Page 43 of Autumn Secrets

“No, not really. I was just thinking…about stuff.” I smiled, putting my phone down. “What about you? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, everything is fine. You know I feel really guilty that I’m always working—”

“Mum, stop,” I interrupted. “We’ve been over this. I knew that it was going to be a lot of work in the beginning, and I’m fine with that. Really, please, don’t feel bad.”

“Things will get easier, I promise. It’s just a lot to deal with right now.”

“I know and like I said, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

She sat down next to me and gave me a hug.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, Mum.” I paused. “Now, I want to talk about Lexi with you.”

“Oh?” She shifted in her seat. “How come?”

“I still don’t understand why I can’t remember her.”

“Aurora, I think you have misunderstood the whole situation. You two really didn’t spend that much time together. It’s not strange at all that you can’t remember her. Just be grateful that you have each other now.”

“But I got the impression that wedidspent a lot of time together.”

Mum shook her head. “No, not really.”

“I just find it weird that Lexi said she had spent a lot of time here, but she can’t remember any of it.” I was grasping at straws a bit here.

“Maybe she misunderstood what Sarah and David told her, because she didn’t. I mean, not really. It was more when you were babies. Then we moved overseas.” Mum put a teacup in front of me.

“Oh, I see. You’re probably right,” I said and grabbed my cup of tea, unsatisfied.

I didn’t correct her about the fact that it wasn’t Lexi’s parents who told her about our connection. I remember clearly what Lexi told me the first night we’d met. She told me that she used to come to our house a lot, and that we had played together. Babies don’t play together, which means we must have been older. And it wasn’t her parents who had told her,shewas the one who found pictures of us, but they disappeared before she had a chance to ask her parents about them.

What I didn’t understand, though, was whythey would hide something like that from us, then encourage us to get together again when we were older? Something definitely wasn’t adding up.

Chapter 14

Between school, planning for our weekend away, and studying for two exams, the week flew by. I’d managed to avoid Adrian the whole week, but I had plenty of opportunities tofeelhis presence. I’d tried to stay away from him, just to give myself some breathing room, and I luckily hadn’t had any surprises. It was like he was keeping his distance too. What did he want from me? It was so hard to keep up.

Julian and his class were away on a field trip and I didn’t hear from him until Thursday about me cancelling on him. He didn’t ask why, but asked for a raincheck with a smiley face, and I replied with a ‘maybe’. I figured that if I could manage to get over Adrian, someone like Julian could be fun to go out with.

When Friday finally arrived, I hurried home after school to get everything ready for my weekend away. Mum had left me a note and some extra money on the table, and I sent her a quick text to thank her, before I went upstairs to pack my bag. I was so excited for this weekend. I had never gone away with friends like this before and even though this was all new territory for me, I welcomed it with open arms.

An hour later, I was safely tucked away in the back seat with Mia in Lexi’s car. Jasmine was our DJ in the passenger seat. We didn’t get far before the sun set for the day, denying me any more opportunities to admire the autumn landscape outside my car window. After almost two and a half hours’ drive in the dark, we finally made it to the little town of Lovika Creek. We stopped there for dinner, before we arrived at Jasmine’s holiday house later in the evening. It was a big timber house by a small lake, with no other houses around as far as the eye could see.

“Mum had the cleaners come in today to stock up our fridge and turn the lamps on. It should be nice and warm in there.”

We grabbed our bags and followed Jasmine towards the house. It was so quiet, and except for the little lamps in the windows, the moon was the only light we had to navigate our unfamiliar surroundings. You could tell we were surrounded by wilderness; I could smell the wet forest as we walked towards the house. For some people it might have been scary to think that we were out here all by ourselves in the wilderness, but for me it was healing.

“Come in, girls.” Jasmine turned the main lights on and showed us in. “Welcome to the lake house.”

The two-storey timber home was just as cosy as it looked from the outside. There were four bedrooms upstairs, so we all had our own. The bottom floor had a massive living room with big couches and a fireplace in the middle. There were panoramic windows facing the lake where I assumed you had a beautiful view in daylight.

We all put our pyjamas on, grabbed a blanket and sat down by the fireplace with a big bowl of chips and ten different kinds of dips to share.

“This is so nice. I’m glad we’re doing this,” Lexi said and grabbed a handful of chips.

“Me too. I’ll finally get to ask you what’s going on with Luca. Are you two a couple or what?” Mia asked excitedly.

---