Our Shared Solitude

*

There are wounds that never show their face to the world, wounds that live beneath the skin, unseen but spreading. They are carved not by fists alone but by neglect, by absence, by the suffocating quiet of a childhood where comfort never arrived. You learn, in such a place, to ration your own hunger, to shrink your voice into silence, to accept emptiness as though it were nourishment. And then, even when fleeting becomes possible, you carry the pain with you. You reach for the wrong coping mechanisms, the wrong faces, the wrong nights, again and again. You make choices with eyes wide open, knowing the weight of their consequence, knowing they will break you further, yet you make them still. There is a twisted familiarity in self-destruction, a bitter reassurance in sabotage. It is the mind replaying the only script it was given: if love once abandoned you, then abandon it first; if hope once betrayed you, betray it before it dares to bloom.

So begins the cycle, tireless and unmerciful. A life lived in the ruins of what others refused to give, where every step forward feels like trespass and every gentle hand feels suspect. This is how the past survives by making you its accomplice, even when you know better, even when you want to rise.

And it was with such a shadow upon her mind that Romina presses a pin into the lock of Professor Dove's office door, the metal tumblers faintly mere seconds before the lock gives way with a brittle click, the blonde girl smirks, the corner of her mouth curving with a satisfaction she could never admit aloud, twisting the pick with a flourish before easing the handle down. The door creeps open and in that instant her heartbeat hammers against her ribs with a violent tempo that seems to shake her whole frame. Yet beneath the frantic rhythm, shame clings like a parasite, clawing through her chest, whispering with every thud that this was wrong, that she should not be here, should not be dragging another into her carelessness. But inside her, everything washed out muffled, chasing sensation because she could no longer feel whole without transgression.

The other girl lingers hesitantly at her side, eyes darting down the darkened hallway into the office before her. "We will be in so much trouble if we get caught."

A low chuckle escapes the blondes throat, catching the girl's hand with a grip too certain for the hesitation that throbs beneath her skin. Tugging her across the threshold, the old wooden door groaning behind them. "Close it." Romina hums, her tone dripping with feigned carelessness, though every nerve inside her screams otherwise. The girl obeys, pressing the door shut until the latch caught, sealing them inside the cavernous hush of Professor Dove's office.

The office, long and narrow its ceiling pressed high, with walls crowded by bookshelves that bent beneath the burden of too many volumes. Their spines cracked, faded, some patched with brittle tape jutted unevenly, the titles in Latin and Greek whispering of an erudition few could decipher. Dust clinging to the ledges, a fine powder dulling the gold embossing, as though time itself has tried to erase the woman's obsessions but failed.

At the far end stood a desk of dark mahogany, its surface heavy with loose papers, half-written letters, and annotated manuscripts. Quills and pens were scattered in disarray, their nibs blackened, their shafts stained. A brass lamp with a mahogany glass shade hunched upon the desk. Heavy curtains, hanging beside windows whose panes were new, letting in little light. A tall clock in the corner ticks with grave authority, its pendulum sweeping in a slow rhythm.

Romina turns, eyes glinting with mischief, a crooked smile twisting her lips as she murmurs, "boohoo I'm sure professor vulture is doing a lecture right now. Which means...her office is currently ours to use as we please."

Before the girl could answer, Romina closes the space between them in a rush, seizing her mouth with a kiss that was neither gentle nor measured. Frantic, raw, born of hunger she refuses to name. Their teeth clash faintly, breath mingling uneven, her hands drawing the girl in tighter as though binding her against an emptiness that threatens to swallow her whole. The world outside shrinks to silence, leaving only the scrape of their bodies against the dusty desk behind them and the echo of a kiss that taste of recklessness, shame, and the craving for anything that might cut through the numbness.