Dark Secrets

by A. M. Hudson

  “Oh, a guy I grew up with—in Australia.”

  “A guy?”

  “Yes. A guy.”

  “And he’s…a friend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was he a school friend?”

  “Not really. I mean, he was a few years ahead of me in primary school, then I went to an all girls’ high school, so, you know, we played at school as kids, but not once we grew up.”

  “What did you do then?”

  I laughed. “Then? He practically lived at my house—or me at his.”

  David nodded, his eyes straying slowly forward. “And you miss him—that’s why you stayed up talking?”

  “I—” I closed my fist around my thumb, resisting the urge to munch it. “I don’t really know.”

  “You don’t know if you miss him?” he confirmed.

  I felt his eyes on me, felt him searching inside me, sending my shoulders around my ears.

  “How many years ahead?” he asked out of nowhere.

  “What? Who?”

  “This guy.” He smiled. “You said he was a few years ahead in school. How much older is he than you?”

  “A little over three,” I said, growing taller without the tension shrinking me.

  “So…he’s twenty?” David asked.

  “Yup. Twenty one in May next year.”

  David nodded. “And what about you? When’s your birthday?”

  “What, you can’t guess that by studying some random feature of mine?” I said sarcastically. “Like my piano hands?”

  “I could find out for myself—if I wanted to. But I’d rather ask you.”

  “Well, when you put it that way…March seventeen.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “Pisces, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “That explains a lot.”

  “Hey! What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just funny how much that fits you.”

  “Says he who’s known me for a day.”

  He smirked.

  “Hey, you two.” Emily waved before we reached the top of the stairs.

  “Hi, Emily.” I waved back, noticing that, aside from her blue top, we’d pretty much dressed the same.

  “Good morning, Emily.” David nodded in his cool, charismatic way.

  “Ready to start another day?” she said.

  “Alwa—”

  “Em. David.” Ryan called, running out from the school.

  “What’s wrong?” Emily asked.

  “It’s Nathan, guys,” he said, coming to stand beside us.

  “Who’s Nathan?” I looked at David.

  “Oh, right. Sorry, Ara, you wouldn’t know about this,” Ryan said, “but, he’s our star quarterback—he got sick last week. Hasn’t been able to get out of bed.”

  “Oh, that’s awful. What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  “Well, at first they said it was a really bad flu or something, but my mom just spoke to his mom in the pharmacy.” Ryan looked at David. “He’s had to go to the hospital, man. They couldn’t keep him at home any longer.”

  “What? No!” Emily covered her mouth. “Will he be okay?”

  “They’re not sure. He’s on machines and stuff to keep him alive, but, you know Mrs Rossi? She was crying ‘cause she doesn’t have insurance—said she can’t get Nathe the care he needs.”

  Emily covered her mouth. “What are they gonna do?”

  “Are you all good friends with Nathan?” I asked.

  “Everyone is—he’s just one of those guys, y’know?” Ryan added.

  David’s fist clenched slightly by his side.

  “Well, why don’t we do a fundraiser?” I shrugged. “We could put on a concert and charge people to come—give the money to Nathan’s mom.”

  As if a light bulb had been switched on, they all looked up at me with a shimmering glint in their eyes. “Oh my God, Ara.” Emily grabbed my forearm and started bouncing on her toes. “That’s such a good idea.”

  “Yeah, good one, Ara.” Ryan grinned.

  “We should get moving on this right away,” Emily said. “I’ll talk to Mrs Hawkins about it…er, if you don’t mind, Ara.”

  “Oh, yeah, Em, this is better your project than mine.”

  “Great.” She beamed, rocking back on her heels. “Well, I’ll get things moving, and maybe have everyone meet in the auditorium at lunch if they want in?”

  I nodded, shrugging.

  “Okay.” She went to walk away, then stopped. “Way to go, newbie.”

  “Yeah. You rock,” Ryan said before skipping off, looping his arm over Alana’s shoulder when she came out from the school.

  And David and I were finally alone again. Or maybe just I was. He seemed distracted again, wearing a kind of smile I thought belonged only to me—the tight-lipped one that covered a set of gritting teeth. “David?”

  He bent down to pick up his guitar case, his arched brows prompting my question as he stood up again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  With a soft smile, the edgy concern lifted from his face and he nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine.”

  * * *

  While Miss Chester prattled on up the front of class, I drew pictures of eyes all over my notepad; sad eyes, smiling eyes, secretive eyes, but all of them David’s eyes—not that they really looked anything like his. I doubted even a camera could capture the true beauty of his face. Even my memory did it no justice.

  I tapped my pencil on the page, trying to see through the solid classroom door, hoping David was waiting for me out there. The clock on the wall sat at three minutes to lunch, but the corridors were already bustling with students, and I was in the only class whose teacher didn’t give early marks.

  Then, almost as if it obeyed my command, the bell wailed loudly and the class broke into noisy shuffles, fleeing the room. I tucked my books under my arm and pushed my chair in, looking up to the sound of my name. “Yes, Miss Chester?”

  “Can I talk to you, please?”

  “Um, sure.” I glanced quickly at the corridor—to freedom—to David, leaning on the locker with his hands in his pockets, looking down at his shoes. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, just wondering how you’re doing?” she said softly, busying her eyes on some papers.

  “Doing? Uh…I’m…fine.”

  “Just so you know—” She looked up at me, her pale lips forming a smile. “I’m a good friend of your dad’s. If you need to talk—at any time—I’m always available. Okay?”

  I smiled politely, hugging my books a little tighter. “Um, thanks.”

  “Okay, and, Ara?” she said as I turned away.

  “Yes.”

  “Try to pay more attention in my class.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yep,” I said, feeling stupid after. Yep? What was I thinking? Yep?

  “Everything all right?” David stood from his lean.

  “Yeah. Fine. Why?” I let him take my books.

  “What did Miss Chester want?”

  “Sheee…just wanted to see how I was going.”

  “Going with what?”

  “Uh, homework?” I cringed at the tone of my lie.

  David smiled warmly, keeping his eyes on the path ahead. “So…you’re not paying attention in class?”

  “Um, no. Not really.” I looked down at my feet, half noticing the walls go from white to burgundy.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  “Why aren’t you concentrating?”

  “I…I guess…I’m tired?” And there that questioning tone came again.

  “You can talk to me, Ara.” David gently grabbed my arm, stopping me by the auditorium door. “You don't have to make up some lie.”

  “Lie? About what?”

  “I heard what she said.” He waited, looking right into me as if I’d just spill the beans. “She wasn’t just asking how you
were coping with a new school, was she?”

  “I uh—”

  “Hey, you two.” Emily popped up out of nowhere. “Ready to start our first official meeting for the benefit concert?”

  “Yup.” I stepped away quickly to stand beside Em. “Ready.”

  “Great. Did you get lunch, yet? Cafeteria lines are out the door today.” She nodded toward her tray of food. “Mr Grant said we can eat lunch in the auditorium if we’re rehearsing.”

  “Really?” I said. “That’s great.”

  “Yeah, I know, hey. So, I’ll go reserve a table near the stage. See you in a minute?”

  “Why don’t you go ahead, Ara,” David said, passing my books and his bag. “I’ll brave the cafeteria lines.”

  My fingers tightened around his backpack, finally touching something that belonged to him. “Sure, thanks, David.”

  He tried to smile, but his clearly agitated gaze kept drifting toward Emily. “Anytime.”

  As he turned away, I squatted down and reached into my bag. “David. Money.”

  “Keep it.”

  “No way.” I stood up. “Take it.”

  “Ara.” He held his palm against my outstretched hand, glaring down at me.

  “David.” I glared back.

  “Come on.” Emily grabbed my arm and dragged me gently away. “One thing you’ll learn pretty fast is not to refuse David when he wants to spend money on you.”

  I turned my head slowly to look at her. “How do you know that?”

  “David and I have been friends for a while.” She watched him walk around the corner. “We used to be closer, but…”

  “But?” I probed.

  “Nothing. We’re just not anymore—people grow apart.”

  With a heavy sigh, I grabbed our bags and books and headed into the auditorium behind Emily. “I can’t let him buy me lunch all the time—when’s it going to stop?”

  She giggled, walking ahead of me. “It’s not.”

  Sinking into my quilt, I drifted, floating in that blissful moment between sleep and wake, where dreams mingle with reality, slowly and magically merging until everything in the now disappears. Here, in this halfway world, I could be with David in any form imaginable; friend, girlfriend, lover.

  I drew a deeper breath and settled into the fantasy, angling my face to the warmth of the summer sun as it kissed my skin, lighting everything around me with a yellow glow.

  “Hey there, beautiful.” David landed beside me in the grass.

  “Hey.” I smiled, pulling petals off a daisy, whispering, “He loves me; he loves me not.”

  “Don’t do that.” He cupped my hand, crushing the flower slightly.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t say he loves me not.”

  I looked across at him and, seeing his playful smile, returned one. “Why can’t I say it?”

  “Because it’s not true.” He ditched the flower and rolled me onto my back, landing beside me, with the grass closing in around us.

  “Then what is true?” I asked, twirling my hair around my finger.

  “The phone,” he said.

  “Huh?” I frowned, staring up at him until the song of a bird transformed into a high-pitched screech, then sat bolt upright in my bed, leaving the dream behind to a cold-slap reality. “Oh, shut up,” I said to the phone, flopping back down with my pillow over my face.

  To my surprise, it actually did, and I once again drifted off to fantasyland, finding myself beside a tree, with warm beams of light wrapping around me again, but no David.

  “David?” I looked behind me, above me, below me. He was gone. But where did he go? People didn’t just disappear from fantasies.

  “Ara-Rose?”

  I turned slightly, seeing only my reflection in the glass of the phone booth behind me, disappearing with each flicker of a fluorescent light outside the corner store. “Mum?”

  “Ara-Rose, where are you?”

  I felt the weight of the pay phone in my hand then and squeezed it. “I had a fight with Mike.”

  “With Mike? What were you doing at Mike’s? I thought you went to Kate’s.”

  “Mum?” I said, panic rising in my tone; I could see her face then, in the glass; she rubbed her forehead, washing away the weeks of sleepless nights. She looked tired and so worn. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this, but I didn’t care. “I’m scared.”

  “Tell me where you are?”

  “Mum, they’re coming for me.”

  “Who?” She leaned forward, her reflection showing the panic in her eyes. “Ara, tell me where you are.”

  I looked over my shoulder at the dark shadows, stealing the light from the pavement as they fingered their way along—getting closer. “You need to come, Mum. You just need to come get me.” I kept looking over my shoulder, unsure what was out there; I couldn’t see past the street light over the booth, but I could feel them, knew they were lingering, waiting for me to hang up.

  “I’ll come. Just stay there, Ara. Just stay there.”

  “Hurry,” I said, feeling a coolness take the air. Then, the line went dead. “Mum.” I hung up the phone a few times, pressing all the numbers, but the receiver was empty—no static, no noise. Behind me, the lights in Ronnie’s store went out and the wind stopped; I touched a hand slowly to the glass, and another came up to meet it.

  “Ara!” A deep voice snapped my mind back like an elastic band on a wrist; my eyes flung open.

  “Dad?”

  “Ara, your phone’s been ringing every few minutes for the last twenty. Will you please answer it?”

  I rolled over, rubbing the haze from my eyes. “The phone?”

  “Yes,” Dad said and closed my door, leaving me in darkness.

  I jumped up, grabbed the phone, tripping over the clothes and shoes on my floor, and landed in my desk chair. “Hello?”

  “Hey, baby, did I wake you?”

  “Mike?”

  “Yeah, how you doin’?” he asked, then took a quick breath. “Oh, yeah, the time thing. Sorry, Ara. I’ll go.”

  “No, wait.”

  “Yeah?” he said softly.

  “I…” I put the phone to my other ear. “I was dreaming about her, Mike.”

  He went silent. “Your mom?”

  “Yeah.” My voice cracked. “I keep thinking she’s gonna come pick me up and I’ll go back home again, and—”

  “Aw, Ara, please don’t cry, it—you’ll break my heart, baby.” He completely lost his voice then. ‘I just, you don’t know how much it kills me that I can’t be there with you right now.”

  I smiled softly, sniffling. “I’m sorry I didn’t take your calls the last few months, Mike.”

  “I know, baby girl. Okay. And—you know me, Ar. I’m always here for ya, no matter what. Okay?”

  I wiped the mess of warm, salty tears from my cheeks. “I just—it’s been so hard without you.”

  “Have you talked to your dad, yet—about what you told me? Have you told anyone?”

  My head rocked from side to side.

  “Ara, I can’t hear you when you shake your head.” He chuckled.

  My sudden burst of laughter forced static down the phone line. “You always know how to make me laugh.”

  “Look, you need to talk to someone.” His voice took on the serious note he seemed to have adopted over the past two months. “It’s not healthy for you to keep all of this inside, baby girl. You said you made friends? Why don’t you have a girlie night and do one of those big deep-and-meaningful things?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know them well enough, Mike. I’m just not ready to share that part of my life with anyone.”

  “Well, what about that David dude. I bet he’d listen?”

  “He might. But, I don’t want him to hate me if I tell him the truth.”

  “Ara, grow up. You need to talk to someone about this. Now, I don’t care who—your dad, Vicki, Sam even, but—”

  “I’ve got you to talk to.”

  �
��I’m not there, Ara.”

  “You will be soon, right? My dad said you can stay here.”

  “Yeah? Tell him thanks. And stop changing the subject.”

  “I’m not. Look, I’ll talk to someone, okay. I do know you’re right. I just—”

  “You’re just gonna bottle it up until you’re in a straightjacket.”

  I bit my tongue.

  “I’m gonna call you the second my interview’s booked, Ara, and we’re gonna pencil in a day for me to arrive. Then, if you haven’t told David or Emily or someone what happened, I’m gonna do it for you,” he said. “Got it?”

  “Okay, Zorro.” I laughed. “When do you think they’ll do your interview?”

  “Two weeks or so.”

  “Cool. So, Mike, why did you call?” I asked, realising that he woke me.

  “I was just thinking ‘bout ya, that’s all. The ice cream man came past, playing that stupid jingle. Made me remember the time he ran over your foot—when you chased him for your change.”

  My left toes twitched. That stupid truck cost me six weeks off ballet and a permanently demented pinkie toe. “Well, I’m glad it brings you happiness to remember me in pain.”

  “Aw, I really miss ya, kid,” he breathed the words out. “I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “Night, Ara.”

  “Night.”

  Chapter Six

  “David! You waited?”

  “Of course I did.” He laughed, watching me cross the road, still pulling my shoes on. “Stayed in the shower too long, did we?”

  “No, I uh—” I placed my bag in his outstretched hand, a little puffed. “My diary was begging me to write in it—I was compelled to obey.”

  “Compelled?” David nodded, smiling.

  “Yeah, you know how it goes with these things,” I joked. “If you don’t do as the voices tell you, they just get louder.”

  David stopped walking. “You hear voices?”

  “What?” I frowned. “No. It was a joke.”

  “A joke?”

  “Yeah. You do know what a joke is, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. Just—”

  “Just when it comes from me it isn’t funny.” I nodded.

  “Not about hearing voices.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you faze out all the time. If you’re hearing voices as well, it might mean there’s something wrong.”