Free Summer of Secrets by Cathy Cole Page B

she really know about Brody?
    Rhi couldn’t think of a single personal conversation that they’d had that hadn’t revolved around her. She blushed at the thought. She had been so self-centred that she’d never asked him anything about himself.
    What kind of a friend didn’t ask a person a single question about their lives? She knew everything about Lila, Eve and Polly, but precisely zero about the boy she had been dreaming about for weeks.
    How was that even possible?
    The air was growing colder as Rhi sneaked from doorway to doorway. When she felt the first splash of cold rain on the back of her neck, she almost leaped out of her skin. She’d left in such a hurry, and hadn’t picked up her jacket. She was going to get drenched. Maybe she should just return to the warm, dry café with her friends and forget this madness.
    Keeping Brody firmly in her sights, she pressed on.
    The town looked different in the rain. Darker, quieter. The only sound was the occasional car swishing past and the drum of rain on the rooftops and the pavements. Rhi had reached the stage where she was so wet that her shoes squelched and her hair hung limply around her face. If her reflection in the shop windows was anything to go by, she looked like a freak, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was not losing sight of Brody.
    Brody moved quickly along the road, his blond hair darkened by the rain. His guitar case was zipped firmly against the weather, his collar turned up to protect him from the downpour. He was going somewhere he’d been to before, that much was clear. There were no hesitations at road junctions, no checking directions on his phone. Was he going home? Rhi could feel herself blushing even more deeply as she realized she didn’t even know where Brody lived.
    It was insane that she had shared so much of her soul with someone so mysterious to her. The more she thought about it, the more she understood that Brody had only done his sharing through their music.
    They were climbing the hill now. A bus flew past, and Rhi jumped back automatically at the spray of water thrown up by its wheels. She almost felt like laughing. Even if the bus had splashed her, she couldn’t have got any wetter.
    As she looked round for Brody again, she panicked. She’d lost him. She was useless at tracking people. Had she got this wet and come all this way, just to lose Brody as she had lost the boy in the wheelchair?
    Squinting from beneath the bus shelter, she finally spotted a Brody-shaped figure heading towards an old church on the corner. Her heart rate steadied again. All was not lost after all. But … a church ? Was Brody religious? Rhi couldn’t imagine it. But what did she know?
    She hesitated outside the church gate. Maybe she should leave Brody alone. This felt private. Then again, if she didn’t follow him inside, she might never know why he’d gone in there. Suddenly it felt like the most important thing in the world to know.
    St Saviour’s was Heartside Bay’s oldest church. Rhi had passed it hundreds of times, but had never set foot inside. It was popular for many of the weddings that took place in Heartside Bay as it was incredibly picturesque with a meadow-like churchyard and a neat little lychgate leading off the street. At this time of night it was hard to picture it full of chattering guests in brightly coloured hats, its winding flagstone path covered in pastel-coloured confetti. Right now it didn’t feel romantic at all; just dark and a little forbidding, particularly with the rain darkening its great stone walls.
    Rhi heard the boom of the closing church door as Brody went inside. Still not convinced she was doing the right thing, she squeezed through the gate and tried not to slip on the rain-slicked flagstones leading to the main door. She opened the big wooden door and peered nervously inside.
    There was no one there. Candles flickered on the altar, and in