friend you've had since you were small enough that you don't fully remember meeting them. The kind where, if someone asked you to describe your earliest memory, they'd be in it somehow, hovering at the edge of the frame.My theory is this, those friendships don't start. They accumulate.Nora and I didn't become best friends on a specific day. It wasn't like a switch flipping. It was more like you know how ice forms on a lake? Not all at once. Slow, from the edges in, one layer at a time, until one day you test it and it holds.I've been thinking about this a lot since last night. Since the drive home and the texts and the thing I've decided not to examine.Mom made pancakes this morning, which she only does on Saturdays and occasionally when she can tell something is going on with me and she's try

There's a thing that happens when you step onto freshly resurfaced ice for the first time of the season.It's not the cold, though the cold hits you like a wall the second you push through that rubber curtain, sharp enough to make your eyes water and your lungs do a little surprised hiccup. It's not the smell, either, that specific mix of freezer burn and old rubber and something metallic that probably has a technical name I've never bothered to learn.It's the sound, more like the absence of it.For about three seconds, before the blades bite in and the whole rink wakes up, it's completely silent. Like the ice is holding its breath. Like it's been waiting all summer for someone to come back and make it mean something again.I've been coming to Millbrook Ice Complex since I was seven years old, and those three seconds still get me every time."Jordan." Nora's voice cut through my moment, warm and a little impatient, the way it always was when she caught me being weird about hockey st