The Darkest Secret: A New Adult Romance Novel

by Jessica Pine

  "No."

  "You won't call my Dad?" And suddenly she's a little girl lost all over again, a skinny Hollywood brat who can't even handle a gun properly. She would never hurt me. She's too soft, too sheltered. She wouldn't know how.

  "No," I say. "I promise."

  She presses her lips tight together and shakes her head.

  "And how do I know I can trust you?"

  I have to think about that one. I could remind her that I brought her cigarettes, that I didn't go prying into the details of her life online. And didn't I tell her about the camera? The reason why she went tearing off in the first place?

  "You don't," I say, eventually. "Isn't that kind of how trust works?"

  She lowers the gun.

  "Keep driving. We'll pull in at the next rest stop."

  I'm so keyed up it takes all of about ten minutes for my muscles to even start to relax, and when they do they leave pain in their wake - my shoulders, my thighs and back. Is this what it's going to feel like when I'm old?

  The gun is on the back seat. She could still pick it up if she wanted to, but she doesn't. When I catch her eyes they've gone dull, defeated, like she knows this is over. And I hate that look, with a hatred as hard and sudden as an unexpected fist. Better crazy than beaten.

  I stop the car. For the first time in over a hundred miles I dare to turn around. She's tiny in the big back seat, her bright hair streaming down around her face. I glance at the gun.

  "Can I have that?"

  She nods. I reach out and take it, tucking it into my belt. It feels real, but with a weird gut-lurch of relief I realize the whole time it wasn’t even loaded. I remember how to breathe again.

  "Good," I say. "Good girl. Just wait there, okay? I'll be right back."

  She nods again. She's not crying. Not yet.

  I take the keys and pee as fast as I possibly can. On the way back I pass a vending machine and grab a couple of sodas, one eye on her at all times. I can see her head bobbing the back seat. When I get back she's crying so hard she can hardly speak.

  "You want a soda?"

  She shakes her head, her long hair swaying.

  "Cigarette?"

  She nods. I open the back door wide for her, so that she can light up. She rummages in the holdall, tossing out a handful of shirts and a book (Madame Bovary) before she finds her pack of Luckys.

  "I'm sorry," she says, when she can speak again. "I just...I couldn't take it any more."

  "It's okay," I say, like I didn't spend the last hundred or so miles thinking of how I'd like to say goodbye to my friends and family, thinking of the sugar skull I'd never get to give Chuy for Dia de los Muertos. "I think I understand."

  She swallows hard and stares back at me. "Do you? Really?"

  "No. Maybe not."

  "I'm sorry, Jimmy," she says.

  "Jaime."

  "Jaime?"

  "It's my name."

  She starts to cry again, thinking I was making some kind of point to needle her. I grab her hand.

  "No, please don't cry," I say. "I'm just saying. It's funny how these things matter at the strangest times. After everything I feel like you should know how to pronounce my name."

  She sniffs hard.

  "You'll be pleased to know there's only one way to pronounce mine," she says, with a flicker of something almost like humor. "God, I'm so sorry I dragged you into this."

  "De nada," I say, gazing up at the sky. It's dark now, dark the way the desert is dark - big skies spattered with a million billion stars. The rush of the traffic mingles with the roar of the ocean, but she's close enough for me to hear her throat work as she swallows.

  "Well, it's not exactly nothing..." she says.

  "I know, right? Would this be a good time to ask 'where the fuck are we?'"

  She laughs and it's as startling and sweet as a birdcall in the middle of the night.

  "Not where we should be," she says.

  "Where's that, exactly?"

  "Another hundred miles or so," she says, scratching the nape of her neck. "I've got a place up the coast, up at Big Sur. I guess I just felt like I needed to go there."

  "What about your Dad?"

  "I'll call him. Smooth things over."

  She spots my skeptical expression right away.

  "I will," she says. "Honestly. This is not gonna blow back on you, I swear."

  "And you'll call your Dad?"

  "Yep."

  "Swear?"

  Amber shakes her head.

  "I never swear. Not any more. I guess you'll just have to trust me."

  Chapter Twelve

  Amber

  I haven't been back. Not since.

  I don't know why I even wanted to go there. I don't know what I was expecting. Would the place be exactly as I left it? - the towels on the floor, the phone off the hook? Maybe it was some kind of sick desire to return to the place where my life fell apart - I don't know. It wouldn't be the first time, like when Dad brought me back from Vegas.

  But when I switch on the light the room looks like it did the first time I ever saw it, right down to the striped rug and the wide adobe style fireplace that was such a novelty to me that I wanted to build fires every night, just so that I could watch the flames dance.

  Jaime whistles.

  "Nice. Not what I was expecting."

  "What were you expecting?"

  "I don't know. When you said 'cabin' I suppose I expected something more...I don't know...Eighties slasher movie, I guess."

  For a second I see nothing but red, but I laugh it off.

  "Nothing like that," I say. "But exercise caution should you find any books bound with human skin, if you know what I mean."

  "Hell no. According to the rules we'd be first on the chopping block - the ethnic friend and the girl who takes her top off?" He pulls a face and draws a finger under his throat.

  He catches me by surprise. I thought he'd never mention that again - too much of a gentleman. He's a good Catholic boy. He knows ballroom dancing, for heaven's sake. I feel the blood hot under the skin of my face and the old, nervous, hyperactive tug between my thighs. I'm still full of adrenaline, buzzed on the dipshit combination of fear and lust that used to make life so exciting.

  "You looked," I say.

  Jaime raises an eyebrow.

  "You pretty much flashed me." He stands with his weight on one foot, so that his narrow hips are tilted at an angle. He's not big - not bulky in the shoulders like Justin was - but his forearms are solid and when he danced with me I felt his gentle strength.

  ***

  "I know," I say. "I'm sorry. I do these things without thinking."

  He nods, swallows. There's a tiny shaving cut just above his collar. I know because I spent several hours staring at it, knowing that if I looked into his frightened eyes I'd lose my nerve. And that would be it. Back to square one. Amber, you can't be trusted to take care of yourself. Back to agoraphobia and Dr. Stahl, back to wrecking my lungs out of sheer boredom and fear.

  "Is that part of it?" he asks, so polite, so good. "Your mental...problems, I mean."

  "No," I say. "I just have really shitty impulse control. Always have."

  He nods again. It was no wonder I couldn't look in his eyes on the road. They're so big and brown. If I'd met those long-lashed eyes once too often I'd feel like I was holding a gun on Bambi.

  "You want to get something to eat?" I ask. I'm starting to feel shaky and blood-sugary, and I think the only remotely edible thing in the vicinity is a half-eaten packet of breath mints in my purse. And I have no idea how long they've been in there.

  He folds his arms.

  "Yeah. I'm starving. You want me to go get something?"

  "No," I say. "We'll go somewhere. Somewhere nice. It's the least I can do."

  Jaime doesn't look convinced.

  "Not too nice," he says. "I'm still in uniform. Anyway, can you handle that? Going out to eat in public?"

  I shrug.

  "Sure. I think so.
" I'm not sure at all, but I feel safer here than I did in L.A. The moment I got out of the gate and saw that the paparazzi had spotted me I knew I had to run. Deep down I'd always known they were there, but Dr. Stahl kept me happily snowed with psychiatric bullshit. You're in a safe space, Amber. Nobody is judging you.

  Yeah. Until I set foot outside my own front door.

  "Right," says Jaime. "You held a gun on me for like two hours, so..."

  I flop down on the couch.

  "I’m sorry,” I say. “If it’s any consolation, it wasn’t loaded.”

  This time he doesn't smile.

  "Are you going to tell me even the first thing that's going on with you? Because this? This is stupid. I can't do this - whatever this is - unless you give me something to work with. And don't lie to me. Are you going to call your Dad or aren't you?"

  We've come this far. But what if I'm wrong? What if he's just waiting for the right time to call someone - tell them where Amber Gillespie is hiding out? How much does he make, anyway? It's only when I'm trying to weigh up the possibility of money as a motivating force that I realize just how cloistered I am. I think I've been through hell, and maybe I have, but it could have been worse, couldn't it? I'm spoilt and stupid. And he's just an ordinary guy. A nice guy, by all appearances.

  I shake my head slowly. He sighs.

  "Please," I say. "Just hear me out. I'll order us something to eat."

  "Fine. I don't suppose it occurred to you that I might be in trouble too?"

  "I'm sorry," I start to say, but it holds up a hand.

  "Forget it, Amber. Which way to the bathroom?"

  I point the way and he stomps off. I hate that he's right - it was so selfish of me to bring him here, but I couldn't stand to be alone. I want to make it up to him, but what happens if I make a pass and get rebuffed again? Can I take that? Am I strong enough?

  Jesus, I am a monster of self-obsession. I open the drawer under the telephone table, searching for take-out menus. My heart twists when I spot a Thai menu. They made a chicken soup I loved, so fragrant with lemongrass and ginger that you were too busy reveling in the flavors to realize exactly how fiery it was - a cumulative heat that always left me with streaming eyes as I gulped down the dregs of the cup. Our favorites are marked in his handwriting, underlines and asterisks in red pen.

  "How do you like Chinese?" I ask, when he comes back in.

  He shrugs.

  "Sure. Do I get to call my family or not? Because they're probably wondering why I didn't come home for dinner."

  I've made such a mess of everything. I nod and he wanders into the next room. I hear him talking to someone named Beca. Am I even dumber than I look? I threw myself at him last night without even asking if he had a girlfriend.

  "...no. Something came up at work. Don't worry. I'm well looked after...yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I would have called earlier but it was just...pffft...you know. Manic."

  It took me this much to even pronounce his name properly. Hi-may - ending on that supplicant sound you only get with the soft e.

  He raises a hand to smooth back his hair as he talks, and I see that his uniform is darker under the arm. A five-hour drive in that tight khaki get-up. There must be something for him here.

  My heart is in my mouth as I walk through the bedroom door. I don't know what I expected to see in there, but there's a new bed and the wall behind it has been painted in a deeper shade of blue than I remember. I expect it's been replastered, but I don't look behind the new painting - a still life of rustic pottery against a backdrop of olive groves.

  It looks like another room to the one I remember. Sane. Peaceful. Like somewhere you'd want to fall asleep. The sheets are perfectly white and the floor clean. I think I see a spot at first, but it's just a knot in the wood grain.

  "Amber? You okay?"

  He calls just as I'm opening the closet. As soon as I see it the breath vanishes from my lungs - a little strip of official yellow, curled on the floor of the wardrobe. I crumple it up, stuff it deep in the pocket of my jeans, where hopefully the seam will eventually wear it away to nothing. "Yeah," I manage to say, in a voice that sounds like somebody else's. "Yeah - I'm just trying to find you something to wear."

  Luckily my Dad left some sweats here, and an old hotel bathrobe.

  "Are you okay?" Jaime asks, and I feel like I could shake to pieces. I must look wild and white faced, but all I can think of is the slight span of his chest, the even slighter one of his hips and how much I want him to touch me. Justin really did a number on me - I'm so fucked in the head that fear and sex have all got snarled up together in there.

  "Fine," I lie. "Just hungry."

  "Me too."

  "You want to order? Menu's next to the phone. Don't call my Dad."

  "I'm touched that you'd trust me," he says, with a wry arch of his eyebrow. "Don't you want to pick out your favorites?"

  I shake my head. "Whatever you get will be fine. I need a cigarette."

  "What about price limit?" he starts to say, but I'm halfway out of the door, jonesing for my fix.

  The sun is almost gone, leaving a blood red strip of itself where the ocean meets the sky. The fading light catches the caps of waves but the ocean itself is nearly black, the deep pinks and rich blues of late sunset giving way to the blue-black of night. The stars are just beginning to light up. Is it wrong that I still find it beautiful, in spite of everything that happened here?

  I don't even realize he's beside me until he speaks.

  "You can see why they came here, can't you?" he says.

  "Who?"

  "The settlers. The pioneers. The Spanish. You know how those Conquistadors would go to the ends of the earth if they thought there was gold to be dug."

  "They probably thought it was the edge of the world," I say.

  He leans on the porch railing and studies me thoughtfully.

  "You sure you're okay?"

  "No."

  "Your Dad...?"

  "Is blowing up my phone. Oh yeah. You can be sure of that."

  "Amber, I think you should answer him."

  I shake my head.

  "Not right now. Please not now. I need to think. I know everyone is worried about me but I'm worried about me. I can't keeping worrying about what other people think when I don't even know what I think, if that makes any sense at all?"

  Jaime wrinkles his nose.

  "It...really doesn't."

  I join him at the railing. It's too dark to see the cove properly, but I know the view by heart. I know the shape of each rock and the height of each cliff. I light up and exhale - luckily he's standing upwind of me and my terrible habit.

  "Did you ever fall in love with someone so...completely that you forgot who you were?" I ask.

  He doesn't shake his head but I know the answer already.

  "Like you can't breathe without them," I elaborate. "Like you're two halves of a whole and that nothing makes sense unless you're together?"

  "Oh," he says. "That." Like it was nothing. "Yeah."

  "Really?"

  He nods.

  "We met and it was like...boom." He holds his hands a short distance apart and brings them together, the fingers interlacing. "Romeo and Juliet."

  "Really?" I say, skeptical. He doesn't look like someone who's had someone sink their teeth into his heart and take a bite out of it. He looks...normal. Sane.

  "Really. I couldn't be without her. Even when I was asleep I missed her - dreamed about her."

  "Did she feel the same?"

  "God, yeah. It was crazy. Stupid. We ran away together. Everything."

  "You're kidding?" Maybe he does know after all.

  "Nope. Her parents wanted her to go to college, be a doctor. We wanted to get married. She was smart - full ride scholarship. She'd have been nuts to turn her back on that, but she was. Nuts - that is. We both were."

  I barely remember to breathe.

  "What happened?"

  "The usual," he says. "Tearful farewells. Par
ting is the sweetest sorrow. Blah blah blah. I thought my heart was being ripped out of my chest but...I don't know. You can't keep that up forever." He sighs. "What about you?"

  I swallow.

  "Same." I want to add 'but worse', except I feel like that would be an asshole thing to do. I'm in bad shape. Everyone's paid so much attention to my feelings when surely they should be telling me to pay attention to other people's, right? That's what makes you a good person - how much you care for others.

  Was it really that simple? You could just...move on? And not be a broken, defective person because of it?

  "We're nobody unless we belong to one another," Justin used to say. "Don't you feel that?" And I'd nod and say yes, yes, I felt it. I felt it right deep down in the roots of my soul where I was supposed to feel it, sometimes so fierce and hot that it felt as though my heart was squeezed in a fist.

  Then one day I didn't feel it any more. And it was like the world had ended.

  I'm crying again. Jaime puts his arm around me - as brotherly as can be.

  "Don't," I say, shrugging away from him.

  He withdraws and for a moment I don't know what to say. He doesn't persuade, he doesn't cajole or ask me flat out if I love him. I'm not used to men who do as I ask. The sick thing is I'm not even sure if I like it.

  "Don't touch me unless you mean it," I say, and go back into the cabin.

  I hear him sigh, hear the door close behind him.

  "The first time I ever touched you," he says. "You reacted like you'd been shot. So excuse me if I don't grab you by the hair like a caveman."

  I turn back to face him and flop on the couch.

  "Why? Do you want to?" He wants to fuck me. He has to want to fuck me. I've made it obvious enough. What else are we going to do all night? Make up ghost stories? Talk about our exes? I lean back and stretch out my legs. Justin would have been on me already by now.

  Jaime just smiles and shakes his head.

  "Sorry," he says. "Not my style. I prefer to start with dinner and a movie.”

  "Don't you like me?" My voice sounds ridiculous to me, a cartoon coquette, a blonde so dumb she can't relate to herself as anything but sexual prey. Is this part of it? Did he do this to me? Or did I do this to myself?

  "I like you just fine," he says, and then there's a knock at the door. Dinner. Thank God we're too hungry to talk.