Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  “Yup. It’s why I take History.”

  “That’s… disturbing.”

  “Not really.” She shrugged, gnawing the tip of her pen. “You could look at it as though your dad is inspiring my education.”

  I wondered if he’d feel the same way. Instead of rolling my eyes at her, I turned my head back to watch Dad writing the words ‘Religious History’ on the board.

  “Oh, come now, it’ll be fun and you know it,” he announced to the groaning room, then turned back to write on the board again.

  Emily leaned in. “He’s right,” she whispered. “He always makes boring topics fun.”

  “I know.” I smiled to myself. “He even used to do all the voices of characters when he’d read to me.”

  “He does that in class”—Emily laughed—“when he reads direct from text books. Sometimes he puts on different accents, like, perfectly.”

  As I went to laugh, my eyes darted quickly from my dad to a boy beside me, who jolted forward in his seat, a scrunched-up piece of paper bouncing off his head. He spun around, presenting his middle finger to the boys up the back, while my dad remained oblivious, glancing from a textbook to the whiteboard.

  “What a loser,” one of the boys said.

  I turned away and leaned closer to Emily. “Do they know that by making that L sign on their own heads, they’re technically making themselves look like losers?”

  She rolled her eyes. “They are losers.”

  I let out a small laugh.

  In the seat across from me, the boy scrunched up a sheet of paper under the concealment of his desk, keeping his eyes on my dad the whole time. I looked back at the jerks, who watched the kid with an amused kind of interest, until they broke formation suddenly, launching to their feet as he sent a paper cannon into enemy territory.

  “Oh, crap.” Emily covered her head with her notepad, smiling. “He just started a war.”

  I went to duck too, but Dad started in with something about Greek gods, forcing a cease-fire. The jerks sat down, and the boy knocked the ammo into his open backpack.

  “Looks like they’ll live to fight another day,” I said.

  “No,” Emily whispered under my dad’s lecture. “It’ll just be a cafeteria continuation.”

  “Great. Food fight?”

  She shrugged. “Probably.”

  “Will David be in that?”

  It was a simple enough question, but my newfound affections rested too thickly in the undertone. She turned to me quickly, and before she could say Oh, my God, you like him, I said, “So, does my dad know you have a crush on him?”

  “No way.” She leaned back, her eyes wide. “I would be so humiliated.”

  I scratched my temple, wondering how admitting it to his daughter was any less humiliating.

  “So, how was the library with David?” She kind-of sung his name.

  I froze, wondering which parts of my amazing morning I should leave out. “It was okay. He seems nice.” I nodded casually, but Emily’s smile grew.

  “You like him.”

  I cleared my throat, repositioning my chair. “I think he’s… a nice… kid.”

  She scoffed in the back of her throat. And I knew from the look on her face exactly what she was about to say. “You so do like him.”

  I wore the face of denial, but the cheesy grin in my eyes must have changed the wording on my neon sign to ‘Oh my God. I totally do.’

  “I knew it.” She pointed at me. “I knew it.”

  I grabbed her finger and pushed it down. “I do not like him.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen that look before. You have Knight Fever.”

  “Knight what?”

  “It’s what we call it when all the girls swoon over David.”

  “I’m not swooning.” I turned my face away.

  “He’s charming, isn’t he?” She leaned on her hand, her thoughts a million miles away. “It’ll kill you, you know? Knight Fever. Have you heard the I don’t date speech yet?”

  I drew a tight breath.

  “Oh no. You have. Oh, I thought…” Her head moved slowly from side to side. “Well, now I’m sure he’s gay. I mean, I was sure you had to be his type. We girls have pretty much got it down to a science.”

  “Got what down to a science?”

  “David’s type: the girls he will and most definitely will not… let’s just say scope, since it’s not like he shows an interest, per se.”

  “What’s scoping?”

  “Perving, you know… checking out.” She shrugged.

  Oh. “He scopes?”

  “He’s a hot-blooded male, Ara. Of course he does. Just, very subtly.” Her tone dropped its certainty. “Like, he never actually looks, but he’s nicer to some than others. So we’ve grouped together a sort of profiling on him.”

  “Okay, that’s just creepy,” I said, turning away.

  “It’s not”—she paused when my dad glared at us—“it’s not like that. It’s just a bit of gossip. We don’t have, like, a file on him or anything.”

  “So, you thought I was his type?”

  “Well, I was sure, but… I guess not.” She shrugged, staring forward.

  And that was it: a shrug. That’s all I was? I really liked this guy, and I’d just been graded down with a shrug?

  I drummed my fingers on the desk, trying really hard to focus on the legends of Zeus, but my stomach grumbled, making a fuss about my missed mid-morning snack—since high schools over here didn’t do recess. I mean, what kind of cruel institution was this?

  Eventually, my hunger-induced mood got the better of me. I spun back to Emily. “He walked me to every class. He was so nice, and really sweet,” I said, then told her about the bathroom gossip and the theatrical kiss.

  Her eyes rounded into her brow. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. So what’s the deal?”

  “He has. Never. Done. That before,” she exclaimed.

  “Okay? So, am I a bet, or a dare?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did someone tell him to befriend me? Am I gonna get a bucket of blood tipped on my head at the school dance, or something?”

  Emily laughed. “If it were any other guy, I’d say that’s probably the case. But David doesn’t really get in on things like that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, eyes darkening. “I won't go into detail, but… he’s the guy that usually puts a stop to that sort of thing. Well… ever since he and I first became friends, anyway.”

  “Then why did he give me the ‘no dating’ speech? I mean, he’s kind of given me the impression all morning that he actually likes me.”

  She slowly looked away. “I can not figure that boy out.”

  The bell rang loudly then, cutting my dad off and startling me. I swallowed the last of my next sentence, offering Emily a smile. David was right. She was easy to be around. At first, I thought she was a bit stuck-up, but that was clearly just a nasty first impression.

  We stood up then and I jammed my books into my bag, frowning at the elbow in my rib. “What?”

  Emily nodded across the room. “Look.”

  At the end of my gaze, David came into focus, hands wedged in his pockets, shoulder on the doorframe, and a very sexy grin across his lips.

  “Hi,” I mouthed, looking down at my bag before he could see my cheeks change color.

  “Mm-mm.” Emily shook her head, hugging her books.

  “What’s mm-mm?”

  “Hm, he likes you, Ara—he’s just trying not to show you.”

  “You think?” I looked back at David, now talking to my dad.

  “Come on, girl. Even Mr. Thompson noticed the way he was staring at you.”

  “Oh no.” I hid behind my hand. “It’s the touch-my-daughter-and-you-die speech.” I wanted to melt—hide under my desk or slink away.

  Emily hummed again, smiling. “They’re both so gorgeous.”

  “No, Emily,” I said flatly. “Only one of them is
gorgeous.”

  “I agree,” she said. “Your dad is so much better.”

  We both laughed, but mine ended in a sigh. “I hope Dad doesn’t give David the creeps. I only just met the poor guy.”

  “Nah, he’s just making the lines clear. Can you blame him?”

  “Yes. He’s breaking all the rules I set out before I came here.”

  “You gave your dad rules?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay?” Dad said, clapping David warmly on the shoulder.

  “I had no intentions of that, Mr. Thompson,” David said, looking him right in the eye.

  I watched on in horror. “Oh God, just hide me now.”

  Emily laughed. “Let’s just hope you don’t receive the tail-end of that lecture.”

  “Exactly what I was just thinking.” She must’ve known my dad pretty well. It felt kind of strange then to know I shared him with so many other kids. I always knew that, but never experienced it firsthand before.

  Dad sat back at his desk, and I chose the opportune moment, as he reached for something on the floor, to slink quietly past, sinking my neck into my shoulders.

  Emily, however, shamelessly stopped in front of the desk just to tell Dad how great his lecture was today. Never mind that she wasn’t even listening. I really quite liked Emily.

  “Hi, David,” I said.

  He just smiled and took my bag as we walked into the corridor.

  “Look, I’m so sorry about my dad. What was he saying to you?”

  He laughed once. “You know, it’s okay, Ara. If I was your father and I saw some punk kid look at you the way I’m sure I was, I wouldn’t have used words.”

  We stopped walking, and I groaned, slamming my back against a row of lockers as I tried to rub the ache of mortification from my temples.

  “Of course,” David continued after a short breath, “if I’d known he was your dad, I might’ve thought twice about—”

  “Hanging out with me?” I dropped my hands to my sides. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.” And so, I lost my first friend. I was in no way offended, though. I knew going to the same school my dad taught at would have its pitfalls. I’d accepted that.

  “No.” He stepped closer to me, shaking his head. “No, Ara, I would have thought twice about staring at you that way in front of him.” His words softened on the end.

  “Oh. Okay. Well, uh… I’m sorry I didn’t mention it earlier.”

  “Well, a heads-up would’ve been nice,” he said.

  “Touché.” I smiled, surprised he remembered me saying that in music class.

  “So?” We both said, and then laughed.

  “You go.”

  “No, ladies first.” He bowed his head.

  “Um, about before—”

  “Okay, wait.” His hand came up like a stop sign. “What I said before about dating? It was a mistake. I’m so used to having to give that speech that it just came out on auto. But I didn’t mean it for you. I was just illustrating how I don’t… I mean… I’m just not that kinda guy.” David’s fists clenched beside his jeans. “What I meant earlier was that I’d never date any of them. I didn’t mean that to include yo—I mean, what I’m trying to say is…” He looked directly into my eyes, and all the students in the hall seemed to disappear. “You’re not just any girl, Ara, I”—he swallowed—“I’ve known you only half a day and already I… like you.”

  My lungs went tight, like a softball just got lodged in my chest. I looked around, waiting for a group of kids to jump out from behind the lockers and laugh at me, screaming “April Fools”. Despite it not being April.

  David laughed to himself then. “I’m sorry. That was very forward of me. You don’t even know me yet, and I—”

  “Um, David?” I stopped him. Oh my God. I had no idea what to say. I mean, for all I knew, I had merely imagined him saying that, and at any minute, I’d wake up, still in Dad’s class with Emily beside me and a piece of paper stuck to the drool on my chin. I wanted David to like me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to admit it yet.

  I hugged my arms across my waist. “This is all a little bit weird.”

  “I’m sorry.” He ran his thumb across his upper lip, clearing his throat. “I get it.”

  “No, you don’t get it.” I chased after him as he turned away.

  “No. Really.” His smile radiated sincerity. “I really do. You don’t have to explain.”

  “But—”

  “We’re late.” He walked a little faster then, but slowed and turned back to face me, aiming his thumb toward the stairs. “It’s uh…. it’s this way.”

  I walked after him, smacking my own brow. I wished I could scream it out—tell him exactly what I was thinking. But I was never good with words. I always fumbled and tripped on them, and my ‘I like you too’ might easily come out as ‘You like me? Great, now I can show you how good my initials look beside your surname’. Creepy.

  David stopped walking. “Did you just say something?”

  “I uh—no.” I hope not. “Was I thinking out loud again?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. Did you mean to say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “You two!” A door burst open beside us, and an evil-villain-type-scary woman, who probably kidnaped Dalmatians, popped her angry face out. “Why aren’t you in class?”

  “Sorry, Miss Hawkins, we were just going,” David said slowly.

  “Well, make it quick, please, the bell has rung.” She slammed the door, leaving David and me alone again.

  The awkwardness of my accidentally vocalized thoughts separated us with an invisible line. I hoped I didn’t only let the word ‘creepy’ out. On its own, that could be totally misconstrued. Then again, talking about our paired initials would be much worse.

  “Lunch?” David said, shattering the tension.

  “Lunch?”

  “Yeah. Can I…” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking up from his shoes. “Can I walk you to lunch after class?”

  I smiled a simple smile. “Sure.”

  * * *

  The words ‘coward’, ‘moronically deranged’ and ‘stupid, stupid, stupid!’ stared at me from the page where an equation was supposed to be solved. But if I couldn’t find the formula for curing regret, how was chemistry going to be any easier?

  I dropped my face against my hands, slamming my elbows on either side of my book, the entire conversation with David playing in my mind like a regret marathon on repeat. How could I have just stood there with my giant gob open and let nothing out? I should’ve told him. I should’ve said, “Thanks, David. I like you, too.” What is wrong with me?

  “Everything all right, Ara?” Miss Swanson asked.

  I sat up straight and grabbed my pen. “Um, yeah. All good.”

  Satisfied, the teacher turned back to the board and, one by one, the students followed suit, leaving me alone again with my scribbles. After a while, I turned them all into doodles, each word transforming into a snake or overlapping circles and other various works of notepad art, all twining together to form two words: Knight Fever. I had it bad—bad enough to be drawing love hearts.

  I scratched them out quickly when I realized, practically ripping the page with my pen. It was way too early to use that word. This was in no way love at first sight. It was just my deep-seated need to feel accepted manifesting itself into emotions that weren’t real. I nodded, satisfied with my psychological assessment. That would’ve made Vicki proud.

  Except, I didn’t want it to be right. It felt good to like a boy. It felt good to be that distracted. But I couldn’t let that feeling divert me from the plan to put my head down, get through this year and hopefully, somewhere in the mix of all my moving on, I might actually move on—without dragging anyone down with me.

  When the lunch bell rang, I stayed in my chair, sharing my pendulum thoughts with the Bunsen burner. He didn’t talk back, thankfully, but I wished he would. If it was even a he. “Sorry,” I said, “If you’re a girl, y
ou have a lovely figure.”

  “I assure you, I’m a boy,” it said in a velvety voice. And my cheeks went really hot when I realized it wasn’t the Bunsen burner that spoke.

  All I could do was laugh, staring forward with a rock of tension making my head want to sink down. “I’m… just gonna go hide under the desk.”

  David cleared his throat into his fist. “Don’t do that. It’s okay, I talk to inanimate objects all the time.”

  “You do?” I said as he sat beside me.

  He nodded. “Is something on your mind, new girl?”

  “A lot of things are, but only one of them is bothering me right now.”

  He clasped his hands together on the table in front of him. “I’m all ears.”

  I tried to think of something funny to say, but couldn’t. “I’m sorry about before.”

  “Before what? Before the beginning of the world, before the coming of Christ?”

  “Ha-ha.” I slapped his forearm, noting the silkiness of his skin just below his sleeve. “No, about before, when I choked up.”

  He laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about that, pretty girl. I have a tendency to…”—he smiled—“over-share.”

  “Not really. All you said is you like me.” I dipped my shoulder a little, feeling funny about saying that out loud. “And I just choked because no one’s ever said that to me before.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a confession of love. Like can mean many things.”

  “I know.” I just wished it were a confession of love. “And I guess… in that sense, I actually like you, too.”

  He grinned, making a thin line of his lips. “Good. Then, friends?”

  “Yeah, friends.”

  David frowned then, looking down as my belly added its two cents. “Hungry?” he said.

  I wrapped my hands over the rumbling. “Uh, yeah, just a little.”

  4

  Though the rest of the school was unbelievably free of clichés, given that I’d expected a High-School-Musical type scene when I first arrived here, the cafeteria was not. The buffet style cabinets, the old ladies in hairnets, and even the giant hall with long lines of plastic picnic tables, looked just like something out of a movie. Nothing like the old window-in-a-wall we had at my old school, where you could buy pies and sandwiches and that’s pretty much it.