Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  “You still look like a little girl—standing there in that rainbow bikini.”

  I opened my eyes to the portrait of ocean, and Mike’s arm around my waist. “Well, I’m not a little girl anymore, Mike.” I pushed his hand off my skin.

  “I know. I just thought you looked cute, that’s all.”

  “I don’t do cute,” I said sarcastically, but a band of ‘gullsters’ beside us drowned out my retort with their hideous squawking. I jumped a little, clutching my locket. “God, I’m not used to that sound anymore.”

  “Scat!” Mike said, waving his hand at the gulls. “Get outta here.”

  “Don’t you dare kick that bird!” I grabbed his arm as he stalked toward them.

  “I never actually hit them, Ara. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Doesn’t matter, what if you did? By accident?”

  “Then I would apologize… profusely.” He bowed his head. “But you know what I wouldn’t apologize for?” The corners of his eyes sharpened as he smiled and leaned slowly closer, then the world came out from under me. I flew through the air, landing on my back in a massive cool splash, with Mike’s hand catching the base of my neck before my head went under water.

  I opened my mouth to yell, gurgling the salty burn of a wave down my nose and throat instead. “You asshole!” I coughed, sitting up as he jumped back. “I’m so gonna get you.”

  “You have to catch me first.” He started running.

  I hesitated only for a moment; we both knew I’d never catch him, but it was damn well worth a try. Each time I reached for him, he darted out of the way like we were both south poles on a magnet, but at last I managed to grasp the rim of his shirt. I closed my fingers in a tight grip, wearing a victory grin for only the breath it took him to roll out of it and leave me, and the shirt, face down in the sand.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, baby.” He laughed boisterously.

  I pushed up on my hands and sat hugging my knees, the sand sticking to the water all over my body, making me feel like a crumbed steak. Well, it was time this steak got a little revenge!

  “Ara, you okay? Did I hurt you?” Mike asked, leaning over me.

  Wrong move. He didn’t even see it coming. I grabbed the back of his neck and pushed the entire force of my shoulder into his chest, rolling his head under my arm as I flipped him into the water. His weight came as a shock; he never used to be that heavy. But he went down hard, wetting my legs, arms, shoulders, and the kid a meter down from us, as the water exploded out from under him.

  “Well,” he said, clasping his hands over his belly, taking a breath after a wave rolled him. “Girl: one. Guy: nothing.”

  I stared at him, an impish grin making my eyes small, wondering if I should point out that we both knew he let me flip him. “Well, you taught me that move, oh-wise-Master.” I sat down on the edge of the ocean. “You should be wary of your students; they can supersede you.”

  He rolled onto his stomach and smiled at me, the magic of the ocean lighting him like a happy feeling. He seemed more alive, more spirited, sort of… free here. He belonged on the beach, with the sand and the blue skies.

  “What ya thinkin’?” He jumped up, ruffling his hair into a mess as he landed beside me.

  “I was just remembering home.” I shrugged. “Thinking how easy all this is. Like, sometimes when I’m with you, I forget they’re gone.” I wrapped my arms around my legs and linked my fingers together. “The sunlight, the beach, all of this stayed with you when I left, and now you’re here… it’s like you’ve brought it all back with you.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  I shrugged again. “I don’t wanna lose that when you go.”

  He gave a gentle smile and let his elbows hang loosely over his knees. “You know it doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “Mike?” I dragged out the vowel.

  “I’m sorry.” His smile dissolved. “I just miss you too, you know. I went to the beach a few weeks ago—watched the storm come in across the bay—and it didn’t feel the same without you.”

  I half smiled, allowing memories in. “Did you sit on the fishing jetty while it was raining?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, dusting a line of yellow sand off his shin. “But I just didn’t get it anymore. It was just cold and I felt silly.”

  I drew a really long breath. The salt in the ocean was so strong I could almost taste it, as if the air were made of sand, brushing the back of my tongue each time I swallowed. Even though this beach wasn’t nearly as pretty as the one back home, it was good to feel the crisp water and the weight of my body sink into the sand again. I ran some of the cool ocean water over my cheek, over the menacing scars the accident had left me, and the heat dissipated with a soft tingle.

  “This looks better,” Mike said.

  “Don’t!” I spun my face away from his cold touch.

  “Whoa. Ara. I’m not going to hurt you.” He leaned around and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry.” I frowned, touching my jaw. “You just... I’m not used to people touching me there.”

  “Are you defensive about those scars?”

  I lifted one shoulder and dropped it again.

  “You know, you shouldn’t be.”

  “They’re hideous.” I blinked, fighting back tears.

  “Hideous?” Mike’s voice trailed up. “Ara, you can barely see them.”

  “Then why did you touch them?”

  “It’s just… the sun was reflecting off the water beads on your skin and I noticed that the scars were fading. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t offend me,” I stated. Just made me want to run away. I had mastered the art of ignoring them now to the point where I’d convinced myself they were gone. But Mike noticing them made me feel uncovered and monstrous, like they were as pink and raw as the day of the funeral.

  “Ara. I’m serious. They’re barely visible.” He shuffled closer and turned my face. “You’re still just the same beautiful girl you’ve always been.”

  “You’re wrong, Mike,” I said, my eyes burning with salt as they teared up, blinding me. “I’m not the same. I changed. I tried hard to change—”

  “Ara, what are you talking about? Ara!” Mike called as I stood and walked down the beach, dusting sand off my butt.

  No one understood. No one could possibly understand. He didn’t see how hideous the scars were because he didn’t want to see it. But they were there. They would forever be there as a reminder of who I used to be—who I had tried so hard not to be anymore. Maybe my selfishness ran so deep I would never be able to change, but I had tried hard. I had. And Mike saying I was the same girl I was back then—when I killed my mom and my brother—it hurt. It cut as deep as the glass that scarred my face because I knew, as deep as I knew pain, that losing David was the penance, the Karma, the price I had been waiting to pay.

  “Ara.” Mike’s hand clasped my arm. I stopped walking with a jolt. “Don’t walk away from me like that. Talk to me.”

  “I’m not the same, Mike,” I said, my voice sounding funny under the emotion. “I changed. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You—”

  “Ara, baby.” He wrapped me up in his arms. “I wasn’t saying that. I just meant that you’re still beautiful—”

  “But I’m not. Can’t you see?” I stepped back, angling my chin up so he could see my face in the light. “Everyone can see them—”

  “No they can’t, baby,” he insisted in a gentle tone. “They’d have to know they were there to notice them.”

  “Why do you lie to me? What good does it do? I can see in the mirror, Mike—”

  “Baby. I’m not.” He stepped into me and his eyes narrowed as he studied my face, tracing the curve of my jaw where only David’s eyes had previously been allowed. “Do you still see them there?” he asked, his tone thick with worry. “Honestly?”

  I nodded, turning my face away.

  “Shit. I… I don’t know what to
tell you. I think it might be some kind of psychological side effect of the accident or something.”

  “Another side effect?”

  He tried to smile but I could see how sad he was for me. “Look, I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror, but all I see is perfect skin on the face of the prettiest girl in the world.”

  I touched my scars with my fingertips.

  “Ara.” He gently took my wrist and moved my hand down from my face. “I promise, on my own future grave, you have completely healed.”

  “Really?” I whimpered in a breaking voice, looking down at my sandy toes.

  “Yes.”

  That singular word came through with so much compassion and so much love that, even with the warm sun, the salty air, and all the families around us, I felt the pain I’d held in all these months—the pain I never got to share with Mike—bubble up in my chest, then my throat, like an aching blockage of air. I wanted him to hold me. I needed his arms to make everything okay.

  “I’ve missed you so so badly, Mike.” My lashes burned on the edges as hot tears filled my eyes again and the beach disappeared behind them.

  “I know.” He caught me against his chest, the rough sand scratching my jaw. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

  “I needed you, Mike. I needed you,” I sobbed almost inaudibly. “All this time, and you haven’t been here.”

  “I wanted to be here. I just… I thought you hated me.”

  “I did.” I sobbed harder. “I’m so sorry, Mike. I did.”

  He clicked his tongue. “Aw, baby, what has life done to you?”

  Safe in his arms once more, I sobbed my heart out loudly, letting all the pain I stored up free itself into his skin.

  Only he knew, only he understood how much I missed Mom and how deeply I’d regret Harry’s death for the rest of my days. He was there when I bought Harry his first train. He was there when my mom grounded me and when we invented our silly joke game. He was there for everything, and only crying with him seemed to make my pain feel like it was understood. Only he could see how raw and how black it was, and only he could fully comprehend the reason I blamed myself for their deaths.

  I didn’t care that people on the beach could hear and see me. The funny thing about breaking down is that you can’t choose when to do it—it just hits you like a storm; a flash of heat, an overpowering surge of anger, and then the pouring rain.

  But Mike was my umbrella, and I knew he’d hide me from accusing glares until the pain died inside me.

  “Yeah, she’s okay,” he spoke softly to someone behind me. “She lost her mom recently.”

  “Oh, poor dear,” an elderly-sounding lady said. She said something else, but I didn’t hear. Mike pressed my face so tightly against his bare chest that he caused a sort of unintentional vacuum seal over my ears.

  The sobs slowed after a while, and I scratched the salt away from my cheek as I looked up at him. “You really can’t tell my face is horrifically scarred?” Strangely, I realized, his opinion mattered to me more than almost anyone else’s—even more than David’s.

  “No.” He held both my arms and leaned back a little. “You can’t tell at all. Okay? So stop feeling so bad about yourself, baby.” He bent his knees so his eyes came in line with mine. “You are beautiful.”

  I nodded and ran my fingers over my jaw. It was hard to even feel the slight bumps anymore. They used to feel like little pins rising up from under my skin. But maybe he was right: maybe they were gone now and what I saw in the mirror was just a psychological scar.

  “I hate looking at myself, you know. I don’t look like me anymore.”

  “You look the same to me. Maybe a little older—wiser, even.”

  I smiled. “I really missed you, Mike.”

  “I know you did.”

  “I really miss Mom and Harry, too.” I looked at the water, trying to stop the memory of their faces. “I keep thinking I’m just gonna go home and they’ll be there, you know, like always.”

  “Is that why you don’t want to move back with me?”

  “I never said that, Mike.” I moved out from his arms. “Don’t you get it? You just came in, and on the first day you get here, you tell me you love me, with no mind for the fact that I have a boyfriend—”

  “Boyfriend?” Mike said. “Ara, you knew him for a day before you decided you were in love with him.”

  “I did not. It took me ages to decide that.”

  He scoffed. “A week then.”

  “Are you kidding me?” My head jerked forward. “You’re the one who told me I was being silly for not following my heart.”

  “What was I supposed to say? Should I tell you to stay away from the only thing that’d made you happy in months? I’m your friend. I care about you. I wanted you to be okay.” He dropped one hand to his side. “I just never thought you’d actually believe you were in love with him.”

  “Believe I’m in love with him?” My lip lifted in disgust. “What would you know about it? You don’t even know your own heart. It took my mom’s death for you to admit it—”

  “Ara—”

  “No.” I shrugged away as he grabbed my arm. “You think you love me, but you don’t—”

  “Ara. Stop it.” Mike reached out again, reminding me of the staring people around us with a look in his eye.

  “I don’t care if they look. Let them look. I’m not going to stand here while you tell me what’s in my heart.”

  “Okay, I’ll stop. I—”

  “Stop trying to touch me.” I jerked away from him again. “I do love David, Mike. I do. You have no idea how much, and you never will,” I added coldly, folding my arms as I turned away.

  “Oh, never, huh?” He followed, raising his voice. “So this freaky possessive thing you have with David, that’s true love, is it? Is that how it works?” he asked in a conceited tone. “You’re telling me that when you love someone more than anyone in the world has ever loved anyone else before, you let them hurt you and leave bruises on you?”

  I huffed.

  “And don’t think I didn’t see that cut on your wrist, Ara!”

  My steps came to an abrupt halt. I unfolded my arms and looked down at my left wrist—the place David had drank from me.

  “Yes. I saw it!” His voice broke with a husky crack, as if it killed him that he’d had no power to protect me. “I know you didn’t do that. I know you better than that.”

  “I—”

  “David did it. Didn’t he?” He came up out of nowhere, spinning me around sharply and held my wrist up. “Is this what love is, Ara? Because I love you more than this. I would never hurt you like this.”

  “You’re hurting me now.” I twisted my wrist in his grip and yanked it out through his fingers. “Just leave me alone, okay? I’ve had enough.”

  “Ara?” he called as I walked away again.

  “I can’t do this, Mike,” I called back. “I just can’t fight with you. I need to be alone.”

  I didn’t need to stand there and have him tell me I knew nothing about love. I’d felt its spiny sting. I knew exactly what it was.

  Mike was just worried because he thought David… well, I actually couldn’t even imagine what he thought David had done to me. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t tell him the truth, and I just didn’t feel strong enough to make him understand without it.

  “Ara. Stop.”

  “I said leave me alone, Mike.”

  “No,” he said, following me. “Ara, I love you. And I’m sorry, okay? I’m a dick. I shouldn’t have said anything about David.”

  I stopped walking.

  “You’re right,” he added. “I don’t know anything about what you had to go through just to want to live over the last few months, and if David is the rock that held you down, so be it.”

  I slowly turned around to face him.

  “I’ll drop it.” He held both hands out by his sides: his white flag. “But please don’t be mad at me for being worried about you
. You have cuts and bruises that a guy inflicted on you”—he laughed nervously—“what kind of a man would I be if I wasn’t worried?”

  Across the carpet of sunburned backs and multi-colored towels, the salty plastic smell of sunscreen wafted between us, and even in the brightness of the day, the compassion in his eyes shone out like a beacon among the darkest sea. I dropped my hands to my sides, cursing his kind eyes.

  “Mike, I—”

  “Don’t.” He shook his head and launched into a half-run, sweeping me into him. “You don’t need to say a word, baby. Okay?”

  The hot sun beat down on us as he held me close, making sweat trickle down my temples. But I closed my eyes and held my breath in the intense squeeze of his arms, knowing from his touch that he never wanted to let go—that he did love me deeply—not like he loved the ocean or the sunset, but like the way I loved David. True, honest, and intense love.

  “I’m sorry, Ara. For everything. It’s just”—he brushed my hair from my face, then lifted my locket for a second—“I love you. I really do. I love the way your eyes turn deep blue when you’re sad; the way you bite your lip when you play piano; I love your smile and the way you view the world, Ara. I absolutely love everything about you.” He paused and his eyes darted over my face. “I just wish you could understand that; wish you’d forgive me for making the biggest mistake I ever made, and love me back.”

  I folded my face against his chest again. The sand had dried in the heat, soothing the itch along my jaw, and the sound of his heart through the thick of his skin had an oddly comforting hum to it. I could tell from the way he took shallower breaths that he was waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t grace him with a response, because I had nothing to say. Not yet.

  26

  No one even looked up as I stepped into the auditorium and dumped my bag by a chair. “Hi, guys,” I said, unwinding my scarf from my neck.