Page 34 of The Secret Of Us

“Is everything okay?” I ask her, shuffling forward slightly so I’m closer to her. She still hasn’t said a word, and I’m worried about why this conversation has to happen away from everyone else.

“People have been talking,” she finally says, keeping her gaze focused downwards.

Izzy lets go of my arm, and I miss the weight of it immediately. I resist the urge to press my hand against where hers just was. My eyes lower to her hand and I see her fiddling with the bottom of her skirt, still avoiding looking at me.

“They’ve been doing that from the start,” I say, confusion setting in because this isn’t anything new.

“No, I mean...” she stammers for a second, finally lifting her head and I mirror her, but she looks up at the ceiling instead.

She locks her fingers together, tugging her lips between her teeth as she searches for whatever she has to say. I end up focusing too much on that and forgetting why we’re even here in the first place. Now it’s my turn not to look at her.

“I mean, there’s rumours about us,” she continues.

“Us?”I try not to think too much about how nice the word sounds coming from her.

“I don’t know, I guess everyone saw what happened on Friday morning. And them someone saw us after school when I was waiting to go home.” She finally faces me properly, and something in her green eyes has my heart pounding. “People think we’re together.”

“Together like…?” Her words aren’t making sense to me. Or maybe I’m struggling to understand what she’s saying because I’m too focused on how pretty she is.

“Like going out together,” she blurts out, spinning away from me and letting out a frustrated sound.

“Oh,” is all I can say.

Even though I know we don’t have that relationship, my throat goes dry at just the thought.

“I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.” She turns back to me, a loose strand of hair falling in front of her left eye. She tucks it behind her ear and I’m glad she did it before I made a fool of myself. “I found out this morning that Ryan has been making it worse because he told his friends what happened at the gym that day.”

The day she told him that she liked me.

“Don’t worry,” I reassure her. She’s clearly stressed about this; her tone and the way she won’t look at me make that obvious. “Everyone has their own stories about me anyway, so this is just another one to add to it. Are you okay, though?”

My concern for her outweighs anything I can feel for myself in this situation. It’s been obvious since day one that no one really likes me, but Izzy's popular as far as I can tell. Everyone seems to like her, so this rumour is more damaging to her than me. It’s not good for her to be associated with me and all the bad rumours attached to me since the first week.

And that’s exactly why I need to get rid of whatever feelings I seem to be developing for her. Why I can’t focus too much on the fact that I actually very much like the idea of us being together.

“I’m fine,” she says. The quick smile she gives me, so unlike any I’ve seen from her before, tells me she’s lying.

The warning bell rings, letting us know there’s only five minutes left until homeroom starts.

“Can we talk more at lunch?” Izzy asks, and I nod. “There’s a classroom in the science block that no one uses.”

She tells me how to get to it, and I commit the directions to memory. Izzy steps to the side of me to walk past, but she stops right next to me. I turn my head to look down at her, and her eyes catch on mine, some unreadable expression on them.

My head tilts unconsciously, my curiosity growing. I open my mouth to say something, but she stops me.

“Later,” she says quietly before she walks away from me, leaving my heart and brain both running faster than I can keep up with.

13

IZZY

When Violet toldme about this classroom, it was so I could have somewhere to escape to during the day if I ever needed it. This feels like a pretty good reason to use it.

I pace the floor, my footsteps disturbing the dust settled over summer break. Noah didn’t seem shocked when I told him what’s being said about the two of us, but I think he’s just gotten used to people talking about him. It makes me hate the situation even more.

I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for him to constantly have people making up lies about him. I’ve made it worse by inadvertently involving him in my drama with Ryan. I need to figure out how to put this rumour—and hopefully every other one about him—to rest. It’s our last year of school, and it would be nice to finish it without people talking behind our backs.

“Izzy?”

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