Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  “It’ll be okay,” she promised. “We’ll formulate a plan tonight. Maybe I’ll organize a chance meeting with her so we can become friends and I can encourage her to like you.”

  “I’m not sure that’ll help.”

  “Dad, stop worrying,” she sung in the same way her mother used to—that soft, flowing voice that seemed to make me believe everything would be all right. “You are in her blood, her soul; she will fall for you again. Just take your time and don’t force things.”

  I sighed, leaning against the wall, a headache forming in my very human brain. “I don’t think I can do this, Lors.”

  “You can. I promise you can. You just need to get off the phone and get back out there. And I have to get back to work before I get my ass handed to me.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to you tonight.”

  “Bye, Dad. And good luck.”

  I hung up the phone without a farewell. Elora was not in my good books right now.

  Across from me, tucked against the wall by our classroom, Ara stood watching the kids in the yard, trying to look passive but coming off as ultimately scared and shy. Her eyes followed Cal as he joined a busy group of testosterone-hyped monkeys, clearly wondering if she should join him.

  For a moment, my mind flashed back to her first day of school the year we met. Back then, I finished my class and ran at the speed of a vampire to her side before another could befriend her. This time, I wasn’t sure she’d receive me so well. I creeped her out this morning and she wouldn’t easily forget that, first impressions and all.

  Just as I worked up the nerve to walk over to her, a stick thin girl that looked remarkably like a muddy brown pencil came to Ara’s rescue. I stood watching for a moment, my heart thumping so rapidly in my chest for the lost opportunity that I didn’t notice Cal walking toward me.

  “David,” he called, waving me over with a jerk of his head.

  “What’s up?” I said, hiding my phone.

  “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the guys.”

  I smiled, accepting his offer. He was clearly one of the well-liked morons in this school, and if I could establish a relationship with his group, I might have a half a chance of being noticed by Ara.

  3

  Ara

  I made friends with Cal and I think maybe even with that guy David I met out the front this morning, but I wasn’t sure if that automatically invited me to sit with them at lunch. Without the knowledge of basic social conventions, I was left a bit lost in the busy schoolyard. New kids flocked to new kids and the Special Ed kids seemed to branch apart from one another, as if to be seen side by side painted a neon sign over your head that you were a dummy—that you lacked the basic skills of language and/or math and many other subjects.

  I stood awkwardly outside the class for a moment, watching Cal as he gathered with his band of misfits, wondering if I should just randomly pick a group of girls and announce myself as their new friend. As luck would have it though, I needn’t have done either, because a savior in a skirt way below the regulation knee-length and with a ponytail as straight and plain as a horse’s tail moved toward me steadily but cautiously.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “You look like me.”

  I appraised my shorter skirt, my chin-length hair, and then looked at her like she was nuts. “I do?”

  “Yeah.” She leaned in a bit, glancing over her shoulder. “The pale look of dread when you’re wondering where to sit so you don’t look like a loner.”

  I laughed. “Was it that obvious?”

  “Only to those that know how it feels.” She pointed behind her to a small gathering of girls, not all as entirely plain as her, talking and laughing over their lunchboxes. “You can sit with us if you like.”

  “Thanks.” I walked along with her, thinking about my packed lunch and deciding it was too bland for today. “Hey, do you guys have a cafeteria around here?”

  “So you are American,” she stated. “I thought so—from the accent.”

  “What else gave it away?”

  “We call it a tuck-shop or a canteen. Not a cafeteria.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my shoes. That was a sort of weird thing to call it.

  “And most people bring a packed lunch,” she informed, revealing the paper bag under her arm. “No one spends money on food really.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m having to do that a lot.”

  “Must be weird,” she noted, “coming to a new country, new school.”

  “Everything’s weird for me.” I tapped my head by way of explanation. “I was in an accident a few months ago. Had to learn to walk and talk all over again. Kinda started out as a toddler, I guess, and I don’t remember my life before the accident.”

  “No way?” She faced me, becoming slightly more animated than her freckled plasterboard face seemed capable of. “So this is technically your first year of school?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “Technically.”

  “Hey, guys,” she announced, pulling me into the circle of her friends. “You should hear this. Tell them.” She gave me a friendly shove, nodding to prompt me.

  I studied my audience. I didn’t have much to go on by way of surmising personality from appearances. Brett could tell if someone liked him simply by their mannerisms, but all my life experience was lost to me, so if these girls liked me, wanted to hear my story, or were just humoring me so they could gossip about me later, I had no idea. But I figured I could handle it either way.

  “So I hit my head in a car accident. Had surgery,” I told them, showing my short hair. “They shaved off all my hair.”

  The girls gasped.

  “I don’t remember ever having any anyway, so it’s not that big a deal. And then, when I woke up, I didn’t know what a person was, or even a bed. I didn’t even know what to do about hunger pains, because I didn’t know they were hunger pains.”

  “Oh my God.” One of the girls stood and walked over to me, as if she could erase all the misery of my past by her mere presence. “That’s so tragic. And is that why you’re in the retard class?”

  “Kenna!” another girl spat, backhanding her as she came to join the circle.

  “What?” Kenna shrunk a little, looking around to see if anyone else heard.

  “They’re not retards. My brother is in that class.”

  “Yeah,” the plain Jane beside me scoffed. “But he is a retard, Bree.”

  The rest of the girls laughed, cheeks flushing pink.

  Bree rolled her eyes and sat down on the low brick wall between two other girls. A quick count, using what basic math skills Brett had taught me, revealed that there were six girls in total, making me number seven. I thought I’d feel out of place and a bit intimidated around so many peers, especially since I hadn’t met any other kids my whole life so far, but I felt pretty comfortable.

  “I have to learn all the basics again,” I said, taking a seat on the hot paved ground and tucking my skirt down between my legs. “But they assure me I can integrate back into mainstream schooling as soon as I can recite my ABCs and write sentences.”

  “You can’t even do that?” Plain Jane asked, sitting down beside me.

  “I know a little, but I get mixed up.”

  “We can help,” Kenna said, aiming her thumb between herself and another girl. “We tutor year sevens.”

  “I’d like that.” I nodded, trying to hold back the goofy grin that threatened to slip out. This friend-making thing was way easier than Brett said it’d be.

  “So did anyone die?” Kenna asked. “In the accident?”

  I shook my head, toying with the hem of my skirt. “Nope. I hit a tree.”

  “So why’d you move here?” another girl asked, revealing the chewed flesh of her sandwich between words.

  “Because there are too many vampires in America,” I almost said, quickly switching it with, “My brother thought a fresh start w
ould help me recover, you know, since I don’t remember my old life anyway.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to be around familiar things?” Plain Jane asked.

  “Nah.” I shook my head again. “It was more like a source of discomfort for me—seeing things they told me I should know and not remembering them. I’ve been a lot happier since we moved here a few months ago.”

  “Where’s your mom and dad?” Kenna asked.

  “They died when I was little. My step brother raised me.”

  Pity mounted with relief on their faces—relief that their own lives weren’t quite so tragic. But I never saw my life that way, so I shrugged off their pity and said, “I take it in my stride. I don’t remember them, like, at all, so I don’t get sad about it.”

  “Don’t you get sad that you don’t have a mom and dad?” Plain Jane asked.

  “Jane lost her mom last year,” Kenna said, and as she pointed at the plain girl beside me, I thought she’d read my mind and plucked the nickname ‘Plain Jane’ right out but, in fact, it turns out the plain girl’s name actually was Jane.

  “Oh,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

  Jane twiddled her thumbs, teary eyes on her lap. “It still makes me cry.”

  “Then I’m glad I don’t remember my mom,” I said. “And, I mean, my brother plays a pretty good mom.” I had to laugh, thinking of him in a pink apron when he’d make eggs and pancakes. “And I guess, because I don’t remember ever having a mom, I have no real concept of what I’m missing.”

  “You’re lucky,” Jane said, forcing a smile.

  I opened my mouth to offer words of consolation, not really sure what those words would be, when a few of the girls got all giggly again and started talking animatedly about something across the yard. My eyes followed theirs to the group of boys—Cal among them—that were throwing wet toilet paper onto the windows.

  “I haven’t seen him yet,” Jane said to another girl, getting up on her knees to see better. “But I heard he has green eyes.”

  “Who?” I asked. They couldn’t be talking about Cal; his were crystal blue.

  “The new guy,” Kenna said, standing on the brick wall like a meerkat overlooking the horizon. “David Knight.”

  As the group of boys parted, David’s head turned and his gaze fell directly on our little group of spectators. The girls dropped instantly back onto their bums and pretended to be talking about something really interesting.

  “What are we doing?” I said. “Why are we pretending to talk?”

  “Because he caught us gawking,” Jane said, flushed in the cheeks.

  “And?”

  “And it’s embarrassing.”

  “Why?”

  She groaned and then smiled as she realized she would have to find a way to explain this to the toddler in the teenager’s body.

  “Never mind that.” Kenna waved a hand between us, motioning to the tall, dark-haired guy headed our way. “He’s coming. Look busy.”

  I tried to look busy, but I was pretty sure I just looked confused.

  He stopped right behind Jane, his knees pretty much touching her back, and smiled down at me. “Hello again.”

  “Hi.” I looked at the other girls, not missing the questioning glances, and then I stood up, feeling a bit impolite for sitting while he was standing.

  “We… we met earlier,” he reminded me, as if I wouldn’t remember, “in the parking lot…”

  “I remember,” I said with a simple but sort of awkward smile. His awkwardness just made me feel like there was something I needed to feel awkward about.

  He cleared his throat then and as he took a polite step back from Jane, being that he was practically standing on her, as if she hadn’t been sitting there in the first place, I caught sight of a horrid white scar across his neck, hidden mostly by his shirt collar and tie.

  “Ah, so… I’m gonna take a walk to the cafeteria”—the word sparked in my head; he said cafeteria, not canteen, even though his accent was quite Australian, maybe even a little bit English—“you wanna come? Talk about new kid woes?”

  New kid woes? I tried not to raise a judgmental brow, but he was kind of weirding me out in more ways than one. “Um. I think I’m fine here. But thanks,” I added, sitting back down beside Jane. Nice, safe, ordinary Jane.

  “Oh. Um…” He seemed lost for words, fumbling around in the same way I would when trying to understand social conventions. “Okay then… I’ll um… I’ll see ya round then.”

  “Yep, see ya,” I said, giving him a wave as he walked away, but I had no intentions of seeing him around. At all.

  “Do you know him?” Kenna asked, leaning right in.

  “We met this morning. He was kinda weird then too—stares a lot.”

  “And he’s rude,” Jane said. “He didn’t so much as even say hello to any of us—”

  I shrugged. “He’s probably just nervous—like me.” And as I said it aloud, I realized I might have been a bit rude to him. But he made me feel singled-out and kind of awkward, and I’ve never felt like that before. I didn’t really know how to react. And I kept wanting to stare at his scar and ask him who tried to cut his throat open.

  “He can be as nervous or rude as he likes,” Kenna said, checking out his actually kind of cute ass, “he was gorgeous.”

  On that, most of the girls had to agree. Loudly.

  “He’s not really my type,” I said.

  “Me either,” Jane said. “I like them smart and—”

  “Nerdy,” Kenna joked.

  Jane smiled, taking it as an insult but letting it roll off her back anyway. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “I like them big,” I said, adding width to my narrow shoulders with my hands. “With gorgeous grins and sandy hair.” Which might be because the first man I ever saw was just that, and he’d been the one to care for me and teach me and love me since I woke. He was all I really knew of the opposite sex.

  The others went on to talk about their ‘type’, and just from sitting and listening to the way they all interacted with each other, I learned a lot about girls: most of them would change their beliefs or opinions based on what their closest friend seemed to like. I wondered how authentic any of them really were, but at the same time, I could feel myself being shaped based on the average likes and dislikes of the greater opinion. It was an odd feeling—one I wanted to explore later tonight when I had some time to think about it all. For now, I was content knowing that geeks were not the ‘in’ thing but ‘gaming nerds’ were, and that any guy wearing a track team jacket was on the A list, but that Cal and his group of friends were the guys most of the girls hung out with here, even though they didn’t fit any of those categories. Which I was glad of. I liked Cal, and if his friends were anything like him, I’d fit in well. Add to that the fact that Cal had sandy hair and, aside from the fact that he was a bit skinny, he pretty much fit my ‘type’ down to a T. I knew that my thoughts later tonight wouldn’t so much be on social conventions but maybe more on Cal and those amazing blue eyes.

  He looked at me as the bell sounded to end lunch, and called me over with a very enthusiastic wave.

  “Looks like my brother made a new friend,” Bree said, smirking at me. Then she elbowed me! I looked down at my arm then back at her face, wondering why she did that. She was smiling, so I was pretty sure she hadn’t meant to be nasty, but then what else could she have intended? Unless maybe she didn’t mean to elbow me. “What are you waiting for?” She elbowed me again; this time I was certain it was deliberate. “He won’t bite.”

  “But I might,” I said, flashing my fangs as a kind of warning not to elbow me again.

  “Wow!” She leaned right in and examined my teeth. “Those are cool. Are they natural?”

  I nodded.

  “Ara,” Cal said breathily, stopping beside me with a bounce to end his short run. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to class.”

  “In case I get lost?” I joked, nodding to the class door in direct line of sight.

>   He laughed. I liked that he laughed.

  “I’ll see you after school, Cal,” Bree said. “Be nice to Ara.”

  “You can count on it.” He extended his arm and folded it around the back of my neck, as if we were best friends.

  “And Ara?” Bree added, walking backward for a moment. “If he asks you on a date, say no.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a loser,” she said, winking at Cal after.

  When she turned away, he drew his arm off me and stared in confusion at my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s not very nice,” I said.

  “Why do you say that?” He laughed.

  “She just said you were a loser—”

  “She was kidding, Ara.”

  “Really?” I felt instantly better.

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my arm. “I thought maybe she just didn’t like me—maybe didn’t want me around you.”

  “Why?”

  “She elbowed me.” I showed him my arm.

  Cal folded over with laughter. “You mean that elbowing she gave you when I was waving at you?”

  I nodded.

  He folded over again, chuckling. “It’s not because she doesn’t like you. She wasn’t being mean.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “No.” He stood tall again—about a head and shoulders taller than me. “It’s like a way of investing a person in a statement or something, you know? Like when you say ‘hey?’ or ‘right?’ after you say something because you want someone to nod in agreement.”

  “Oh.” Yes, I was familiar with that practice.

  “Come on.” His eyes warmed with a very sympathetic smile. “Let’s go to class and I’ll tutor you on how to human.”

  “How to human?”

  “Yeah.” He started walking. “It takes a lifetime to get it right.”

  Well, that was great, because I had dozens of lifetimes ahead of me.

  * * *

  “Stop worrying about it, Ara.” Brett sat down at the table beside me, patting the top of my head where it rested against my arms. “Your brain is still healing. And you’re still learning. It’s easy to forget things when you have so much new information pushing all the old stuff out.”