Page 110 of The Secret Of Us

“Again?” Izzy asks, directing her question at Violet. “You’ve met before?”

“Briefly,” Violet says, giving me a knowing smile. “We were just on our way out. Right, Isaac?”

She moves closer to him, wrapping an arm around his waist as she tucks herself into his side. His hand comes up around her shoulders, and the movements feel so instinctive for both of them. Neither of them even has to think about what they’re doing, they just fit each other easily.

“We were,” he confirms. “My wife wants to go and see a movie.”

“I’m not your wife yet.”

“Technicalities.” He shrugs.

She swats at his chest, but the smile on both of their faces is contagious. It’s hard to stop myself from imagining being like that with Izzy.

“Izzy, I’ll text you when we’re on the way back,” Violet says.

The two of them make way for us to enter their home before they step past us to leave, waving goodbye as they walk down the corridor.

“What just happened?” Izzy asks as she closes the door and guides me further into the apartment to sit on the sofa. I do a double-take when I catch sight of something familiar. My hoodie still hangs from a peg on her wall.

She brings both of her legs up, folding her knees to her chest and leaning her side against the back of the sofa so she’s facing me.

“I saw you at the airport,” I confess. “I was with my family going back to Korea, and then I heard your laugh. I thought I was dreaming for a second, but then I saw you. You were barely fifty feet away from me.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowed.

“I still wasn’t okay. I told you I wanted to come back as the best version of myself, and I wasn’t there yet.”

Izzy’s hand tightens around mine as she shuffles closer to me. I turn in my seat, tucking one leg under the other to lessen the gap between us.

“Violet came over to speak to me. She gave me her number and said I could text her whenever I wanted to. I kept hold of it until I was ready to come back to you.”

“And now you’re here,” Izzy says, her free hand coming up to cradle my jaw.

“Now I’m here.”

I turn my head to the side slightly, pressing my lips against her palm.

“God, I missed you so much,” she says.

Her thumb strokes across my cheek and I sink into the feeling of it, savouring the comfort of being touched by her again.

“I missed you too,” I tell her. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

She lets out a huff of air, her long hair lifting slightly before it falls back down. A loose strand drops in front of her eye, and I don’t stop myself from reaching out to tuck it behind her ear. I trace my fingers across her cheek, seeing how she shivers right before I caress her jaw.

“It feels like it’s been a whole lifetime since I last saw you. There’s so much to say.” She glances at the clock on the wall above the TV. “How long can you stay?”

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

40

IZZY

I can’t believehe’s here.

After so many months of wishing and feeling hopelessly delusional that he would actually come back, Noah’s sitting in my living room.

It still doesn’t feel real, and I keep hold of his hand to reassure myself that it is. I worry that he'll disappear again if I let go of him. But he wants to know what he’s missed, and the best way to tell him is by showing him.

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