Page 51 of The Secret Of Us

“I just want you to be careful, Adeul,” he says, a softer tone to his voice this time. “This is an important year for your education. And I don’t want you to get hurt either.”

“I won’t,” I tell him, but the lie tastes ugly in my mouth. I already know I will. I already know that once this arrangement ends, it’ll have irrevocably changed my life in a way that I won’t be able to explain to anyone.

“Is it the girl you went after that day?” Eomma asks, remembering that evening a few weeks ago.

As soon as Izzy bumped into me, I could tell something was wrong. And even though it felt like I had my parents back as one again for the tiniest of moments, I had to leave them to go to her and make sure she was okay.

“Yeah, that’s her.” The smile that blooms on my face comes too naturally from speaking about her. “Her name is Izzy.”

“She was very pretty,” Eomma says, looking even happier about this situation.

Mina grabs the phone away from me again just in time so that she doesn’t see the red creeping onto my cheeks.

“Eomma, Appa, she’s so pretty. And she plays hockey, Oppa goes to watch her practices. She’s so cool, I don’t know why she likes him.”

She doesn’t, I want to correct her.

But instead, I let myself enjoy this for a second. I play into whatever dream is happening right now, where I can pretend my parents are together in the same room with us, that nothing happened over summer, that everything is just like it used to be.

“Speaking of hockey, it’s about to start so we can discuss this more later.” I start shooing Mina out of my room so we can leave.

“Are you coming home for half term?” Appa asks, and I don’t have a definite answer for him.

“I’m not sure,” I say, reality hitting me again that I’ll have to stay with both of them separately. “I’m going to see how much work I have to do and then I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” he says, but I know it’s not what he wanted to hear.

We tell our parents we love them, and Mina hangs up the call. I pinch her arm, but she’s much smaller and way more feisty than I am and manages to kick my shin and run away from me before I can even register the pain.

I leave my room, Mina not even in the hallway anymore, and start making my way to the brightest part of my day.

19

IZZY

The pain shootingfrom my ankle is unbearable.

It was so quick. One second, I’m running, and the next, I’m on the ground, my face skidding against the Astro turf and my ankle twisting in a way I didn’t even know it could.

I try to push myself up on my knees, but the pressure on them has me instantly dropping again. They must have gotten pretty badly scraped up in the fall. My face burns on one side as I roll onto my back. I spit out my mouth guard, closing my eyes as I grind my teeth together to stop from crying out in pain.

There’s a clamour of noise around me, and I can hear Miss. Khan telling the girls to move out of the way.

“Izzy, are you okay?” Chloe says, her hand on my shoulder.

I nod once, my teeth still clenched, and that’s the biggest giveaway I’m lying.

“Miss, what do we do?” Amelia says, panic in her voice.

I flail my arm around to try and make contact with her and land on her knee. I give it a comforting squeeze so she knows I’m alright.

“Hold on, I’m going to call the nurse,” Miss. Khan tells us, but then I hear him.

“I’ve got her.”

Noah’s voice is steady, calm against everyone else’s panic, and it seems to have that effect on me. I relax my jaw, finally opening my eyes, and he’s right above me. Hazel eyes look down at me, roving over my face and taking in what must be a terrible sight. My cheek still burns and I can only imagine how scratched up it must be.

“That was quite a fall,” he jokes, and a quiet laugh escapes me, making my whole body move even though it hurts. His eyes are focused on mine, and there’s a light shine to them that makes them shimmer like stars. It makes me cry.

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