Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  “I need to tell you something.”

  Great. It was bad news. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more bad news.

  “Cal’s coming over tonight,” she said.

  “Ara.” I moaned, turning away. “I don’t need to hear this.”

  “It’s not what you think—”

  “Then what is it?” I yelled, lowering my voice on the end so I wouldn’t wake Harry. His door was closed, but he was a light sleeper. “Because if you’re here to tell me you’re taking things to the next level with him, don’t. Just spare me, okay? I don’t care anymore—”

  “It’s not that.” She walked out of the bathroom and stopped so close to me I could feel her breath as she spoke. “I’m going to tell him what I am—”

  “What?”

  “Shhh.” She jerked her head toward Harry’s door. “I need a friend, David—”

  “So I’m not good enough as a friend now either?”

  “You are not my friend right now.” Her voice got louder. “You barely speak to me. You don’t look at me—”

  “What do you expect?”

  “Nothing.” She sounded exhausted. “I don’t expect anything from you, but you can’t expect me not to confide in Cal, when he’s the only friend I’ve got.”

  It hurt to hear her say that, but it was true. I couldn’t be her friend because I loved her. Elora couldn’t be a friend because Elora loved me. She would never sit and talk with Ara about how little she loved me. Who else did this girl have? Brett? He would only encourage her love for me. Vicki? Again, she was on my side. Everyone was. And that’s how it had to be. Ara needed to feel like an outsider until she could damn well learn to love me.

  “Fine.” I walked into my wardrobe. “Tell him.”

  “I wasn’t asking your permission.” She followed me, her hand shooting out when I tried to shut the door in her face. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Well, now I know, so”—I shooed her away—“it’s time for you to leave.”

  Her stone face dropped and her throat shifted, her mouth turning down on the corners before she gained composure and just nodded, turning away. I hated hurting her like that, but it was hard not to when I also hated her.

  And then, as she walked away, my heart completely melted.

  “Ara.” I reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, wishing I could go back to that moment in the bathroom when she hugged me. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” she asked in a small voice, looking at her feet to hide her tears.

  “I was harsh. I’m sorry.” I wanted to say more. I wanted to hold her and tell her that I would eventually forgive her for planning to steal my son, but I wasn’t sure I could ever trust her again. And that hurt me. Deeply. My Ara would never have done something so dumb. I wanted to tell her I hated her as much as I loved her, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. How could she?

  For now, it was probably just safer if she stayed away, but we shared Harry, which meant we had to share space. I’d made myself scarce lately, but our paths crossed often, and I usually managed to make her cry. The vampire in me might have been dead, but his cruel streak was still very much alive.

  “Um, I almost forgot,” she said, forcing a smile. “Elora wants to show you the dress we finally picked out. And you need to take your credit card with you.”

  “How much is it?” I asked, wearing a real smile for the first time in weeks.

  “A few thousand,” she said, as though it was no big deal. But then, I suppose, it wasn’t. Not for my little girl.

  “Did… did you enjoy shopping?” I asked, extending the olive branch.

  “Yeah.” Something in her waning smile made me wonder if I should ask Elora that question—if maybe something had happened to hurt Ara’s feelings. I was amazed then that I actually still cared.

  “Is it… was it painful?” I asked.

  “Painful?”

  “Uh… in the sense of… did it break your heart, knowing your little girl is getting married? Because it breaks mine.” I laughed it off, but I still couldn’t picture my world with Elora married.

  “I guess I haven’t had time to process,” she said, clearly still hurt. “I have to go.”

  “Say hi to Cal for me.”

  “I will.”

  “Hey, Ara,” I called.

  She stopped in the doorway.

  “Are you going to tell him about me?”

  “About you?”

  “Yeah, that… that we were married?”

  She hesitated, but eventually nodded, hugging her body to make herself smaller. “That was the plan. Do you not want me to?”

  “No, I…” Of course I wanted her to. “I was just curious.”

  As she left, giving nothing more than a nod to confirm once again that she was telling Cal the whole truth, my entire stomach wanted to fall out through my ass. She was so easy to hurt that sometimes it made hating her dangerous. For both of us. It took the smallest comment or a harsh look, and she would sit there silently for a long time, clearly holding it in. I asked Falcon if he’d noticed how sensitive she was, and he said she’d always been that way—even before she died. I wasn’t sure I agreed. But I was aware of it now and knew I had to watch myself because, sometimes, knowing she was easy to hurt just made it that much more enjoyable.

  31

  Ara

  Cal arrived to find me in a sobbing mess on my bedroom floor. I’d made it out of David’s house, down the street and around the corner before I broke down. He could be just so hurtful when he wanted to, and I wasn’t even sure what it was that hurt. If I thought about it, nothing he really said or did was that bad. But it just hurt. Deeply. And worse, I think he knew that. I got the feeling that he liked it.

  “Come on,” Cal said, reaching across and tapping my arm with the back of his wrist. “Talk to me, Ar.”

  “He… he…” I couldn’t talk. It all just came out in hiccups. “David—”

  “Aw, sugar-bun.” He shuffled forward and wrapped his arms around me, not even pushing me away when my tears made his shirt wet. He let me cry it all out, and when I was finally done, he offered me his sleeve for my snotty nose.

  I laughed, wiping it on my own sleeve instead.

  “Better?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Now, tell me, what did that asshole do to you?”

  “He’s in love with me,” I said softly. “As you know—”

  Cal laughed.

  “But there’s more to it. He’s… he was once a vampire. And I was his wife.”

  Cal looked at me blankly, waiting for the punchline. Then the look changed, and he was glancing at the door as though he should leave and call for help.

  “The accident I had,” I went on anyway, “I was killed. Dead. And they had to grow my body back to life over a long period of time, and when I woke, it was with no memory.”

  His lips pursed. He wasn’t sure whether to smile or not.

  I knew I had to prove it to him first, so I jumped up and grabbed the scissors off my desk. “I’m immortal: a breed of vampire called a Lilithian, which means I feed on vampires.” I shoved the tip of the scissors into my arm and cut deep, hoping to God I wasn’t actually insane. It hurt like hell as the blade tip cut a nerve, but only for a second until it healed completely. While I was busy being in agony, I forgot to watch Cal’s face for the reaction. Although it pretty much stayed frozen on there until I looked at him.

  “Believe me now?” I said, putting the bloody scissors down.

  Cal just nodded slowly, his eyes so wide I could see the pupils from across the room.

  I moved to my bed and sat down then, telling Cal the entire story—everything I knew—from beginning to end, right up to the last conversation with David before I got home tonight. At some point, Cal had come to sit beside me, comfort me while I cried, and I didn’t really realize until I exhaled and looked right into his eyes, his nose so close to mine that I wanted to lean back a bit.

  “Wanna know
what I think?” he said, a cheeky grin moving onto his face.

  “Mm-hm.” I nodded, wiping my nose.

  “I think… and it kills me to say this, because… I’m in love with you, Ara—in case you didn’t know.”

  My lip twitched on one side until it pulled into a smile.

  “But… from what I can tell, you’re in love with David—”

  “What?” I screeched.

  “That’s why it hurts so much when he’s mean—”

  “No way.” I stood up.

  “No, seriously.” He stood too. “He’s your husband—”

  “Was!”

  “Okay was, but you still loved him, right?”

  “No, she did. Ara did.”

  “No, you did,” he insisted. “You just don’t remember.”

  My heart did though—on some subconscious level. It didn’t matter what I thought of him, or how much I hated him sometimes, my heart had a louder voice than my head. “I needed you to be on my side, Cal. Everyone hates me for not loving him—”

  “Well I never will.” He ran his thumb along the side of my face, resting it on my chin until I looked at him. “I am here to support you no matter what, Ar, and if you don’t want to love him, we’ll work through that. But I don’t believe that’s true for a second.”

  “What if it is? What if it has to be, for my own sake?”

  “Come ’ere.” Cal stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, kissing my head. He was so much taller than me and it made his embrace feel that much more comforting. I leaned right into him, exhausted from crying, my throat dry from talking, and let time expire.

  “We don’t have to talk anymore tonight. There are a dozen more conversations in us, Ar—nothing more has to be said now,” he said after a while. “Let’s just get you to bed, and we can talk more in the morning when I’ve had time to process.”

  “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  “Sure. Just don’t try to seduce me,” he said playfully, making me smile.

  * * *

  I spent the entire weekend with Cal. We took Harry out to lunch, the park and a few other places, and he was great with him. I could see how, if I ever did end up with Cal, he’d take Harry on like his own son. But that future wasn’t anywhere in the cards for us, although it was nice to know it was an option. Nice to know someone in this world loved me for me. Not for who I used to be. Having the break from David the last few days was good, though. It gave me some perspective. Watching Harry play with another guy didn’t quite feel right. As my friend, Cal fit in well, but as anything more, the picture looked wrong—like it was hung upside down and no one had noticed yet; they just stared at it, wondering what was different.

  I decided, by Monday afternoon, to make a better effort with David. Things had to improve. I didn’t want them to, in fact I was pretty sure I hated David right now, but I could still feel love for him in my heart, so I knew all hope wasn’t lost. He was mad at me, and hurt, and as much as I wished he would fall for this new me before I could show him the old me, that wasn’t going to happen. I had to accept that he would never love me. I had to accept that he was mad at me for even being me. And I had to swallow it all down like a giant pill and make a better effort to be friends again—like we used to be. I was even quite resolved to stop reminding him that I was not the same Ara he lost, until he said, “You never wore your hair like that.”

  “Like this?” I ran my fingers down my ponytail. A normal, ordinary and harmless ponytail.

  “Not since we were children at school,” he said, getting up to leave the kitchen.

  I followed. “You do realize I’m technically a child. I’m not even one year old yet.”

  “Ara. Stop it.” He placed both hands on my arms, bending to look me right in the eye. “You are over forty years old. Stop acting like a child.”

  I poked my tongue out at him to make a point.

  His eyes moved to my hair for a second of thought before he reached back there and dragged the hair elastic down the ponytail, releasing it. “And stop pretending you’re not her.”

  As he placed the elastic in my hand and walked away, the anger inside made me want to cry. That single reaction to fury always made it want to rain. But I bottled it in and decided not to sit here in silence anymore. “You know, I came over today to see if you wanted to catch a movie!”

  He spun around. “Harry’s at a birthday party—”

  “Not with Harry.” I tied my hair back into a ponytail. “With you!”

  David softened a little. His eyes went to my ponytail again and I could tell he felt bad. He shut them then, exhaling. “A movie would be great.”

  “Okay then,” I said breathily, trying hard to control the anger and the hurt in my voice. I could hear it assimilating into the atmosphere outside though—turning a sunny day into a windy one. “There’s one on in about forty minutes. You wanna get lunch first?”

  He laughed, walking down the short corridor to stand with me.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “You’re trying really hard right now, aren’t you—not to yell at me?”

  My mask of misery cracked, and I smiled, feeling the sun shine again, the wind outside receding like an eerie visitor. “I want us to be friends again.”

  “Well, okay then.” He rubbed the top of my arm, but I could tell it was hard for him to put his anger and hurt away too. But we both kept up the effort, making it to the café for lunch and even sitting down before another eruption. It was the salad. Apparently, Ara always ordered salad. She wasn’t a big eater after having Harry. But I ordered a milkshake and a burger, and he hated the way I ate with my mouth open or talked with it full. It was so unlike his Ara.

  I stood up then and told him to forget the movie, and I went back to Mike’s to wait for Harry.

  “He’s not interested in who I am,” I told Vicki after she found me sulking on the couch. “He doesn’t ask what my opinions are, or what I like to do, watch, what I’ve seen or what I wish to see. It’s like he doesn’t care who I am.”

  “He doesn’t.” Emily came in and joined the conversation as if she’d been in it the whole time. “He wants you to be his Ara, or nothing at all.”

  “And that just makes me hate his Ara even more.” I shook my head. “Why did she put up with him? And was he always this controlling?”

  Emily said yes, but Vicki just moved closer, taking my hand. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

  “When we sat down to order, he actually took the menu off me and told the waiter what I’d have,” I said, incredulous. “I know he wasn’t being nasty, it was clearly just a habit, but when I said I wanted a burger, not a salad, he told me that ‘she never ate burgers’ and then actually told the waiter that I’d have a salad.”

  Vicki looked at Emily, and they both shook their heads.

  “He makes me feel like half a person, and he makes me feel like I don’t deserve to be loved unless I’m his Ara.”

  Vicki sighed and leaned in to hug me tightly. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “There’s no point.” I wiped my cheeks dry. “I think it’s over. I think I just need to figure out where to go from here.”

  The worry on their faces got worse.

  “I can see Harry without having to be a part of your lives, I—”

  “Ara, why would you shut yourself off from us?” Vicki gasped.

  “Yeah, we didn’t do anything wrong,” Emily added.

  “It’s just… why would you all want me around if I’m not your Ara?”

  Neither of them could answer. I wasn’t good at reading faces, but they seemed lost for words, maybe shocked.

  “But you are her,” Emily said. “And you’ll realize that one day—”

  “Emily,” Vicki said softly, stopping her. She turned to me then. “Ara, you are a part of this family. Like it or not. And yes, you became a part of this family in your old life—as the Ara we knew before. But she was not our Ara. You are our Ara
, changed or the same it doesn’t matter. We will love you no matter what you want from life, or who,” she added, giving Emily a look. “David needs time to adjust, but he will come around—”

  “But he’ll never be in love with me—as who I am now.”

  Vicki’s eyes lowered, her throat shifting as she swallowed. “Then he’s the one missing out. But you are and always will be a part of this family. No one gets shut out because they don’t love the same way or think the same way. We’re immortals, Ara, and the heart and mind can change many times in several lifetimes. That’s just something everyone has to learn to accept.”

  My cheeks actually felt blood pulse through them as they lifted into a bright smile. I felt so much better hearing her say that, and for the first time since they told me who I was, I felt like they wouldn’t throw me away for being different now. Well, at least Vicki wouldn’t. David, on the other hand, would punish me for the rest of his days. As if I ate his Ara and wouldn’t regurgitate her.

  “So he really told you what to order?” Emily said with a smirk.

  “Yeah.” I had to laugh at how ridiculous that was.

  “It’s because he knew her so well,” Vicki said. “They were so in sync with each other that there was never really any need for words. He knew what she ordered every time they ate out and he knew what color socks she’d wear with which shoes. It was a habit for them to be that way. It was never him being controlling.”

  “You sure about that?” I said, raising a brow. “Because I’m starting to wonder if I was an abused wife.”

  Vicki just shook her head, smiling softly. “There was a time I feared for you—being with him. But you’re tougher than you let on, and you never really let him control you. He could be that way from time to time, and if you were accepting of that kind of behavior, I think maybe it would have ended up being an abusive relationship, but you just need to keep standing your ground. He’ll get it eventually.”

  “I’m sure he will, but I think I’m done.” I folded my arms. “I don’t think I want to try anymore. Not even for Harry’s sake.”