Page 57 of The Secret Of Us

We watch each other in silence. I track my eyes across her face, trying to memorise everything about how she looks in this moment so I can replay it in my mind.

I catalogue the way her blonde hair has almost completely come out of its ponytail, long strands hanging loose around her shoulders.

I figure out exactly what shade of green her eyes are, the soft colour of a meadow in spring.

I finally realise her lips are the colour of the light pink flowers that grow in Halabeoji’s garden.

In the future, when I’m all alone, I’ll pull this memory out. I’ll recount the day I helped someone who means a lot to me, how I was there for her when she needed it, how she managed to comfort me through it too, even when she was the one in pain.

But I’ll keep the memory of kissing her hand, her cheek, her jaw, locked tight. I already know that one will hurt every time I think about it.

Izzy reaches out, her fingers brushing against the back of my hand before she pulls it into hers. My shoulders drop as I swallow the lump in my throat, all the fight I have for denying my feelings for her leaving me with that one touch.

I close my eyes, my legs giving out as I sink to the floor in front of her. My hand is still in hers as I kneel in front of her, and she rests it above her bandaged knee.

“Noah.”

I gather all my strength to look at her, my heart in my throat. She smiles down at me, but it’s not like her other ones. There’s defeat in this one, like she’s given up on something.

“Thank you,” she tells me again, but I can’t reply this time. I can’t try to make it into a joke, brush it off, or pretend she doesn’t mean it. Instead, I accept it, lock it away in that same memory box for later.

Her thumb strokes across the back of my hand, and each pass feels like she’s wiping away a layer of the walls I’ve worked so hard to keep up. But I can’t do it anymore with her, she’s knocking them all down and I want her to.

“The reason I came to Coates,” I start, my gaze dropping to our joined hands. “You know my sister, Mina. At our old school, some other kids weren’t very nice to her. I tried to help her as much as I could, but I couldn’t protect her all the time. We’re in different years, had different schedules. I couldn’t keep an eye on her as much as I needed to.”

I let out a deep breath, flashbacks of that day playing out like a movie in my head. I force my eyes closed, shaking my head as if I can get rid of it and change what happened, but it’s already done. Gentle fingers rest under my chin, nudging it upward, and when I open my eyes, Izzy’s face is close to mine.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she whispers, her eyes kind.

“No, I do. I just…” I take a shaky breath, gathering myself before I continue. “I want to tell you, I really do. But I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”

“I could never think that about you,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

She might mean it now, but I’m not sure if she’ll be able to once I reveal the truth. I carry on anyway, mentally steeling myself for her disappointment. I make sure the image I have of her in my head is exactly what I’m seeing right now. I memorise the softness in her green eyes, preparing for the moment it’ll turn to disappointment.

“There was one day it was really bad. I saw a ton of kids crowded around in the hallway, and my gut told me that Mina was involved. So I ran over. I pushed my way through all of them and she was…” My breath catches in my throat, the words unwilling to escape, but I force them out. Izzy squeezes my hand, giving me the strength to carry on.

“She was on the floor. There was a group of girls around her, and they had their phones out recording. She was crying, her hair was a mess, and I didn’t know what had happened. All I saw was red. I went for their phones, I wanted them to stop recording my baby sister while they were hurting her. One of the girls had a brother in my year. I didn’t notice he was there until I felt his fist connect with my jaw.”

Izzy winces, but there’s no judgement in her eyes, no disappointment. She moves her hand from my chin to my jaw, runs her thumb across it, and places a featherlight kiss there as if she can take that hurt away.

“He was on me, yelling that I tried to touch his sister, that he’d kill me. I started fighting back. I kicked him off me, and just…”

I don’t know how to tell her that it felt like I was possessed, that I just kept hitting him and hitting him until a teacher came over and pulled me off, and even then, I was still trying to go for him.

My head drops again, eyes closed as I try to block out the memory, try to pretend it didn’t happen. Izzy tilts my face to look at hers again, and when I open my eyes, she simply nods. I know that I don’t need to explain that part anymore.

“I got expelled after that. It was toward the end of the year, so I was only allowed back to do exams. My parents went through so many schools until they found Coates. They wanted Mina to have a fresh start.”

“You got one, too,” she tells me, her voice gentle as she tries to soothe me.

“Did I?” I ask her. “I don’t know how people started figuring out what happened and why I came here. Most of the things they say about me are fake, but a few people were right.”

“No one has any right to talk about you like that,” she says. I want to believe her, but some days it’s so difficult not to let their words get to me. “You stood up for your sister. That’s brave. And I’m glad you did.”

I can’t give her any kind of response, all my energy spent from exposing myself so completely to her. Izzy doesn’t ask for more of an explanation though.

The room has gotten darker as we’ve spoken, the sun setting earlier as winter draws in. I didn’t switch on a light when we came in, so the only light coming into the room is from the glow of the moon outside.

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