Page 111 of The Secret Of Us

“Come with me.” I unfold my legs and stand up, pulling him with me.

I walk the short distance to my bedroom, Noah trailing behind me with my hand clasped firmly in his. I’m very proud of past Izzy for tidying up yesterday, or Noah would have had to stay on the sofa. Instead, I tell him to sit on my bed as I let go of his hand and move to my desk. Right next to my star lamp is the box he gave me for my birthday. I lift it up and carry it over to him.

“You kept it?” he asks, taking it from me as I sit next to him.

“Of course I did. It’s my favourite thing in the world.”

Noah beams at me, and I’ve missed seeing it so much. None of the pictures I have of him showed his true smile. That was reserved solely for my memories alone, but they didn’t do it any justice.

“Open it,” I instruct him, and he listens.

Noah slowly lifts the lid, the stars dangling from the thin pieces of string. I’ve been careful with it this whole time. I didn’t want to risk breaking a single part of it. But it also felt like the only place I could keep the postcards.

I lean over to reach inside and take the small stack out. I hold them out to Noah, and he replaces the lid before putting the box down on the other side of him. He takes the postcards from me, but doesn’t start reading them.

“I went travelling after school ended. I knew I couldn’t talk to you, so I wrote instead.”

Noah makes his way through them, taking his time to read each one. He sees the journey I went on, the hopeful optimism I had at the start of the adventure slowly turning into the realisation that I couldn’t outrun my problems. I had fun travelling, but it didn’t make me feel fulfilled like I thought it would. He looks at me when he reaches the tail end of the postcards from when I returned home.

“You’re so brave,” he tells me, reverence clear in his voice.

I duck my head, turning away so he can’t see the blush rising on my cheeks. Noah doesn’t let me hide for too long though. He catches my chin between his fingers and nudges my face upward so I can see him.

“I’m so proud of you,” Noah says, a shimmer in his eyes.

“I’m proud of you, too. You’re so strong for getting the help you needed, so brave.”

“I had to do it,” he says. “Some days, I regretted coming back to see you that day. I thought I made it worse by giving you false hope before I left again. But it was the push I needed. I had to make that promise to you, and myself, to come back better than I’d left. And I did.”

“You did,” I agree.

“I’m ready to be all in with you, Izzy. If you’ll have me.”

I don’t say anything before I throw myself at him, my arms wrapping around his neck so I can pull him closer to me. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, only pulling back when he drops the postcards onto the bed.

“Does that mean yes?” he asks, his hands coming up to cradle my face.

I kiss Noah and it feels like a missing part has come back to me, like all my empty spaces have been filled, like the gold he poured into my broken cracks has started shining again.

“None of it was fake for me,” Noah says, his forehead pressed against mine.

“It wasn’t fake for me either,” I tell him, revealing the final secret I’ve kept from him. There’s nothing else I have to hide from him now. “I liked you right from the start.”

Noah kisses me and it feels like coming home after being lost for so long.

“I love you, Izzy,” he confesses. “I told you before I left, but I should have said it earlier.”

My entire body lights up when I hear him say the words I’ve waited so long for. I’m so relieved that I was never alone in this, that he was right there with me the whole time. My only regret is how much time we wasted pretending. But there’s no more of that now.

“Saranghae,” I tell him.

I feel the soft breathy laugh he lets out, his smile against my mouth before he kisses me again. Noah pulls away slightly so he can see me, and the smile on his face is so beautiful.

“Where did you learn that?” he asks, his thumbs stroking across my cheeks.

“I was awake when you left,” I admit. “I heard what you said, but I didn’t know what it meant. I tried to ask Luke, but he wouldn’t tell me, so I took matters into my own hands.”

“So what? You learnt Korean?” he asks, jokingly at first. But his face shifts to awe when realisation dawns on him. “Did you?”

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