Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  “Hang on!” I yelled as though the caller would hear me. But, quick as I tried to be, my dress bunched up on my not-quite-dry skin and got stuck halfway down my waist. I tugged harder, a rise of frustration nearly turning to tears. I didn’t want to miss that call if it was Mike ringing before he got on the plane. What if it crashed and I never got to hear his voice again? What if it—

  “Hello.” David’s melodious voice filled the room.

  I froze, listening.

  “Yes, she’s getting dressed.”

  Oh, God, don’t tell him that! He’ll freak out, thinking you’re watching me, or something.

  I pulled my dress down and tripped all over myself to get out of the wardrobe. “I’m here. Gimme the phone.”

  David grinned, holding his index finger up. “No, nothing like that.”

  “David,” I huffed impatiently, opening my hand for the phone.

  “Yes. It’s all she’s talked about for the last couple of weeks,” he said, then laughed.

  “Okay, okay. That’s enough.” I snatched the phone from him and, assuming I knew who he was talking to, said, “Hi, Mike.”

  “Hey, baby girl. How’s things?”

  “Great. You at the airport?”

  “Yeah, just thought I’d make sure you hadn’t forgotten me.”

  “Yeah right. It’s all I’ve talked about, isn’t it?” I poked my tongue out at David.

  Mike laughed. “Well, I’ve been looking forward to it, too. And I expect the biggest hug you’ve got tucked into those skinny little arms tomorrow, Ara.”

  “Oh, trust me, I’ve been practicing my squeezing,” I said.

  “With David?” he teased.

  “Uh-huh, but you get a different kind of squeezing.”

  “Oh, fine then, I know where I stand.” I could hear the amusement behind his feigned insult, and I heard David scoff.

  “Still in exactly the same place as always,” I said, trying to ignore the hidden meaning behind David’s throaty noise.

  “Okay, well, have fun today and… I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  “Yep, bye.” I had to dig my heels into the carpet to stop from bouncing around like a little girl. And as the phone line went dead, severing the connection to my best friend, an empty feeling swallowed my soul for a second, until I looked at David. But he looked troubled—leaning back in my chair, drumming his fingers on the desk, his thoughts a million miles away. “David?”

  He looked up at me, snapping out of his stare.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You’re right.” A very cheeky grin lit his eyes. “He did not approve of my being here while you were getting dressed.”

  “So?”

  “So, he’s overprotective. I know the sort, Ara. He will ask questions about me.”

  “Can you read his thoughts over the phone?” I said as I walked over and leaned my butt on the desk.

  David shook his head. “No. I can only read certain electrical wavelengths, which don’t travel through phone lines. But I’ve been around humans and been subjected to their thought-patterns long enough to make conclusions from very little detail.”

  “Like one of those cool detectives on those crime shows?”

  David laughed, resting his chin on his hand. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “And you think you’ve summed Mike up, huh?”

  He scratched the corner of his brow, taking a deep breath. “All I know is it’s a good thing I won’t be here during the day. I can’t be around you if he is.”

  “Why?”

  “I might be tempted to kill him,” he muttered with a certain amount of animosity.

  “Wow. Hostile much?”

  “You don’t get it,” he said, folding his arms. “Your history together has afforded him some unspoken claim to you that no new relationship stands a chance to sever.”

  My cheek tightened on one side with a half-smile. “You know, you’re cute when you’re jealous.”

  “Ara, be serious.” David inclined forward, elbows over his knees. “He’s obviously a smart man. If he gets wind there’s a guy in your room every night, you know what he’ll do.”

  “Look.” I sat on the desk, letting my bare feet dangle. “You might think he’s got some weird Spidey sense that can track the scent of another male like a teacher to cigarettes in a schoolbag, but I’m not sure I really care if he finds out I have a guy in my room at night.”

  He looked up at me. “Ara, if he finds me in your room and we’re forced to meet in person, it will only be a matter of time before he starts asking all the wrong questions.”

  “And I’ll give all the wrong answers. I won’t tell him the truth about what you are.”

  “It’s not the questions he asks you that I worry about; it’s the ones he asks himself.”

  “Well, is it that bad if he figures out what you are?”

  “You mean aside from the fact that he’d steal you away from me, take you across the country and lock you in a closet, then fly back here and start a pitchfork rally against me?”

  I laughed, rubbing my hand over my neck, where droplets of cold water dripped down from my hair. “You know, the chances are he’ll figure something’s not right anyway. I mean, especially when I refuse to laze around and watch movies with him at night.”

  “I know. But…” He sighed. “This is just hard for me, Ara. I don’t even want to think about you lazing around with another man.”

  “Well, just don’t think about it that way. It’s like I said: I might still have feelings for him, but I also have feelings for you. And I would never do anything inappropriate with him, David. You can trust me.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “But you don’t trust him?”

  “No, I don’t trust the fact that you’re human.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means… you’re barely clutching on to life right now. Your whole world has been turned upside-down, and you need stability. He is that stability—has always been—and your subconscious mind is going to force you to reach out for him. Not for me.”

  “Wow, you should be a psychologist,” I laughed, and he nodded. “If only you weren’t so full of shit.”

  “You don’t have to believe me,” he said. “I’m old, Ara. I’ve seen it all; I know how these things go.”

  “Well, I don’t. I’m young and I have no idea what’s going to happen in our future, but I know for a fact that I won’t betray you with Mike. Besides, he doesn’t even love me like that, David.”

  “He does.”

  “Does not.”

  “He does, and you’re going to realize that when you see him. And as soon as you do, it’ll rehash all your old feelings and you’ll fly lovingly into his arms.”

  “Then you don’t know me very well at all.”

  He stood in front of me, lifting his hand to cup the side of my neck. “I know you won’t betray me, but your human instincts will drive your heart toward him in order to protect you from me. You won’t have much control over that. It’s purely self-preservation.”

  “Wow. It’s worse than I thought: you really don’t know me.” I smiled, laying my hand over his. “Besides,” I added, my entire heart melted by those loving green eyes, “when you’re gone, missing you will be way more damaging than anything else life could throw at me, so maybe my heart will do everything in its power to protect me from that. Maybe I’ll decide to become a vampire.”

  David shook his head. “You won’t. And you will one day get over me. Personally, I will exist as if I were a rose without the grace of rain. There will be no peace for me—ever. But you will eventually be fine.”

  “What makes you think it’ll be so easy for me to move on?”

  “The human heart,” he said simply, “it does not love as deeply as a vampire’s.”

  That’s where he was wrong. Again. I knew a love more perfect and more devastating than any other feeling I’d ever had in my life; a love made tragic only by unfortunat
e timing. I would forever be David’s girl. After he was gone, I’d look for him in the face of every man I passed for the rest of my life, and though my physical existence on Earth would end one day, I knew in my heart that I would love him for eternity.

  The school bell ringing in the distance broke the silence in my room then. I watched David as he turned and stared out the window, the morning light shadowing and highlighting the contours of his body. All his thoughts seemed to fall away from the hold of his gaze and onto the world below my room, while my thoughts consumed the empty space around us. I didn’t care that he could hear them, and I didn’t care that if Vicki came home early from shopping she’d find David and I ditching school. Nothing mattered to me in the same way it used to. It all just seemed inconsequential with the idea that these were the last touches of light I would ever see on his skin. I would never see the summer sun making marbles of his emerald eyes again, never see it kiss his hair with tones of gold, and never again feel it warm his fingers as he touched me. All we had was one last day, and two weeks of nights. And even the nights would disappear in a countdown around us until he was gone. In this moment, I felt like an idiot for giving him up in exchange for a human life.

  “Come on.” He turned suddenly and smiled, offering his hand. “Let’s not waste this day on solemn thoughts.”

  “What do you want to do then?” I took his hand.

  “I wanna teach you a song.”

  “What song?” I asked, grabbing the guitar when he pointed to it.

  “One I wrote.”

  I stopped for a second and watched him sink down on my bed. “You write songs?”

  “Course I do.” He patted the space of mattress between his legs. “Sit here.”

  “O…kay.” I sat with my back against his chest, and David took the guitar, positioning it across my lap in front of us. “What’s the song called?”

  “The Knight of the Rose.”

  “What’s it about?” I asked, letting David take my fingers and place them on the strings.

  He paused. “You.”

  “About leaving me?”

  “No. It’s not a goodbye song; it’s a love song.” His tone softened away to near silence. “It was just written with the tears of farewell.”

  Somehow, that made it hurt more.

  David smiled against the side of my face, then took my hand again. “After the first chord, place your fingers here.”

  “What’s that chord? I’ve never seen it before.”

  “I think I invented it.” He laughed shyly, then strummed it once.

  My eyes widened. “Wow. That’s really… intense.”

  “Yes.” He arranged my fingers on different strings and pressed them down firmly, as if to ask if I had it. I nodded. “Okay. I’ll whisper the chords as we go along. I want you to know this song by heart, Ara.”

  “Why?”

  He moved my fingers back to A minor—the first chord. “So you can play it when you miss me.”

  I didn’t want to think about that right now. “Don’t be silly. I won’t miss you,” I said playfully instead.

  “My love”—he reached his right hand around to touch the strings—“if you never, not for even one second, miss me once I’m gone, then I will be happy eternally.” He pecked my cheek, drawing a smile to my lips, and gave the song life in the same breath, his fingers dancing in an elaborate pattern over the strings. We changed chords then, and the flow of my favorite notes, nearly each and every one I loved, filled every corner of the darkness in my heart. I could’ve sworn the room illuminated with bright white light. It was as if he’d taken every song that ever made me feel something and combined them, crafting the notes with an ethereal life force.

  David whispered the next chord in my ear, moving his fingers with mine. I wanted to separate myself from this world, try not to feel all the pain in this song, the loss, the dying hope of the future climbing to the surface and making me want to cry. He said it wasn’t a goodbye song, but it had all the sadness of parting in the flow of its notes. How could I not cry; how could I not fall to my knees right now and beg the universe for one chance? Just one little piece of hope that there’d be a happy ending for us. I’d give anything. Anything for that.

  The song floated softly to a haunting end, leaving the room silent for a heartbeat. I tried to take a breath but it came out of my lungs instead of going in, making the grief shriek from my lips.

  David pried the guitar from my tight grip and placed it on the ground, pulling me against him on my pillows. “Shh. It’s all okay, my love. Everything will be okay.”

  But he didn’t believe that. He couldn’t even convince himself.

  He stroked my hair back, tucking me up like he’d never let go, and the last of my strength dissolved. I closed my eyes and drifted away in his arms, allowing myself to dream for a moment that things were different—that David and I could be together for the rest of my life.

  Our future danced around in my head like a short black-and-white film. I walked toward that boy at the end of the aisle, whose green eyes reflected the awe in his heart as they fell over my white dress, his joy dissolving my nerves and making the people in the pews disappear. It was just us, alone on the edge of fulfilling one of our hearts’ greatest desires.

  As I finally came to stand beside him, he took my hand and smiled down at my bouquet: a soft, simple piece of completely white roses, with one immaculately blossomed red one set center.

  “What’s that one for?” David’s soft, warm breath brushed the top of my head, waking my mind a little as he spoke.

  “The part of my heart that will never belong to anyone else; the part of me that will always be only yours.”

  “How appropriate,” he said, and shifted under me as he reached into his pocket. “I have something—a gift for you—which comes bearing the exact same sentiment.”

  I looked up to the golden light of the morning sun on my walls, my eyes drifting from David’s lips, down the curve of his arm around my waist, and to his closed fist. “What is it?”

  He unfolded his fingers, revealing a pool of delicate silver chain, slightly covering a heart-shaped locket. “So you may never forget that you”—he pointed to the engraved rose on it—“are in my heart.”

  “David, it’s beautiful.” I turned the locket over and ran my finger along the fine inscription on the back. Though I wasn’t sure, it looked like it was written in French. “What does it say?”

  “Tu m’appartiens.” He kissed my cheek and smoothed my hair back, leaving a cool tingle behind where he linked the chain around my neck.

  As it fell onto my chest just below my collarbones, my hand rose up instantly to hold it tight. “What does that mean?”

  He slowly pressed his lips to my ear. “You belong to me.”

  “For as long as I live.”

  “No, mon amour. For all time.”

  “I like that,” I said, sitting back against him, and he wrapped his arms across my waist, holding me that way until the sun went down, stealing away the last day of our forever.

  24

  Orange shadows stretched across the highway in the early morning sun, and my thoughts seemed lost far beyond the car window too. I leaned my weary head on the glass, trying to hold on to that last moment before everything changed. Even though Mike was arriving today, excitement was not the first feeling I had as my alarm startled me from peaceful slumber: it was devastation, weighed down with a tight ache in my throat called sorrow. I really thought Mike’s coming to stay would ease the pain of losing David, or at least make me more decisive on the whole human or vampire thing. But I was wrong.

  Dad moved his gaze from the road and smiled at me. I knitted some semblance of a grin across my face, but nothing could make me smile for real. Thing was, with the days of losing David coming closer and closer, the idea of killing for love seemed less horrific. Not enough that I was ready to tell him that, or think it around him. I just… I needed guidance, I guess—a friend to advise me.
Or maybe a sign from Above.

  Oddly, at the exact moment I thought that, we turned onto the interstate and a giant black billboard with a white circle of light caught my attention. I spun in my seat and read the words on the perfume ad as we whizzed past: Let Fate Decide.

  Dad turned the radio off then, leaving my thoughts exposed in the silence as an idea took shape. I sat back in my chair, smiling. Maybe if I couldn’t decide what to do, I could ask a higher power to grant me an epiphany—or at least an answer. Mike loved me, but he in no way loved me like I loved him. It would take some miracle for his heart to change, just like the kind of miracle it would take to convince me to go with David and be a murderer. So maybe that was it; maybe that was my answer: if David was right, and Mike did magically have feelings for me—feelings he’d kept hidden—then I’d stay human, live my life, have babies, and one day die.

  But if I was right: if Mike really only loved me as a friend, then it’d be a sign that I should go with David and become a vampire. A killer.

  It was perfect. Like rolling the dice and saying ‘seven’. It removed any real responsibility from the decision-making for me, but it was what I needed right now.

  Dad looked sideways at me and changed gears as we slowed, coming into the airport. “You excited?” he asked.

  “Kinda nervous, actually.”

  “Nervous?” he said. “Why?”

  Part of me wanted to tell Dad about the ‘Tragic Rejection Moment’ between Mike and me, but the sensible part said to him, “It’s just been a while, is all. I’m not sure if we’ll be friends like we used to.”

  “Honey.” Dad pulled over in the pick-up zone and placed his hand on mine. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. You may have been apart for a while, but Mike’s been there the whole time. I’ve been talking to him every couple of days, giving him updates on you.”

  “Dad?” I groaned. “Really? I mean, I knew you were talking, but… updates? Come on—”

  Dad shrugged. “He asked. I told.”

  “I don’t know how you thought telling me that would make things better.” I folded my arms and looked out the window.