THE LIES WE BURY

Rain always made London look like a city that kept too many secrets. Aurora Hayes noticed it as soon as the black cab she was riding in turned onto the narrow streets of Bloomsbury. Raindrops crawled down the window, blurring the old buildings crowded along the pavement. Streetlights reflected off the asphalt, creating broken golden lines whenever a vehicle passed. In the distance, a red bus moved slowly through the thin fog, while people walked beneath umbrellas with their heads bowed, as though each were trying to protect something far more fragile than their hair from the rain. Aurora rested her head against the seat and closed her eyes. She was tired. Not the kind of tiredness that could be cured by eight hours of sleep or a cup of hot coffee. This was an exhaustion that settled behind the ribs, making every breath feel a little heavier than it should. The kind that came from spending too much time convincing yourself that everything was all right. Her summer had passed in a succession of long days, conversations that never truly ended, and nights when sleep became something she had to fight for. She had spent most of her time away from London, hoping that distance might change something inside her. At the very least, she wanted to believe that leaving the city for a few months would give her a chance to start over. But London never truly forgot those who had once lived within it, and some places had better memories than people did. “Blackthorn University, Miss Hayes.” The driver’s voice made Aurora open her eyes. Beyond the windscreen, black iron gates rose between two grey stone pillars. The university crest was engraved in the centre of the gates: a thorny tree whose roots curled like fingers. Beneath it, a Latin phrase was inscribed in letters worn thin by time. Veritas in Tenebris. Truth in Darkness. Aurora read the words without meaning to, then looked away. An unpleasant motto for an educational institution. “Thank you,” she said, handing over her payment card. She stepped out of the cab, pulled her wheeled suitcase from the boot, and stood before the partly open gates. Cold air slipped beneath the collar of her coat. The scents of wet earth, rotting leaves, and old stone filled her nose. Blackthorn University stood among London’s old streets like a building left behind by another century. Its main building was made of dark stone, with tall, timber-framed windows and narrow towers whose tips disappeared into the overcast sky. To the east, a bell tower rose above the campus rooftops. Its clock hands pointed to three seventeen. Aurora watched the tower for a few seconds longer than necessary. There was something about its shape she disliked. Perhaps it was too tall, too thin, like someone standing motionless among the other buildings, watching everyone who arrived. Or perhaps she was simply too tired. She exhaled, pulled her coat tighter, and wheeled her suitcase through the gates. This time, she would see everything through. She would attend lectures, complete assignments, sit her exams, and earn grades worthy of all the effort she had put in. She would read the psychology books filling her room’s shelves, spend afternoons in the library, and develop a better understanding of human behaviour. She would not talk about her past. Not to her roommate. Not to her lecturers. Not to anyone who treated a simple question like Where are you from? as an invitation to dig into someone’s life. Especially not to anyone who had known her before she left. Aurora had learned one thing as a child: people always claimed to want honesty, but most of them only wanted the version of the truth they could bear to accept. The rest, they buried. And she had buried enough to know how exhausting it was to keep the earth above it smooth. Aurora’s room was on the third floor of the women’s residence, at the very end of a corridor overlooking the university’s rear courtyard. The building was called Ashbourne Hall, a stone structure with an old wooden staircase that creaked under every footstep. Its corridors were narrow and lit by pale yellow wall lamps. Heating pipes hissed occasionally behind the walls, while the smell of detergent mingled with damp wood, forming the distinctive scent of a building that had housed too many students for decades. Room 317. Aurora put the key into the lock. When the door opened, she found a simple room with two beds, two desks, a wardrobe, and a large window overlooking the courtyard. The bed on the right was already occupied. An emerald-green blanket lay neatly folded on the mattress, and several books were stacked on the desk. A small plant stood by the window, looking healthier than any plant Aurora had ever managed to keep alive. Her roommate had not arrived yet. Good. She needed a few minutes to be herself before she had to pretend to be someone easy to get to know. Aurora placed her suitcase beside the wardrobe, took off her coat, and stood before the small mirror hanging on the wall. The face looking back at her was pale. Her dark brown hair fell in a dishevelled curtain around her shoulders, and the faint shadows beneath her eyes made her look like someone who spent her nights reading autopsy reports rather than a student just back from summer break. She touched her cheek. “You’re fine,” she murmured. The words sounded so strange that she almost laughed. She had long since realised that lying to yourself was much easier when you said it aloud. Aurora turned away from the mirror and began unpacking. A few T-shirts, trousers, notebooks, her laptop, and a small black box. She put everything in its proper place with almost obsessive precision. Clothes were folded by type. Books were arranged by course. Stationery went in the top drawer. Order was something she could control. Unlike memory. When she opened the zip on a small compartment inside her suitcase, her fingers brushed against something hard. Aurora stopped. Between two notebooks lay an old photograph, its corners yellowed with age. She drew it out slowly and stared at the image. Four people stood in front of a stone building. Someone on the left was laughing with one hand raised, while a long-haired girl stood in the middle with a smile that was too wide. Beside her, a boy stared at the camera with a serious expression. Aurora recognised every face. She also recognised the building behind them. The bell tower. Her heart gave one hard, uncomfortable beat. She turned the photograph over. There was no writing on the back. Only a faint stain that might have come from water or age. For a while, she did not move. Then she slipped the photograph back into the compartment, zipped it shut, and pushed the suitcase beneath the bed. There were plenty of reasons people kept old photographs. Nostalgia. Loss. An inability to accept that the past was over. Aurora kept that photograph for none of those reasons. She kept it because sometimes she was afraid of forgetting certain details. And sometimes she was more afraid of remembering them. The following morning, Blackthorn University looked a little more welcoming. The rain had stopped, although grey clouds still covered the sky. Students filled the paths between lecture buildings. Some walked while studying their timetables; others chatted loudly, as if the holiday had given them enough energy to take over the world. Aurora crossed the main courtyard with a cup of coffee in her hand and her phone in her coat pocket. She had spent thirty minutes studying the campus map before leaving the residence. Not because she was worried about getting lost, but because she disliked situations in which she did not know where to go. Uncertainty was often the first place anxiety took root. The School of Psychology was on the north side of the main complex, not far from the central library. Its lecture rooms were on the second floor, beyond a corridor covered with seminar posters and research announcements. Aurora arrived ten minutes early. She chose a seat in the middle row, took out her laptop, and opened her digital notes. On the first page, she wrote the date and the course title. Personality Psychology. An interesting subject, at least in her opinion. Human personality was not shaped by a single event, decision, or traumatic experience. It was the result of a complex interaction between temperament, environment, upbringing, life experiences, and the defence mechanisms people developed to survive. Aurora understood the theory very well. Perhaps too well. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” A woman with short blonde hair pointed to the seat beside her. “Go ahead.” “Thanks. I nearly got lost earlier. This campus map looks as though it was designed by someone who hates first-year students.” Aurora gave a faint smile. “I memorised it last night.” The woman turned to her, looking impressed and confused at once. “You memorised the campus map?” “It’s easier than getting lost.” “I think we’ll get along. I’m Sophie Bennett.” “Aurora Hayes.” “Do you like psychology?” “Enough.” Sophie raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very convincing answer.” “I don’t want to set expectations too high.” Sophie laughed. Aurora smiled too, this time a little more sincerely. Their conversation did not last long because the lecturer entered the room. Still, during the lecture, Aurora found herself glancing at Sophie several times. She took notes quickly and occasionally doodled little shapes in the margins of her notebook. At least there was one person on this campus who did not make her want to find the nearest exit. The lecture lasted almost two hours. Their lecturer discussed theories of personality, adaptive behaviour, and how people developed defence mechanisms when faced with experiences that threatened their psychological stability. “Often,” the lecturer said, writing a term on the board, “what appears to be calmness is not an absence of conflict. It may instead be a powerful form of control over something a person does not want to confront.” Aurora stopped typing. Those words stayed with her longer than anything else said during the lecture. She stared at her laptop screen without really reading what was on it. Control. That was what she had been doing all this time. Controlling her expressions. Controlling her tone of voice. Controlling her memories by avoiding certain places, conversations, and people. She had learned to observe tiny changes in someone’s face, recognise discomfort in the way they moved their hands, and read lies through pauses that lasted a little too long. She understood how people concealed things. But that understanding did not make it any easier to understand herself. “Miss Hayes?” Aurora jolted. Their lecturer was standing beside her desk. “Would you like to add something?” Several students turned to look. “No, Professor. Sorry.” The lecturer nodded and continued. Aurora looked back at her laptop. Her fingers felt cold. She hated it when someone noticed that her mind was somewhere else. Worse still when that place was the past.