Page 27 of Autumn Secrets

“I honestly didn’t see anyone there. Are you sure it wasn’t a shadow, or an animal? I mean, wouldn’t you have noticed if I’d hit someone? Come on, who do you think I am?”

I stared at him, trying to grasp a sense of sanity, as this whole evening had been nothing more than a nightmare, with no explanations whatsoever. It scared me more than anything. But he was right: I definitely would have noticed if we had hit someone.

“You’re right, I don’t think we hit anyone. I obviously don’t think that you were trying to either, I just don’t know what’s going on tonight. I’m scared I’m losing my mind,” I confessed quietly.

He surprised me by putting his hand reassuringly on mine. I silently begged that he wouldn’t pull away. He didn’t say anything at first and I felt embarrassed that I had said something in the first place.

“I mean—” I started again, trying to offer another explanation, but was interrupted.

“You’re not crazy. You just had a bit of bad luck tonight. Don’t worry about it, okay?” He gave me a reassuring smile.

I nodded, beginning to feel somewhat relaxed.

“Are you ready to let me take you home?”

“Yep, I’m exhausted,” I confessed.

“And you don’t think I’m a crazy person?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. Of course, I don’t think you’re a crazy person.”

He chuckled. “Apology accepted. Now, let’s get you home to bed.”

We sat in a comfortable silence for the rest of the way. When he pulled up outside my house, I decided to give him one more chance to be honest with me.

“Is she your girlfriend, or not?”

He tilted his head to the side and looked at me, a little bit surprised by the change of topic. He smiled. “I thought I already answered that question?”

“Yes or no?” I asked, shortly. I was behaving braver than I really felt on the inside, but I was sick and tired of his games. I wanted an answer. I needed it.

He stroked his chin deliberately, like he was considering his answer before giving it to me. “No.”

Frustrated, I took my seatbelt off and reached for the doorhandle. This time he didn’t stop me, he just sat there with a grin on his face, clearly amused by my visible frustration.

“Liar!” I called over my shoulder and jumped out of the car. I closed the door before he had a chance to reply, and rapidly ran up the stairs. I fumbled with the keys for a few seconds, before I let myself in the house and closed the door behind me. As soon as I knew I was safe inside, I felt the tears come. I rarely cried, but this time I couldn’t stop them. This whole evening had been too much for me.

“Aurora, is that you?” Mum called from upstairs.

I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath. “Yeah, it’s me. I’ll be right up – you can go back to bed,” I called back, praying she wouldn’t hear how upset I was.

I didn’t feel like talking to her. I couldn’t even understand my own feelings about everything right now. I was lucky too, because for the first time ever, she didn’t pick up on anything. Relieved, I went into the living room and turned on the TV. I didn’t want to risk going upstairs straight away just in case Mum was waiting to talk. The last thing I wanted to do was worry her. I comfortably crashed on the couch and stared at the TV.

I tried to go over the evening in my head. I had arrived with Lexi around seven; there was no question about that. I had spent some time in the kitchen with Julian, but we were interrupted, so, we couldn’t have been in there for more than maybe fifteen minutes. Then I had gone to the dance floor and, according to Adrian, fainted. Then I went back out to the kitchen for a few minutes, before I left the party to grab some fresh air.

It had been after midnight when Adrian had offered to take me home. That meant that I’d spent five hours at the party, but I could only remember maybe an hour of it, at most. Where did the rest of the time go? Where was I? Surely, I hadn’t been lying on the floor for four hours? There was no way everyone would just leave me there. Something didn’t add up. What else could have happened? Did Julian spike my drink? No. He had opened the can of Coke just in front of me. Besides, he would never do anything like that. Julian was a great guy. I had to find a better explanation than that.

And then there was Lexi. She had left me there at the party, and I knew she would never do that. What made her leave? She’d been so excited for the party; there was no way she would bail early and go home.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what had happened when I went upstairs, even though Adrian told me I’d never gone there. I had walked through a hallway and it had been cold and dark. Something had distracted me in the hallway; I just couldn’t remember what. I was missing something, but no matter how hard I tried to remember, it wasn’t coming back to me. It was definitely a two-storey house, so it wasn’t impossible that I’d been upstairs. But then, why would Adrian lie to me? I couldn’t come up with any reasons why he would lie about something like that.

Then there was the mysterious Evangeline. Who the hell was she? He had flat-out denied having a relationship with her, despite the fact I had seen them kissing. He had told me that everything was not as it seemed. What was he talking about?

My only real conclusion about this evening was that I couldn’t trust Adrian. He was clearly a manipulative and arrogant liar, who was simply bored and wanted someone to play with, and that person seemed to be me. The new girl. He was probably not an evil, crazy person trying to run people over; that was maybe going a bit too far. It could have been an animal or a shadow for all I knew. Still, he was definitely a liar.

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. There was no way I was going to spend any more time thinking about someone who had done nothing but play games with me since the moment we met. I was done, and as far as this evening was concerned, I was done with that too. From now on, Adrian Hunter would be no more than a distant memory.

Chapter 9

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