His Secret [Completed]

Original: Chapter 49 - Pain

Sophia's POV

"I'm back," I said as I walked through the door of my new apartment in Pennsylvania placing the groceries on the counter. After Noah demanded I leave New York two months ago, I travelled for a bit getting on cheap coaches looking for an escape.

I stayed in the hotel for a week hoping he would come back for me, hoping Noah would tell me that it was only a joke, that he was madly in love and couldn't live without me. Obviously, though I was wrong, he gave me hope in the corridor that day when he said his final goodbyes.

I've been living in this apartment for around a month and a half after seeing an advert on a bulletin board while waiting for my next coach in a bus station. It was a poster stating there was a room available for $200 a month with two roommates. I didn't have much choice, regardless of how sketchy the advert seemed it was the cheapest I had seen so far and obviously I couldn't keep running away from my problems forever.

Within a day of being in the state I had used a public telephone, called the number and arranged a meeting for that evening. The meeting went well since I was given the room and moved in straight away with the little belongings I have in a single suitcase. Most of what James had bought me for the vacation I gave to charity since there were bikinis and swimsuits, but also because they were a reminder of a chapter of my life I have to forget, if I don't I will go crazy.

There hasn't been a moment since I left that I haven't thought about the McKenzie's, and not just Noah. I miss Kelly and Jackson so much, they were like siblings to me. Alan and Sherry were like my second parents, they are my family.

"Thank goodness I'm starving," Millie started to rummage through the grocery bags. Millie is a 28-year-old woman who works at a supermarket where she met her boyfriend Archie who also happens to be my roommate.

Millie met Archie around 5 years ago at the same supermarket they both work at now. According to Millie, it was the most romantic meeting with a man she had ever encountered, she was working one day and bumped into 'the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life'- her words not mine. He then spent every day at the store, buying unnecessary items he didn't need just so he could see her.

He eventually applied for a job to spend with her and they have been together ever since. It's the sort of story I'd want to tell my future kids when they ask how I met their father.

At first, I thought to live with Millie and Archie would be awkward since I felt like I would constantly be third wheeling, but they make me feel welcome. Especially as neither of them is great at cooking, having me here means that they get healthy meals more often.

I still miss the McKenzie's terribly though., regardless of how welcome I feel here it isn't the same.

I began looking through the mail that was on the table, "anything for me?" Millie asked.

I handed her a couple of letters with her name on it and opened one of my own. I watch as Millie tears open an A4 sized letter and remove what looks to be a newspaper clipping with the words 'New York Times' written on it. A huge grin spread across her face.

"Did someone send you a newspaper?" I joked sarcastically.

"Remember I told you about my brother who lives in New York?" I nodded, "He works for the New York Times but he mainly wrote the sports columns...until now!" She flipped the paper over and held it up showing a front-page article, my breath hitched. "This is huge for his career Sophia! Can you believe it!"

I read the headline and my heart dropped, "no..." My knees collapsed from beneath me and I fell to the floor in floods of tears.

"What's happened?" Millie said kneeling down next to me, the newspaper article now lying on the floor in front of me. I read the headline again;