Page 16 of Keeping Our Secrets

“Why would you do that?”

“I texted you straight for a week without a reply. I thought maybe you met someone in London and had stopped talking to me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why didn’t you answer any of my texts?” I glanced to the side because staring into his eyes was too difficult. I didn’t know if I could handle his response.

What if he told me that he stopped texting because he didn’t want anything to do with me?

“A couple days into the trip, I lost my phone in the Thames,” he replied.

“That’s such a cop out. You seriously expect me to believe that?”

“What reason would I have to lie to you?”

“I don’t know. It just felt like that was the end.”

“So you blocked me?”

I nodded. “It hurt too much to think about what you were going to say to me when you finally responded, so I decided to just cut the connection.”

“I thought we had some good conversations.”

“We did, but you were literally an ocean away, entering your last year of university and I was still finishing high school, without a plan.”

“What happened to going to uni?”

“I took a gap year.”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” I responded. “And the day I decided to, mom told me she was moving here, and she wanted me to come with her. So I jumped at the chance to be closer to both of my parents for the first time in my life.”

“And closer to me?”

“Maybe, but now it doesn’t matter.”

He shook his head in disbelief as he walked out of the kitchen. Just as he got to the bottom of the stairs he looked back and said, “I still can't believe you're really here.” Then just as quickly as he cornered me, he was out of sight.

“Neither can I,” I replied to the empty room.

Neither can I.

The rest of the evening I avoided everyone, holed up in my room. I couldn’t handle another confrontation with him. When I closed my eyes for the last time that night, I didn’t know how much more my heart could take.

CHAPTER 8

Liam

“I can’t handle much more of this,” I told Darren.

For the past week, I’d tried my damndest to avoid Mairi, but it was nearly impossible since her bedroom was across from mine. She hadn’t made any friends here yet, so she was always around.

“You could crash on my couch for a while,” he offered.

“If it gets any worse, I might take you up on that.”

“Blue balls getting to you?” he busted up laughing.

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