Trails of Secrets

41. The Arrival

They had made the poor decision of leaving in the middle of the day, so now, the sun had gone down and they could barely see five feet in front of them.

"I need to stop for a rest," Annalise complained.

"Same," Noah agreed.

Liam worriedly looked around the dark trees. "Fine. This place will do as well as any other place. Someone tie a rope around a tree in the direction we are heading."

Noah hurriedly did what was requested and the three of them all settled for the night.

Liam immediately fell asleep. Annalise assumed all his worrying had finally worn him out. She turned her head to look at Noah. He seemed to still be awake but struggling to sleep.

"Hey, Noah. You ok?"

He opened his eyes fully and gave a weak smile towards Annalise. "Yeah, I'm alright."

She sat up and started playing with her hands. "Look, I am really sorry about Liam and I leaving you with Phin. He thought it best to just leave all of it behind. To try to get back to 'normal.' I didn't want to leave you behind, but it just seemed best at the time."

Noah cleared his throat. "I can understand that. But I just wish that you had told me. Or at least said 'goodbye.' I probably would have decided to stay with Phin anyway. She needed me. She needed somebody."

She scrunched up her nose. "You make it seem like it's our fault for what happened."

"Well, you were the ones who left."

"She is the one who lied."

"She is the one who was scared. She is the one who was betrayed by her best friend. She is the one who didn't know who to trust."

"Trust. I hate that word."

"But it's such a beautiful word. The only bad thing about the word 'trust' is that it involves at least two imperfect humans who will at one point fail."

Annalise gave Noah a strange look.

He shrugged his shoulders in response and put on a serious expression. "We all end up failing at some point. It's a part of life. Although trust is so important for any friendship or relationship, it's also important to have forgiveness."

Annalise looked at the ground.

"Phin is in the wrong. But she wants to have a second chance. She isn't the enemy. She is just someone who made a mistake."

Annalise stared her tear-filled eyes into his blue eyes. Then she laughed brightly. "Who are you? Where did you even come from? You are the biggest puzzle to me."

"Hey, when I find out, you will be the first to know."

They both laughed and joked about who he might have been and why he may have lost his memory.

"I'll bet you got distracted by an inspirational billboard while you were walking down the highway and then ran into a road sign."

"It would have needed to have a cat on it because I am not a dog person. I think."

"Oh, or maybe you are a time traveler, and your time machine accidentally erased your memory."

"Always a possibility."

"Hah! I've got a good one. Your girlfriend got mad at you and hit your head with something. Then she thought you were dead and attempted to dump your body!"

"Yeah... that didn't happen."

"You never know."

"I'm pretty sure it didn't."