Page 29 of The Secret Of Us

Ryan stands then, and I hide my momentary shock at him actually listening to me. He leans over the desk, moving his face closer to mine, and he reeks of arrogance.

“Or what? You’re going to beat me up too?”

I try not to let my expression falter, but it must slip for a fraction of a second because he bellows out a laugh. He’s the only one who seems to be finding this situation funny.

“I knew I was right about you,” he adds. I keep my eyes fixed on him, biting the inside of my cheek.

He’s wrong. He doesn’t know me. I’m better than I was last year.

He turns to look at Izzy, all of us standing now.

“Surely by now you’ve heard what he did, right?” he asks her.

I bite down harder, the taste of metal filling my mouth. Of course she’s heard, I know she has. But for just a moment, I wish she hadn’t. She’s been the only person showing an ounce of kindness to me. And while it might be out of some strange sympathy she feels for me, at least it’s something. I don’t want her to think the worst of me.

Izzy doesn’t answer him, and I can’t figure out whether that’s better or worse than hearing what she would have said. I angle my head to look at her, and she’s already looking right back at me. The expression on her face has changed now, her earlier shock replaced with a softer look that seems an awful lot like pity.

“You’re all rather quiet today,” Mrs. Harper’s voice breaks the silence hanging over the room.

The scrape of chair legs and footsteps starts up along with a low hum of chatter as everyone moves to take their seats. The show they’ve been watching has come to an abrupt end.

“Move,” I spit out, one final word and he does just that, knocking his shoulder against mine to pass me. The smirk is still on his face as if he’s won whatever battle he thinks just happened.

Izzy sits back down and I take my seat next to her. I watch her in my peripheral. Her eyes are closed, and her bottom lip is pulled between her teeth. I glance down at the desk we share, and her hands are folded tightly together. She pulls them into her lap, and I follow the movement. It’s only then that I realise they’re shaking.

I look back up at her face again, wanting to see if she’s okay. Her eyes are open now as she stares straight ahead at the front of the room. I have no idea what Mrs. Harper is talking about because Izzy has captured my full attention.

Before I can think about it too much, I reach my hand over to rest on hers under the desk. Izzy turns to look at me, green eyes wide as her lips part slightly. Her back is rigid straight, but the moment my hand touches hers, once she sees it’s me, she relaxes. Her shoulders drop and she lets out a small breath, her eyelids fluttering shut and open for a moment.

I open my mouth to…apologise? Explain? I don’t know what, but the tiny shake of her head stops me. Instead, she flips her hand around mine, her fingers squeezing mine once gently before she lets go.

Then Izzy smiles at me in a way that’s different from all the others. It sends a jolt through my chest. I’ve seen her smile a lot over the past few weeks, but it’s never been like this. It’s never had my heart racing, and my stomach doing flips, and my mouth dry. It’s never had me wanting to be the only one who sees it.

I take my hand back, whatever moment we just had ending before I even realised it was happening. I clasp my hands together, turn my attention to Mrs. Harper instead, and try to find something else to focus on.

I want her hand back in mine.

The strange thought pops into my head, and I get rid of it as fast as it comes. I need to stop whatever crush I seem to be developing on her as soon as possible.

11

IZZY

Even though Itold Isaac and Violet I wasn’t going to come home on weekends, I’m standing in front of my building waiting for one of them to show up. After what happened with Ryan this morning, I feel like I need to put some physical space between us and this is the easiest way.

When I texted them in our group chat this morning to ask if I could come home, of course they said yes. Violet said she or Isaac would pick me up, depending on who got out of work first.

After classes ended, I got a quick workout in, running on the treadmill until my legs couldn’t take me any further. Concentrating all my focus on putting one foot in front of the other helped me stop thinking about the morning’s incident.

I couldn’t believe how he was speaking to me, as if I were the one at fault. I hated how riled up I got, too. That I let his words and actions affect me so much that I pretty much screamed at him in front of everyone. I didn’t want to dignify him with such an emotional response, but I couldn’t help it. He’s been at it for weeks now, and I’m so tired of him not respecting my boundaries just because he thinks I owe him something.

But then Noah stepped in. He saved me like I’d done for him when Ryan was bothering him as well. I don’t want to read too much into it—a rescue for a rescue, so now we’re even. Or are we? He saved me yesterday too, tucking me away into that alcove so no one could see how upset I was. And the way he spoke to Ryan. His voice was stern, a stark difference from the soft way he speaks to me.

You’ve heard what he did, right?

Ryan’s words come to mind, and I start pacing in small circles. I’ve heard all sorts of things about Noah since he joined, but none of them match what I know of him. He’s never given me the impression that he’d be mean to anyone, let alone hurt them.

But when Ryan said that, I caught the way Noah’s expression faltered, how his usually stoic mask slipped again. I don’t want to believe anything that has been said about him, but that slip has me worrying there might be some truth to the rumours after all.

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