The Secrets We Share

FIVE

noah

"I saw you with-"

"Shut your mouth Jason. You saw nothing."

Jason laughed and whacked my back. I glared at him through narrowed eyes. 

"Of course I saw nothing. I mean, the window blinds were totally closed and you and Dawn weren't doing anything suspicious at all." 

"We weren't doing-"

"Oh stop lying. I'll save you from admitting what you just said by staying quiet."

I tried not to let Jason see how relieved I was. My mind was spinning and I just couldn't comprehend what had just happened. What had I just said to Dawn? 

I couldn't even remember. All I could replay over and over in my head was Dawn. Her freaking full lips. Her nervous smile. The blush in her cheeks. Her brown wavy hair shining in the sun, her long eyelashes. Her deep, green eyes that seemed to understand you. What the hell. This was illegal. She should be carted off to some sort of haven full of gods and goddesses who sat on velvet cushions all day and sipped wine.

Not have earbuds hanging out of one ear, or fiddling with a hairband. I felt like she was caged in a teenager's body, with a mind that went so much deeper, that was intelligent, not shallow, like every single girl I'd met. Except Aria, maybe. 

Glaring at Jason's back as he walked into the kitchen, I wondered if Aria would go well with Jason, just for the fun of it all. He was a year older than me, though we were in the same year; he had started school late a year. He was turning seventeen in a month; I'd had my sixteenth birthday three months ago. 

But I wasn't one to think deeply about anything, or think who I should stick Jason with. 

"Dawn and Noah, huh?" 

I jerked at the mention of my name and Dawn's together, then realized Jason was mumbling to himself. 

"Shut it!" I yelled. 

"My parents come home in an hour," he replied, chucking an apple at me which I caught with ease, plucking it out of the air. "You better go in thirty minutes."

*

Dawn

After I'd knocked about ten times on Aria's front door, my hands shaking all the while, the solid, wooden door (which was also battered; the doorbell was broken and emitted squeaky sounds if you pressed it) was flung open and Aria stood in the doorway with her phone in one hand and a biscuit in the other.

"What are you doing?" She hissed. "It's, like, five and you should be at home. My mum's at the shops..."

She noticed my expression, which I dared not think about myself, and pulled me inside, slamming the door shut. The TV was on in the living room and her laptop was propped on a mountain of pillows. The lights were off, so Aria hurried over to the switches, then zoomed towards the couch and shoved the pillows aside and slammed her laptop shut.

Steering me towards the now-empty couch, she plonked me down and pushed a biscuit into my hand.

"Start talking now," She commanded.

I didn't know how to begin. How could I tell her? Could she keep the secret?

But once I opened my mouth, I couldn't stop the flow of words from washing out until I had nothing left to say, nothing left to hide.

Aria sat back and rocked back and forth on the couch. I was eating my fifth biscuit and the TV had been abandoned altogether.

"Wow. Okay then. You are a freak, not to mention a stalker."