Super Dark (Super Dark Trilogy)

by Tanith Morse

  Then he tilted the mirror slightly and I was finally able to see his reflection. I blanched. A horrendous stab wound ran all the way from his neck to the hard contours of his lower abdomen. This wasn’t the minor injury he’d led me to believe. He needed serious medical attention.

  Silently, I crept back to the bedroom. I didn’t want him to think I was spying on him. I knew I’d have to make do without that drink of water. As I slid back under the duvet, my mind was fraught with worry. Why was Lee being so stubborn? Why didn’t he go to hospital? Why was he gambling with his life like this?

  Tired and drained, I passed out the second my head hit the pillow.

  The next morning, I woke to the sound of harsh winds and a tree branch banging against the window. With a groan, I buried my head in the pillow, trying to drown out the noise, but it was no use. I just couldn’t get back to sleep.

  I sat up on my elbows and scrutinized my surroundings. Lee’s room looked quite different in the daytime. The shades were drawn, but the door was open just enough to illuminate the room. The walls were plain and white, the furniture as tasteful and understated as in the living room. There were no photos on the dresser, no little trinkets lying here and there to indicate anything about its owner. There is something decidedly soulless about this bedroom.

  Sliding out of bed, I felt the first pangs of a major hangover. My whole body ached and my mouth tasted like I’d swallowed a bitter pill. The red dress I’d borrowed from Becky was torn and clung to my body like a soiled bathing suit. I badly needed a shower.

  Stumbling toward the bedroom door, I noticed a pile of fresh towels and a fluffy white dressing gown lying over a chair. My heart warmed at the sight of them.

  How thoughtful of him.

  Gathering them into a bundle, I headed for the bathroom and was shocked to find everything spotlessly clean. The blood-soaked towels and pools of red had miraculously vanished. The whole place now smelled of bleach.

  How efficient of him.

  Glancing in the basin mirror, I cringed when I saw how sunken my face was. Dark bags circled my eyes and there were smatterings of dried blood encrusted around my nose. The bruise on my cheekbone had turned a horrid purple color and would probably take weeks to heal.

  Turning away in disgust, I filled the bathtub with water and took a long, hot soak. Then I towelled myself down, slipped on the dressing gown and went downstairs. As I entered the living room, my nostrils were greeted by the wonderful aroma of coffee and fried bacon.

  “Morning,” Lee called from behind the partition. “Did you have a good sleep?”

  “Yes, thanks. How about you? How was the sofa?”

  “Fine. Slept like a log.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Around eleven.”

  I stepped into the kitchen. He was frying bacon and eggs in a saucepan and the coffee machine was cooking up something gorgeous.

  “Hope you like bacon,” he said, smiling. “They say it’s the best cure for a hangover.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Slyly, my eyes took their time to travel down the length of his perfect physique. Even when Lee tried to pull off casual he still looked as if he’d stepped out of a TV commercial. This morning, he was dressed in his favorite black fitted sweater with a pair of gray tracksuit bottoms. I was astounded by how well he looked, considering the ordeal he’d been through. In fact, this is the handsomest I’ve ever seen him. His skin was positively glowing, his damp hair twisted in spiral curls from a recent shower.

  For a second, I was so captivated by him that I forgot to breathe.

  “Two eggs okay for you?” He took the pan off the grill and shook the contents onto a plate.

  I nodded dumbly. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it.

  “Lee …” I faltered, my nerves getting the better of me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Um, how’s your chest? Are you still going to get it checked out at the hospital?”

  “No need. I managed to bandage it up pretty good last night. Everything’s fine now.”

  I swallowed hard and licked my lips. “You don’t need to play the tough guy around me, you know. Sometimes it’s okay to admit you’re human, just like the rest of us.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “I saw you in the bathroom last night. I saw the blood and I saw how badly that bastard cut you. That type of wound isn’t gonna heal by itself. It needs proper medical attention. And shouldn’t you be getting a tetanus shot or something? What if the knife was rusty?”

  He smiled broadly, showing pearly white teeth. “Why don’t you just lay off, huh? I told you I’m fine.”

  I folded my arms. “Prove it.”

  “Come again?”

  “Prove it,” I repeated. “Show me your chest. Show me this wonderful first aid job.”

  Lee moved over to the sink and took down a mug from the shelf. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” He ran the mug under the cold tap and downed the water in one gulp.

  I was taken aback by the frostiness in his voice, but refused to back down. “I won’t let this drop, you know. I’m gonna keep on at you till you set me straight one way or the other.”

  He slammed the mug down on the sideboard. “Okay.” He turned and looked at me. “Okay, if you insist. I’ll show you.”

  Slowly, he began to undo the top buttons on his sweater, his movements unhurried, sensuous, like he was performing a striptease for me.

  My pulse thudded in my veins. There was a strange glow in his eyes; an intensity I found deeply overwhelming.

  Watching me, studying me, holding me spellbound, he gradually lifted his sweater above his head and dropped it to the floor. There was a rumble of thunder as rain pounded against the glass. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn beeped.

  And then there was only him and me. Two hearts beating as one.

  The only two people in the world.

  Gulping painfully, I forced myself to look at him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were no bandages. His chest was totally free from scarring, the skin around where the slash had been as smooth and flawless as his face.

  There had to be some kind of mistake.

  “B-but, I don’t understand. How is this possible? This doesn’t make …” My voice faltered, my eyes straying from his. “I’m not crazy, Lee. I know what I saw. Yesterday, everything was different. It was! There was a huge wound …”

  “You’d had a lot to drink,” he murmured. “And when you’ve had a lot to drink, sometimes your mind can play tricks on you.”

  “But all that blood in the bathroom. On the towels. Everywhere. How the hell …?”

  “You ask too many questions.” He took a step forward and put his face very close to mine, as if he were going to kiss me. Then he started talking in a soft, low voice that sent shivers through me. “Be honest. You just wanted to see me topless, didn’t you?”

  “No,” I replied feebly. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” His beautiful, pouty lips were now half an inch away, tormenting the peripheries of my mouth. I didn’t dare move. He was so close that I could feel his chest pressing into me, the firmness of his muscles scorching me through my dressing gown. My body was crying out for him; my knees felt so weak I thought they’d buckle from under me.

  “Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” he said briskly, taking a step back. “You can clearly see there’s nothing to worry about.”

  I started breathing again.

  Stooping down, he picked up the sweater from the floor and started putting it on. He’d only got about halfway when my eyes suddenly widened.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I didn’t say anything. I just stood there, staring, adding him up point by point, trying to make sense of the insanity closing in on me. As he’d knelt down to pick up the sweater, I’d caught a glimpse of his bare arm which, until now, had always been covered by long sleeves.

  This is impossible! It
can’t be!

  “What is it?” he demanded again, his voice twisted with paranoia. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “That birthmark on your arm …” I said, shivering. I wanted to scream but no sound came. The birthmark ran from the top of his left shoulder to the tip of his elbow and resembled a large tea stain. It was so distinctive, so unique, that I could never have forgotten it.

  And I hadn’t forgotten. Not in the ten years since I’d last seen it.

  “Lee … take off your contact lenses,” I whispered. He opened his mouth to protest, but I silenced him. “I know that’s not your real eye color. Enough with the games, already. Take them out. Now.”

  Conceding defeat, Lee turned to the sink and popped them from his eyes. I was almost afraid for him to show me the result, but managed to stand firm.

  “Look at me,” I commanded.

  Hesitantly, he turned around to face me, his eyes tightly closed. And then he opened them.

  “Jesus Christ!” I cupped one hand over my mouth.

  His eyes were as deep and blue as the ocean, eyes that were more lovely than his dark ones ever could be. Seeing them against his other features was like slotting in the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Everything fit together so perfectly.

  The sudden awareness of the truth, the sudden understanding of what was really going on, held me entranced and speechless.

  Perhaps deep down I’d always known.

  “Elliot,” I breathed.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I continued to stare. They say the body goes through changes during puberty, but this was something else. The face staring back at me bore little to no resemblance to the chubby seven-year-old I knew. It wasn’t just that he now had a man’s features. Everything else had totally changed. The nose, the cheekbones, the jaw line … everything. It was like looking at a different person entirely.

  Had it not been for the birthmark, I don’t think I would ever have made the connection. But now that I had, I saw there was something familiar there, the ghost of Elliot around his eyes and cheeks. The occasional way his brow creased when he was angry. Stolen glances in certain lights betrayed my best friend was in there somewhere. It was like him, and yet not him, all at the same time—a mind-bending paradox.

  “You’re not making any sense,” Lee said, walking out the kitchen toward the living room. “Why are you calling me Elliot?”

  “Because that’s who you are,” I answered fiercely. “Don’t lie to me. It’s written all over your face. You’re Elliot Marsh. I just know it.”

  Smothering a sigh, he strode to the panoramic windows and stood there for a while, staring out at the sheeting rain, a blank expression on his face.

  I slumped on the sofa, my arms folded protectively across my chest. I could only guess what was coming next.

  Twenty minutes passed and neither of us spoke. He stayed by the window, I stayed on the sofa, gazing down at my knuckles, wondering when he was going to break the silence.

  And then, out of nowhere, he started singing the theme tune from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

  Tears welling in my eyes, I finished off: “Heroes in a half-shell, turtle power.” A crazy laugh escaped my lips, a twisted, bitter sound that ridiculed the incongruity of it all.

  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had been our favorite TV show as kids, and their theme song was our mantra as we walked to and from school, starting at the age of five. I was Donatello, he was Leonardo. Hearing it sung back to me now, under such altered circumstances, was strangely cathartic—and more than a little disturbing. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that my suspicions were right.

  Numbly, I lay my body flat out on the sofa, my limbs splaying awkwardly over the arm rests. I couldn’t get my head around the enormity of this revelation and what it meant in the bigger scheme of things. It was too much to comprehend, too much to even think about. All I could do was stare up at the sky-colored ceiling and focus on inhaling and exhaling. That was all I could do to stop myself from breaking.

  And then I started talking erratically, more to myself than him, the words colliding into each other like a train wreck. “I don’t even know where to start. How to start. What to say. What to feel. How do I begin to fathom … no, I’ll stop, I’ll stop. I can’t take this right now.”

  “I wanted to tell you,” he said softly. “Really, I did. So many times. I came so close to coming clean, but somehow it never happened. I don’t know why. That day at the library, when I first saw you with Becky and Frasier, you weren’t supposed to see me. I only wanted to look at you— that was all. I wanted to see how your life was getting on without me. Then Becky came over and started asking all sorts of questions, and I panicked. I hadn’t planned on having to explain myself. So Lee Weaver was born. And from there, the situation kind of escalated.”

  That is the understatement of the year.

  I closed my eyes, listening to the rain hammering on the roof. Finally, I spoke. “Sometimes you can spend so long dreaming about something, trying to imagine how it will be, turning it every which way in your head—and then the reality comes and it’s never quite how you thought it would be. Isn’t that strange?” He didn’t respond, so I continued. “All this time you’ve been laughing at me, playing me for a fool.”

  “I never laughed at you,” he said. “Do you seriously believe I did this for a joke? Of course, I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way. I wanted to tell you right from the start but somehow … I just couldn’t. “

  “Do your parents know you’re alive?” I asked. “Have you told them?”

  “No, I haven’t got around to it.”

  Something inside me snapped. “You haven’t got around to it?” My voice twisted with anger. “Do you have any idea what your parents are going through right now? For ten years, I’ve watched two of the loveliest people I know die a slow death from heartbreak—and you’ve got the nerve to tell me you just couldn’t get around to it? Am I missing something here? Did it never cross your mind your parents might just want to know their beloved son is alive?”

  I slammed my fists against the sofa cushions. “Did you know your mum’s got an eating disorder because of you? She’s slowly wasting away from grief. But no, you couldn’t fit saving her life into your busy agenda. You prefer hanging out in nightclubs, flirting with people.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “Jeez, I’m so mad I could kill you, I really could …” I started counting to ten, focusing on my breathing again. I had to get hold of myself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. The part about wanting to kill you. It was cruel and I didn’t mean it. Forgive me.”

  “It’s okay,” he shrugged. “You were just letting off steam. I understand.”

  I drew myself back into a sitting position. Lee—or should I now call him Elliot?—was leaning against the curved window sill, his face the picture of disquietude. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I really did want to tell you. Somehow it just never seemed to be the right time.”

  I shot him a reproachful look. “Where have you been? Who were you living with? Were you out of the country? Why couldn’t the police find you?”

  He paused. “It’s complicated.”

  “Try me. I can do complicated. Whatever it is, you can tell me. Please, I need to know.”

  “I don’t have to tell you a damn thing!” he exploded. “How about what I’ve been through, huh? You’re so concerned about my parents, but what about me? Don’t my feelings come into it? Ever stopped to think there might be a reason for why I’ve behaved this way? You have absolutely no idea.” He shook his head. “I’m not ready to talk about this. Not now, maybe not ever. Understand? Stop pressuring me!”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to force back the inevitable tears that were coming. I only partly succeeded. Wiping the damp hair from my face, I managed to compose myself enough to speak again. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking proper
ly. It’s just been so much to take in, you know? But please, answer me this one question.”

  “Depends,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Does anyone else know you’re alive?” I asked. “The police?”

  “Not a living soul. Only you.”

  I felt weirdly privileged. “Please Elliot, I’m begging you, tell your parents. I know I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through. But do me this one favor.” My voice broke a little. “Neil and Anne … they love you so much. Please put them out of their misery.”

  Elliot’s face remained placid, his blue eyes distant. It was difficult to tell where his mind had taken him.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said at last. “Give me a couple of days, and I might be ready. But until then, you’ve got to promise me you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not even your mother. Until I’m ready to move forward, this has to remain between us. Do I have your word?”

  I hesitated, my heart riddled with indecision. This was way too big a promise to make. I didn’t want to lie to him, but could I really keep this to myself, knowing how many people’s suffering I could end with just a few words?

  “You’re hesitating,” Elliot snapped. “I guess that means you’re undecided. Well, perhaps this will be a deal-clincher for you. Breathe a word to anyone, and you’ll never see me again. I mean it, Sam. If I find that you’ve blabbed, I’ll pack up and leave Elmfield for good, and you won’t know where to find me.”

  “All right, I promise,” I said.

  “Good girl.”

  For a moment, we held each other’s gaze, a thousand words unspoken between us: two frightened kids trying to fathom where all that time had gone.

  And then I stood up and took a step toward him. “I need you to hold me.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Please don’t make me beg.”

  He looked a little shocked by my boldness, but he relented and wrapped his arms around me. I nestled my face deep into his chest, my breath and my tears burning hot. For the first time in ten years, I felt human again. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” I choked. “It’s been such agony. Always thinking the worst, never knowing what news the day would bring. And your parents were right all along. They have always said you were alive. They never, ever gave up hope.”