Note from the Author: zomigee, this was a hard chapter to write. I had this written out from a week back but I never published it because I didn't think it was ready. Now I just want to post them up and get it published so I don't get the urge to go back and change it. xD But yeah... more will come much later. Enjoy!

Chapter Fourteen

Secrets

I can't really explain how I felt towards Denny after he walked me home that night. I can't deny that my heart jumped at the memory of him pecking me on the cheek, but I felt almost guilty for feeling that way. Even though that night on the beach had made me warm to him a little, I couldn't help but be suspicious. My suspicions grew further still when I spotted Denny and Lanna sitting on the docks next to each other the next day.

I had been on my way to Haila's Cafe with to meet up with my friends when I saw the couple sitting side by side happily chatting with one another. I didn't mean to spy on them. I was just planning to walk past and say 'hi' to Denny, but somehow I ended up hiding behind a large rock and listening to their conversation. As I leant against the giant boulder and strained my ears to hear, I realised from watching them that Denny's behaviour completely contradicted what he'd told me the night before. Instead of acting bored and irritated with the fact that Lanna seemed to only talk about herself, he grinned at her and encouraged her to keep talking, asking questions in all the right places. His body-language was also very easy to read; he was leaned into her and kept playfully nudging her or playing with her hair. It left me feeling very puzzled and quite irritated.

Having seen enough, I hurried over to Haila's Cafe and walked into the air-conditioned building with a troubled expression. Julia, Natalie and sat in the corner and waved me over when they spotted me. Ellie had taken to hanging around with the other two girls whilst I did my farm chores and I was quite glad that they were taking care of her whilst I was busy. The three of them had grown quite close in the short space of time that Ellie had been staying with me and I felt myself glow happily at the thought of all my best friends getting along so well.

After ordering my drink at the counter, I brought it over and took my seat next to Ellie, still frowning as I considered what I'd just seen outside.

"What's up? You look like you've got something on your mind," Ellie said before daintily taking a sip of her tea.

For a moment I wondered if maybe I shouldn't tell them about what I had seen, but I honestly wanted someone else's opinion about it. I played with the rim of my tea cup as I said, "You know how I told you guys about Denny coming to find me last night, and how we talked on the beach?" They all nodded and I nibbled my lip before continuing, "Well, last night I brought Lanna up in conversation and he told me that he didn't really like her. That she's selfish and talks about herself too much. And yet, just now, before I got here, I caught him outside with her, giggling and flirting with each other. They were sat side by side on the dock as if they were in their own little love-filled bubble."

"Oh he's obviously just acting that way with her because he doesn't want to hurt her feelings," Julia immediately replied, dismissive of Denny's behaviour. "Denny's just too nice for his own good."

"Stay away from him, Chelsea," Natalie said, her expression dark and brooding.

"Seriously, what's up with you?" Julia snapped. "You bitch about Denny almost as much as you bitch about Lanna, and Denny hasn't even done anything to antagonise you. What's your problem?"

"Just take my word for it," Natalie said forcefully, her eyes boring into mine as she ignored Julia's outburst.

"Thing is," I said, frowning and rubbing my forehead. "That kiss he gave me last night confused me a little. I mean... he could have just meant it in a friendly way bu-"

Natalie cut me off. "It was not meant in a friendly way. Trust me. I know him; he does not do shit like that just to be friendly. Just take my advice and stay away from him."

"You make it sound like he's an axe murderer or something," I said warily.

"Of course he's not an axe murderer," Natalie blustered, her cheeks colouring as she shifted in her seat.

"You're just being a bitch," Julia interjected.

"I'm being a bitch for being concerned about my friend?" Natalie retorted.

I raised my hands and silenced the both of them. They both turned to look at me with guilty expressions and I grimaced as I said, "Okay, settle down. I don't want you fighting over this, please."

"Just trust me, okay?" Natalie said.

Julia glared hard at Natalie before turning to Ellie and changing the subject. "Ellie, did you tell Chelsea about what you got up to in the bar last night?"

Ellie blushed and looked away nervously. "No."

I raised an eyebrow. "What did you do?"

Natalie grinned wickedly, leaning forward in her seat as she said, "She got a bit friendly with Will last night after Lily left. Turns out Will and Ellie know each other from when they were kids."

"What?" I asked, turning to Ellie in shock. "Are you serious?"

"I'm the heir to Hyde Pharmaceuticals... I know a lot of rich kids," Ellie replied peevishly.

"Even though you're an heiress," Natalie began with a bright smile, "you're nothing like Will. You actually seem pretty sensible."

"I don't think many people are like Will," I replied, stifling a giggle. "So what did you get up to with him? I guess from the way you were babbling when you got home last night that he made you take those horrible rainbow shots."

"Yes, they were absolutely foul," Ellie replied, her face deadpanning as she remembered it. "I can't believe he likes that shit. What is he? A girl? Well anyway, I did a bit of catching up with him, that's all. It's not my fault he decided to start trying to kiss me."

My eyes widened. "He tried to kiss you? Wait, I thought Elliot said he was planning to get engaged to Lily? Why is he trying to kiss Ellie?"

"Er, because she was the nearest thing to him? He gets like that when he's drunk. He tried to make out with Denny last time," Natalie replied with an amused smirk. "Well anyway, Ellie smacked him round the face and told us to take her home after that."

"I'm not ready to have some slobbering rich boy kiss me just because he's drunk," Ellie explained haughtily.

"Has Trent tried to ring you yet?" I asked her, peering over my teacup at her as she fidgeted.

"Yes, a few times," she replied.

"Did you answer?"

"No."

I frowned. "Why?"

"Because if he wants me back then he has to make the effort to come here and get me himself," she replied resolutely, scowling determinedly into her own cup of tea.

"Good," Natalie said. "Make him crawl back. He was a jerk to kick you out like that."

Taking a sip of my tea, I glanced up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was approaching five. I knew that at around about that time Sabrina was probably in the library and I wondered if maybe I should pop in and see her. I had wanted to talk to her at the fireworks festival, but with her dad present it was a bit too awkward to converse freely with her.

Once we had finished our tea, I said to the other girls, "I'm going to go and pop into the library to say hi to Sabrina."

Julia started and Natalie frowned. I thought they would protest but they kept their mouths closed and simply ushered Ellie along with them as we went our separate ways.

I entered the quiet building with an unsure smile and the librarian, who had grown used to seeing me by that point, waved me inside without even checking my library card. I stealthily navigated down the various aisles until I reached the area that Sabrina and I usually met up at. As I drew nearer, I could hear two people talking. I instantly recognised Sabrina's voice but was hard pressed to figure out who the other much deeper voice belonged to. Not wanting to disturb them, I remained behind the book case they were standing next to and listened until I realised who the second person was.

It was Vaughn.

"I can't do this anymore," Sabrina said, sounding clearly distressed.

"Listen to me. I don't care what he thinks. If he still refuses to accept it then there's only one thing we can do," Vaughn said softly.

I sank down to the floor as silently as I could so that I remained out of eyesight, drawing my knees up to my chest as I gently leant against the bookcase. I was so shocked to hear Vaughn's voice. Not because it was Vaughn, but because it sounded almost pleading and so ridiculously gentle. It was totally different from the abrupt gruffness that he used with other people.

"No Vaughn, please don't make me do this to you again," Sabrina breathed.

I heard a dull thud and felt the bookcase rattle slightly. My eyes widened and I covered my hand over my mouth to stop myself crying out in alarm. I glanced round and peered through the gap just above the row of books. I saw their legs very close together, as if in an embrace, and by the looks of it Vaughn had pinned Sabrina to the bookcase.

"You need to make up your mind Sabrina," Vaughn said softly, his voice sounding muffled.

"I already have made up my mind!" Sabrina exclaimed, her voice resounding throughout the library. She pushed him away and took a clumsy step away from him. "I already have, so please just stop it. I can't do this anymore. My father has already made it quite clear how he feels about it and I can't go against him. You know that as well as I do."

"Why do you let your father control your life like that? Why don't you stand up to him? You seem perfectly fine standing up to me, so why can't you do it with him? Is his financial hold over you really that strong that you can't make a decision by yourself?" Vaughn asked angrily.

"Yes, it is," Sabrina replied weakly. "I just can't, Vaughn. I just can't."

"Fine," Vaughn replied, his voice steely with rage.

My heart thudded so loudly in my chest that I feared they would hear me. As I sat on the floor in confusion, I tried to make sense of what I'd just heard. What was Vaughn and Sabrina's relationship? Why was he speaking to her so gently before? He sounded almost like he was speaking to a lover. Wait... was that it? Were Sabrina and Vaughn secretly dating? Was this the big secret that Julia had been trying to keep from me? And what of Sabrina? Were her original questions about my feelings for Vaughn because she was jealous? I'd thought she'd asked out of curiosity and because she wanted to talk about guys, but was her real motivation because she wanted to gauge how much of a threat I was?

The tumult of my thoughts was silenced as every one of my senses honed in on what was happening on the other side of the bookcase. I heard a shuffle and heavy footsteps. A surge of panic gripped me as Vaughn walked past the bookcase I was hiding behind and I prayed that he wouldn't notice me crouched on the floor. He didn't at first and strode past it without paying attention, but then he doubled back a couple of steps and looked again. When he laid his eyes upon me his face went as white as a sheet. His violet eyes widened and I felt so utterly guilty when I saw his expression; he looked so vulnerable and upset. I had never seen him wear an expression like that before and it disturbed me.

"I-I... I was just..." I stuttered, pointing in Sabrina's direction behind me.

"You were just eavesdropping," Vaughn snapped, before turning on his heel and leaving.

"Ch-Chelsea?" Sabrina asked, looking around the bookcase and seeing me on the floor. Her face was aghast and her eyes were wide with horror. "Oh my god. Did you just hear that?" Tears were in her eyes and the hand that covered her mouth was trembling.

I bowed my head and tightly clasped my hands together in front of me. Yes, it had been an accident, but I felt ever so guilty after seeing Vaughn's expression. I should have made my presence known to them instead of hiding and listening in on them. "I'm sorry."

"I-It's okay," Sabrina said, coming forward and dropping to her knees next to me. "It's our fault for having that conversation in a public place."

"But I shouldn't have hid," I replied. "I'm sorry Sabrina."

"I-It's okay, really," Sabrina said with a tired sigh. "D-Did you hear everything?"

"Yeah," I said, glancing at her. "I'm a little confused though."

"I didn't mean to hide it from you," she said, wiping her tears away.

"Is Vaughn the guy you were in love with? Is that why you were asking me if I liked him?" I asked.

She winced. "N-No, I wasn't... Vaughn and I... we..." she trailed off and looked away.

"It's okay. I guessed that you were holding something back," I said frowning to myself. "And I'm sorry for eavesdropping just now. I honestly didn't mean to. I just didn't want to disturb you and I ended up just listening."

"You don't need to keep apologising," Sabrina said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "It's my fault for not telling you before."

"Well it's not really my business to know," I said.

"D-Do you know about my original relationship with Vaughn?" she asked me tentatively.

I shook my head. "I didn't even realise you had a relationship with him."

Sabrina bit her lip, considering what she was going to say, before she took a deep breath and said, "I wasn't lying to you when I said that the guy wasn't my boyfriend. Vaughn was actually my fiancé. We were engaged."

A piece of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place. My jaw clenched as I remembered the way Julia had reacted when I had told her I knew she was keeping something to do with me - it had nothing to do with me, it wasn't her secret to tell. It was Sabrina and Vaughn's.

Sabrina played with the hem of her skirt as she dropped back onto her haunches next to me. "Do you want to know the whole story?" she asked me. Her voice was shaking with emotion and part of me didn't want to force her to relive it. However, the inquisitive part of me won over.

"Yeah," I replied. "It would be nice to know a bit more about you."

Sabrina smiled weakly at me. "I'm sorry I kept it from you."

"You had your reasons."

She nodded once before beginning to explain with downcast eyes. "Vaughn and I had been secretly seeing each other for over a year when he eventually asked me to marry him. I was so happy that I immediately said yes but I knew my father wouldn't approve and so I kept it a secret from him, and I lied to Vaughn by saying that I already had my father's approval when I didn't. As the time went by and Vaughn kept pushing for us to start organising the wedding, I grew anxious and realised that I would have to tell my father sooner or later. When I eventually did... well you can guess how he reacted." She paused and pulled the same face I'd seen her make at the fireworks festival. "'Why would I let you marry a livestock dealer when you can easily be betrothed to foreign princes or wealthier, more affluent men?' was how he put it. And so Vaughn and I broke up." Sabrina expression became hardened as she remembered it, her fists clenching in her lap. "This was two years ago and I was only eighteen at the time. I was too scared to elope like Vaughn wanted me to. Even now, I wouldn't be able to run away with him."

After hearing this, I was awash with sympathy for her. Even as she sat in a heap on the floor next to me with her face tear stained and her eyes downcast, she still looked so delicately pretty that I couldn't help think to myself that she looked like a princess from a fairytale. In a way, she was. Her father was the evil villain that kept her trapped in a castle and Vaughn was the knight in shining armour trying to steal her away. She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her nose before asking me, "So how much of that conversation did you actually hear?"

"Enough," I said. "He still loves you, doesn't he?"

Sabrina turned away, her expression becoming almost bitter. I didn't understand this reaction at the time and thought that maybe she was angry at me for saying something so personal. There was a long pause before she finally spoke again. "I love Vaughn very much, but because of my father... My father ruined everything. Like he does with every other aspect of my life. I find friends, he rejects them. I find a good man to love me, he rejects him. I find a possible career in the city, he rejects it. Everything I do for myself, he ruins. And yet I do everything he says without questioning it, all because I'm dependent on the money he has. I'm like a junkie with a habit."

This caustic appraisal of her relationship with her father shocked me a little. Sabrina was usually quite soft-spoken and mild mannered and it was at that moment, as we both sat on the floor of the library next to the shelves that held the books on Women's Suffrage, that I realised that Sabrina wasn't as gentle as she appeared to be. As I stared into her brown eyes searchingly, I sensed a hardness in her that I hadn't noticed before. Her expression was so bitter, so angry, that I realised then that she absolutely hated her life. While her father meant well, he had oppressed his daughter and she resented him for it from the bottom of her heart.

"If you know you're dependent, than why don't you break the habit?" I asked her.

"You sound just like Vaughn," she snapped. The tone she spoke with was so cold and so far removed from how she usually spoke that I jumped a little. It was like it was a completely different person talking. "You don't understand what it's like."

"Maybe I don't, but it's unhealthy to stay trapped in a relationship with your father like that," I replied, a little taken aback by the way she'd just spoken to me. "Why do you need to consult your father all the time? Just do what you want."

"How can I? I have no money to buy a place to live or pay for rent or bills or anything," she said angrily. "I don't know the first thing about living alone."

"Neither did I," I said, smiling as I remembered how panicked I was when I first moved to the islands.

"But you had people to support you," she replied, growing irritated with me.

"Not really. I had my dad to talk to about all the stuff I needed to do, but I'm sure your dad would do the same for you if you were in my position," I said with a shrug.

Upon hearing this, her expression suddenly turned very ugly. For someone so naturally beautiful, her scowl was really quite terrifying to see and I immediately saw traces of Regis's face in it. I actually flinched.

"My dad wouldn't help me. And you had friends like Natalie and Julia supporting you. I would not be as fortunate as you were, so don't dare compare us," she spat.

I paused for a few seconds before saying, "Well, I'm your friend. I would support you if you needed someone to help you."

The ugly scowl that made her look quite frightening vanished and she looked down at her hands penitently. She smoothed a lock of her black hair away as tears began to mist her eyes and I pulled her into a hug when she started crying in earnest.