Novels by Liora

NoahThe problem with Nikolai was that once he decided something was good for you, he became almost impossible to argue with. You could try, of course, but he simply wouldn’t listen, which somehow made it even worse. Three days after he dragged me to my mother’s house, he was still checking on me like I had just escaped from a psychiatric facility.I received a text from him halfway through practice. Have you done anything stupid today? I stared at the message for a moment before typing back a short “No”. A few seconds later he replied, “ I don’t believe you.”I put my phone away before I said something rude. The annoying part was that he wasn’t completely wrong. Things hadn’t gotten better since Theo left. They had simply grown quieter. I wasn’t checking streams every hour anymore or driving past places that reminded me of him as often, but I still thought about him constantly, which felt like a different version of the same problem.Practice ended around noon. I grabbed lunch with a

TheoThe first thing I learned about Benito was that he genuinely couldn’t sit still. The second thing I learned was that if Benito got bored, everybody around him suffered. Unfortunately, I learned both lessons on the same night.Training had ended almost two hours earlier. Most of the team had already showered, eaten, and disappeared to whatever hobbies hockey players pretended to have outside of hockey. I was perfectly happy staying in my room. My body hurt, my brain hurt, and I wanted nothing more than food and silence. Instead, Benito appeared in my doorway like he owned the place.“Get up.”I looked up from my laptop. “No.”“Come on.”“No.”“The team is going out.”“I don’t care.”Benito walked further into the room. “I wasn’t asking.”“That’s concerning.”He pointed at me. “You’ve spent the last three nights sitting in here.”“I like it here.”“You are twenty years old.”“Your point?”“My point is that you’re acting like a divorced father.”I stared at him. Benito stared right

MelodyThe strange thing about getting what you wanted was that sometimes it only made you want more. I didn’t realize that right away. At first I was simply happy that Reina hadn’t completely shut me out. A few weeks ago I would have accepted almost anything from her, a conversation, a text, or even five minutes of her time. Now I was getting dinners, coffee dates, late-night talks, and random messages throughout the day. Somehow my brain had already decided it wasn’t enough, which was probably a clear sign that something was seriously wrong with me.I was thinking about that while standing in line for coffee before class. My phone buzzed, and the second I saw Reina’s name my mood lifted immediately. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Reina: Don’t forget your presentation today.I stared at the message and smiled. The guy behind me in line gave me a weird look, but I ignored him.Me: I wasn’t going to.Three dots appeared almost right away.Reina: You definitely were.I laughed because

CHAPTER — Things We Can't Take BackNoahI spent the rest of the evening trying very hard not to punch Nikolai. It wasn’t really his fault, and that was the most annoying part. If he had insulted me or mocked me, I could have fought back. If he had done anything except tell the truth in that calm, reasonable way, I would have had somewhere to put all the anger bouncing around inside my chest. Instead he had called me crazy and somehow made it sound like simple facts. That was significantly worse.I was halfway through a workout when he found me again. The gym was mostly empty, with a couple of students on the treadmills near the windows and someone lifting free weights on the other side of the room. I was taking my frustration out on a punching bag, or at least trying to. The bag swung violently every time my fist connected. Hit. Swing. Hit again. Unfortunately it wasn’t helping much because every thought eventually circled back to the same person.Theo. Theo laughing with his new tea

NikolaiThere were very few things in life that genuinely surprised me anymore. Growing up around hockey players, rich people, politicians, businessmen, and professional liars had killed that part of me early. Most people were predictable once you gave them enough time. Patterns always appeared. Fear looked like fear. Jealousy looked like jealousy. Love looked like love. And obsession looked exactly like obsession. The problem was that people spent so much time pretending those things were something else entirely.I was thinking about that while driving home from training. The roads were mostly empty, the sun had already disappeared, and the city lights reflected across the windshield in long streaks of color. Normally those quiet drives helped clear my head, but tonight it wasn’t working. All I could think about was Noah and the look on his face the night before. I had only gone upstairs to grab a charger. That was it. A completely normal reason. Instead I found him sitting alone in

NoahThe problem with trying not to think about someone was that your brain immediately turned it into a full-time job. I figured that out somewhere around the beginning of the third week. At first I told myself I was handling things fine, not great, but functional. I still went to practice, attended classes, and showed up to team meetings while pretending I wasn’t losing my mind every time someone mentioned Theo’s name. From the outside I probably looked normal, but inside it was a completely different story.The worst part was that Theo wasn’t even doing anything to make it harder. He wasn’t calling, he wasn’t texting, and he wasn’t starting any arguments. The guy was hundreds of miles away, fully focused on hockey. Meanwhile I was somehow making his absence everyone else’s problem too. I was sitting in the student center one afternoon when Jeremy dropped into the chair across from me. He took one look at my laptop screen and started laughing.“What?” I frowned.“You know that’s cre