Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  He winked at me, a smile warming his face. “I thought you might need some shelter.”

  I pushed his arm from around my waist. “You need to go back to where you’re supposed to be.”

  “Right, um. I’m sorry.” He placed the umbrella in my hand, squeezing my fingers around the handle before stepping back into the rain.

  “Wait, David—” I reached out as I realized he took that the wrong way, but he strolled away too quickly, disappearing into the mist as the congregation dispersed suddenly, forming a semicircle around a hole in the ground.

  I scanned the crowd for my dad or Vicki, finding them beside the priest.

  The rain came down harder then, making my ears feel blocked with the noise. Droplets of cold water splashed up onto my shoes and wet my toes, while we stood around and waited for the boys to position the pine box above the ground.

  The priest readied himself, straightening the cloth over his shoulders while an altar boy tipped and swayed, standing on his toes to keep an umbrella over the man.

  “Friends and family,” he started, and the rain stopped abruptly, all eyes moving to the heavens for a moment as umbrellas closed like flowers at dusk. I leaned the one David gave me against a nearby headstone and folded my arms over my chest to keep out the cold.

  As the priest began again, Dad wrapped his arm around Mrs. Rossi and cast a quick glance at me. I smiled reassuringly. On the outside, I knew I looked strong, but the pressure of all the grieving people was starting to penetrate my emotional wall, and when I looked at Nathan’s mother—crying her heart out for her only child—the memory of Harry came flooding back to the surface with vengeance. I fought to suppress the grief, but it was just no good. All I saw was myself in place of Mrs. Rossi. I remembered how much it hurt. I knew what she felt, knew I couldn’t help her because nothing anyone said would ever make the pain go away.

  “As we lay this child to rest,” the priest said, “may the angels greet him in Heaven. Father, for you are the All Mighty…”

  But what if there was no Heaven? What if Harry’s spirit was lost out there where he died—alone, crying for us? He was too small to be alone. Too small to be gone. He shouldn’t have been there. He should’ve been safe in his bed.

  I wiped my face, smudging the rain into the tears.

  “Ara?”

  My mind snapped back to reality, to the people sobbing hysterically beside me, and David’s arm around me. “I’m okay,” I said, letting my gaze drift back to Nathan’s box.

  As it slowly lowered closer and closer to the ground, I thought about the empty space—the horrible moment which brings everything into reality the minute you leave the funeral and walk into that empty house. Before they’re gone, before you bury them in the cold, loveless ground, everything seems surreal, like they’re just on a shopping trip or somewhere in the house where you can’t hear them. But when their flesh touches the earth and settles in its final destination for all eternity, it takes with it the cloud, the safety of the cage that hides you from believing they’re never coming back. When Nathan’s mom got home she’d fall apart. She’d cry until there were no tears left and it would still do her no good. Nathan would never come back.

  Harry was never coming back.

  David’s grip tightened on my shoulders.

  All the things they’d miss out on circled around me, turning my hands to ice. It was too much to bear. Nathan would never graduate; Mom would never see me get married, or hold her first grandbaby; Harry would never go to school, never paint his first picture, never learn to walk. He never even got to have a birthday party.

  The oxygen around me felt overused. The blood in my head pulsed, and as the shivers ran from my hands, up my arms and into my chest, I heard a quiet gasp, and everything went black…

  * * *

  …Grains of sand fell through a narrow passage in a glass jar and hit the base with a soft pattering sound. The ground swayed gently beneath me, and the frosty rushing of my whole world felt calm now, closed in by the warmth of the summer sun. It was just David and me watching the rain fall onto the leaves above us, staying perfectly dry in the hidden clearing where I had my first kiss.

  But as I felt the rain on my skin suddenly, I looked up to an open gray sky and the nostril hairs of a man, his breath brushing my bangs. “Dad?”

  “Shh,” he whispered into my head. “It’s okay, honey. I’m taking you home.”

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted.”

  “I what?” I rolled my head to the side and looked around the church parking lot. “I fainted?”

  “I should have known better. It was just too soon,” Dad said to himself.

  “You’re going to be okay, Ara,” Vicki said from beside Dad, holding an umbrella over me while she dripped with rain.

  I touched my hand to the back of my neck and pulled out a piece of grass. “Did I hit my head?”

  Dad nodded. “David caught you, but he was a fraction of a second too late.”

  “He only stepped away from you for two seconds to place a rose into the, er… and you fell,” Vicki added.

  “I must admit, though”—Dad chortled—“he made it to your side quicker than I’ve ever seen anyone move. I almost didn’t see it myself.”

  “So he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Nathan?”

  Dad whispered something softly to Vicki—something ending in the word David. My ears pricked.

  “Is he”—I hesitated—“is David mad with me?”

  Dad’s head turned slowly to look at Vicki again.

  “Ara, why would he be mad with you? You didn’t mean to pass out,” Vicki said.

  No, but David was right. I should have let him take me home.

  Dad placed me in the backseat of the car and the door swung open on the other side.

  “I’m fine, Vicki, you can sit in the front with—” I started, but my eyes fell on perfection personified as David slid in beside me. And that was it. That was the final straw. I buried the ugly crumple of my face in my hands. I wanted to tell David he shouldn’t be here, making it harder to let him go, but as his arms fell around my body and he pulled me close, holding me so tight I couldn’t shake, none of that mattered. Even the soaking rain, making his suit icy cold against my cheek, didn’t bother me. I just needed him so badly.

  “Shh, sweetheart.” He stroked my hair, whispering into the top of my head. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  “No, it’s not.” I sobbed uncontrollably. “Nothing ever is.”

  “Don’t say that.” He slid down in the seat a little. “You mustn’t say things like that.”

  “Dad?” I lifted my head, speaking louder to project my voice over the heavy pounding of rain. “I’m so sorry. Did she see? Did Mrs. Rossi see?”

  “Ara, honey. Mrs. Rossi’s more worried about you, okay?”

  “Oh no.” My head shook against my hands.

  “Ara, please stop crying,” David asked softly, brushing my hair from my face.

  He smelled so good and he was just so sweet. And that rich orange-chocolate scent matched his gorgeously gentle personality so well.

  My sobbing stopped short for a second then when the ogre within my belly roared loudly, hungered by the thought of chocolate.

  “Ara? Did you eat breakfast?” Vicki asked in a high-pitched tone.

  David’s chest sunk as he exhaled deeply, pressing his cheek against my forehead. “No, she didn’t. Silly girl.”

  “Ara?” Dad sighed. “You know better than that. What were you—” He stopped, almost visibly biting his own tongue. “It doesn’t matter. When we get home, you need to go straight upstairs. Vicki and I will fix you some food and bring it up. Okay?”

  I nodded, letting David fold me against his saturated jacket again.

  15

  Dad let David carry me upstairs. I protested loudly, but David was stronger than me and rendered my pathetic attempt to wriggle myself free useless. When we stepped into the warm light
of my room, a wave of calm washed away the tight feeling in my chest. David stood me on the ground, pulled the quilt back on my bed, and then lowered me onto the mattress, running his hands down my legs to smooth the rain away before sliding my shoes off my feet.

  “Thanks.” I smiled down at him.

  “My pleasure.” He smiled back, stepping away to place my shoes neatly by my bedroom door. And something clicked then.

  The air stopped flowing to my lungs for a second, as pieces of my life over the last few weeks started to fit together. My window—that night I fell asleep crying at my dresser—I’d closed it. But it was open in the morning. And my shoes… I would never put them neatly by the door like he just did. Neither would my dad.

  “Lie back,” he said, and I did, all the while moving pieces of the puzzle around in my head.

  “David?”

  “Yes, Ar—” He stopped as he pulled the quilt up to my chin and met my eyes. I saw his throat move then as he looked over at the shoes.

  I looked at them, too. And that was all the confirmation I needed.

  “I can explain,” he said.

  “You snuck… into my room?” I said, disgusted and a little bit freaked out. “Why? I mean… how did you even get in here?”

  “I—” He stopped speaking and straightened up suddenly, keeping his eyes on me as he called, “Come in.”

  “Hey, honey.” Dad popped his head in, smiling widely at a plate in his hand. “Made you a sandwich.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I sat up. Though I was hungry and felt pretty sick because of it, all I wanted was for him to go away so I could figure out what the hell David was doing in my room that night and, more embarrassingly, how long he’d been watching me. If he saw me crying that way—ugly crying, with loud sobs and so much sniffling I gave up using a tissue and wiped it on my arm—I would be mortified!

  “Mrs. Rossi called,” Dad said, sitting on my bed as he handed me the plate. “She asked me to tell you that she was overwhelmed with happiness to see you today, and she said not to worry about fainting, because if you hadn’t done it first, she would have.” He laughed softly. “And then she added that she wouldn’t have had a handsome young man there to catch her.”

  David’s shoulders lifted once with a chuckle.

  “I told her I’d have caught her, but apparently”—Dad looked a little solemn—“I’m not a handsome young man.”

  I smiled softly. “It was nice of her to call.”

  “She was worried about you.”

  “We all were,” David said, then moved away and leaned on the wall beside my door, his arms over his chest, a thousand thoughts dancing across his face. And all I read there in his eyes and on his brow was fear.

  “Ara?” Dad waved a hand in front of my stare.

  “I’m okay, Dad.” I snapped back to the present, taking in my father’s worried expression. “Really. I guess I just need to eat.”

  He exhaled, nodding. “Okay. Do you need some time alone?”

  “Just give me a second to talk to David?”

  “Sure thing, honey.” Dad stood up, and patted David on the shoulder as he passed, shutting my door behind him.

  The silence in the room hovered over the howling winds outside. David closed his eyes for a second, rolling his chin toward his chest. I wondered who should speak first: the prosecutor or the defendant.

  “Eat,” he said out of the blue.

  My eyes narrowed and I bit my teeth together. “I think you have a few confessions to make before you go telling me to do anything.”

  David sighed, exasperated. “I’m not talking until you’ve fed the ogre.”

  “Fine.” I picked up the sandwich and tore a corner away with my teeth. “Happy?” I muttered with my mouth full, slamming the sandwich back down on the plate.

  David nodded once, a frown erasing the usual smile from his eyes. Everything about him seemed odd without that smile. Empty, almost.

  “Okay,” I said after I swallowed, “I’ve eaten now. ’Fess up.”

  He walked slowly over and knelt by my bed, taking both my wrists and setting them gently beside my legs. “I love you. I would never do anything to hurt or dishonor you, and I would never intrude on you in a corrupt manner. But I did come to your window that night and I did come in to your room.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been worried about you. Your dad said you were suicidal, and I thought he might be correct. After we”—he rocked his jaw, blinking a few times—“after I kissed you and then took you home, I knew what you were thinking, Ara. I knew you just wanted to stop the pain. I was really worried you might. So I”—he shrugged and jerked his head to my window—“I came to check on you.”

  “So it was you who put me into bed?”

  David swallowed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered. But when I found you at your dresser, I nearly fell to pieces. You looked so alone, so destroyed and, Ara, I did that to you. I made you sad because I never told you the truth about me leaving. If I had, you would never have let yourself fall so in love with me, and the worst part is, that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

  “How could you be so mean?”

  “It wasn’t my intention to be mean. I just wanted to love you. I really honestly thought things would be different—that when it came time for me to leave, you either wouldn’t care as much as you did, or you might—” He exhaled, rubbing his brow.

  “Might?”

  “Might come with me.”

  I sat up and moved the plate off my lap. “Would you want that—really?”

  He frowned. “Ara. That’s all I want.”

  “Well—”

  “But if you come with me, my love, you couldn’t live a normal life. You wouldn’t be able to see your family anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… because of my dark secrets.”

  “Well, what are they, then?”

  “Are you ready to hear them? Are you ready to hate me?”

  “Yes!”

  He laughed, shaking his head, and sat on the bed beside me. “I shouldn’t be doing this today. Not while you’re in a poor emotional state.”

  “No way!” I wagged my finger. “Don’t you dare make excuses, Mr. Knight. It’s time to let me in.”

  “Fine.” He laughed shyly. “But…”

  “But?”

  “But.” David turned and grabbed both my arms, squeezing firmly. “By hearing this, you’re… well, you’re making a verbal agreement, Ara, as am I.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I have obligations to fulfill, should this go bad.”

  “Which are?”

  His fingers tightened around my arms again.

  “David, what?”

  “I might have to kill you.”

  “What?”

  “If…” His jaw went tight. “Look, in the past, people have reacted poorly to this news and there have been instances where some in my position have had to kill those they’ve told.”

  My mouth hung open. I rolled my quilt away and slowly rose to my feet.

  David shuffled back, letting me walk to the other side of my room.

  “Would you really be capable of doing that to me?” I said.

  He looked down. “I don’t want to. Which is one of the many reasons I haven’t wanted to tell you thus far.”

  “You’re serious! You’d kill me?”

  “No, Ara. But if you”—he lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder at my door for a moment—“if you told anyone, if you freaked out, it would be out of my hands.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so I won’t freak out.”

  “I hope you don’t.” He patted the mattress. “Sit with me.”

  I shook my head.

  “Ara, please?”

  I shook it again. If this secret was so bad he might have to kill me, there was no way I was sitting next to him. No way!

  He looked down at his hands, readying himself with a breath before he said, “Ara, I�
��m a vampire.”

  “A what?”

  “A vampire.” He flashed his sharp fangs. “You know, guys who drink blood—fangs, all that stuff.”

  A loud snort of laughter grumbled in my throat.

  “It’s not funny, Ara.”

  “No, it’s cool. Hey, can you turn me?” I elongated my neck. “I think I’d suit fangs.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t a joke.”

  I folded my arms. “Prove it.”

  “P—” He shook his head, wiping the incredulity from his lips. “Prove it?”

  “Yeah. If you’re really the un-dead, prove it.”

  “Ara, we’re not un-dead.” He stood up. “And what do you want me to do to prove it, eat you?”

  I shrugged.

  He groaned. “Fine.”

  I had time only to smile before he rushed in and wrapped his arms around my waist, burrowing his face into my neck. The tickly sensation of his cool breath made me laugh, but the feel of his lips on my skin made me shiver in a new way.

  “You are a very silly girl,” he said calmly, kissing my shoulder. “What if I’d bitten you? What then?”

  “If you really were a vampire, you could do a lot worse than bite me, if you wanted to.”

  “Right. If I wanted to.” He stood behind me and gently swept my hair over my shoulder, clearing way for his lips. “Remember that when you freak out in a minute, okay?”

  I laughed. “Sure thing.”

  “Okay. Now, see that rise of hills over there?” His finger aimed to the eastern hills where the first rays of sunlight touched the earth each morning.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a garden on the other side. Blue roses grow there. Have you seen it?” He went back to kissing the curve of my shoulder.

  “The Applebury Reserve?” My eyes rolled to a close, lost in pleasure. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  “It’s twenty miles away. How long do you think it would take to run there?”

  “I don’t know? Depends how fast you run. And then, calculating that would involve math, so…”

  David’s irritation blew out in cold air through his nose. “What if…?”

  “What if?” I said back.