Page 100 of The Secret Of Us

I try to focus on the movie, but with every scene, I’m taken back to that day. It felt like something shifted then, in the quiet of the darkened room as we watched our favourite movies together. I try to disguise the shuddering breath that leaves me with a cough, cover my face with my hands so Amelia and Chloe don’t see the way my eyes have started to water.

I miss him so much.

The movie continues, and for the first time in my life, I don’t pay attention to it. When the credits roll, it barely feels like time has passed. Amelia takes the laptop from me again, and I climb over Chloe to get out of the bed. I go into my bathroom, and I let myself cry again for the boy who changed every part of my life.

* * *

“So,where do you want to go first?” Amelia asks as we scroll through popular holiday destinations.

The three of us are splayed out on her bed. Tonight, it’s her turn for the sleepover, and we’ve spent the past hour bleaching my hair back to blonde again in her bathroom.

“I can’t decide if it’s better to start or finish in Europe,” I tell her.

It didn’t take much convincing to get the two of them to start planning out my travel itinerary with me. When I told them both I wanted to travel, they were more than supportive. Amelia immediately pulled out her phone and started searching for the best ways to see the world, and Chloe went straight to looking at flights.

I asked both if they wanted to join me for any of it, and we’ve decided to do a trip to Portugal together before we get our exam results. But once I’ve got them, I’ll be right back at the airport to go to my next destination, wherever that is.

“Do you want to do one long flight to get to the other side of the world or a couple of small ones gradually?” Chloe asks.

She pulls up flights to Australia, and the minimum twenty-four hours of travelling immediately puts me off.

“Okay, so starting in Europe it is. It’ll be better to start off closer to home anyway, I think,” Amelia says.

She starts searching for the best way to see the most of Europe, and we spend the next hour drawing up an itinerary.

“I wish you guys could travel the whole time with me. Are you sure you don’t want to take a gap year?” I ask them both.

“We’ll have more time for travelling together when we’re older,” Amelia says. “And it’ll be betterbecausewe’re older.”

Chloe hums in agreement before she rolls onto her back to face the ceiling.

“I hate that this all has to end soon,” she says.

I look over at her at the same time that Amelia does.

“It’s an ending, but it’s also a new beginning. We’re going to university, and Izzy is going to see the world,” Amelia says as she nudges Chloe’s shoulder.

“I know, but I’m so happy right now. I don’t know if it’ll ever be like this again.” Chloe reaches her hands out to me and Amelia, and we both offer her one of ours.

“It will,” I tell her, squeezing her hand. “We’ve already decided we’re all stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. Just because we’re leaving school doesn’t mean we stop being friends.”

Chloe tilts her head to the side to look directly at me.

“Are you happy?” Chloe asks me, catching me off guard.

“I am,” I say, but not convincingly enough. They both pin me with the stare they give me when they know I’m lying about something.

“You can talk about him, Izzy. It might help,” Amelia says.

We—or I—have avoided speaking about Noah since he left. Even the day after he came to see me, they both knew about it but didn’t ask a single question. I think they’ve been waiting for me to bring him up first, but it feels wrong to talk about him when they never knew the full story to begin with. Now feels like the right time to tell them.

“It was fake at the start,” I begin. I stare up at the ceiling, not wanting to look at either of them as I unravel this web of secrets that I’ve been keeping. “Ryan was bothering me a lot, and people kept spreading rumours about Noah, so I told him we should pretend to date. I thought it would help to make Ryan understand that I was over him, and that people would think Noah was a good guy.”

Neither of them speak, so I continue.

“We planned it all out. We set rules and an end date and took photos so we could hard launch, and everything was just for show. But then, I don’t know what happened. The more time we spent together, the more I realised I did actually like him, and I guess he started to like me, too.”

“I don’t believe that,” Amelia says.

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