Dark Secrets (105 page)

“
But I’m still here.
David, I—”

“
It
doesn’t change things.” A tight crease pulled his brow at the
centre. “Look, I know I said once that I will always hope you would
one day change your mind, but that hope no longer exists. It’s been
ripped away by reality, Ara. I will
not
stay with you as a
mortal—I
have
to
leave.”

“
Why? Am I so
repulsive that you can’t love me with a heartbeat?”

David stood back and
looked down at his clenched fist. “You know it has nothing to do
with lo—”

“
Then what is it?” I
almost screamed. I could feel my face burning with heat. “Why won’t
you just love me enough to think I’m the only thing that matters? I
know I messed up. I know I’m moody and spoiled and I’m sorry. I’m
sorry I didn’t let you take me away, I’m sorry I went with Jason,
and what you’re doing to me now, David, is making me goddamn well
sorry I ever fell in lo—”

“
Ara!” He held a
finger up, tilting his head awkwardly away as if he were fighting a
deep, instinctual urge within him—what it was, I couldn’t tell.
“Don’t say what you’re about to say. If you say it, it’s been said,
and you won’t be able to take it back.”

I held onto the urge
to yell at him, to scream at him, but I could only hold it so long;
it burst out in a singular cry. I folded my face into my hand. “I
hate you. I hate you. I hate—”

“
Ara, Ara, stop.” He
gathered me in his arms. “Ara, please, please don’t do this, my
love.”

“
No. You stop it.
Don’t you call me that. You can’t call me that and then leave me.”
I grabbed his shirt and looked deep into his eyes, my tears
stopping. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t leave. I’ll
die if you leave, David. I’ll never be able to co—”

“
You have to cope,
Ara.” He unfolded my fingers from his shirt. “You’ve got no goddamn
choice.”

“
No. I do. This is
love. This is life. I’m alive.” I tapped my chest. “I’m alive. We
get a second chance, David. Don’t waste that.”

“
I
won’t.” He looked into me, and I could almost feel him reaching out
to stroke my face, but though his eyes said he wanted to, his hands
stayed by his sides. “I’m leaving you so you can live. A life with
me—running, hiding, like dogs, Ara, would be a waste. I will walk
out that door—” he pointed across the room, “—and you have the
choice to either say goodbye to me now, or
never
have the chance
again.”

It hurt so much—in my
heart. I rolled my head back, letting my face crumple with the pain
of his impassively conclusive words. “David. Please. You can't. I
won’t live without you. I won’t, and you can’t make me.”

But he took another
step away from me. “I’m sorry, Ara.”

My mouth dropped with
the disbelief my heart suffered for each inch of space between us.
The fight in me turned to fear, and I tried to move my legs—to get
up and run after him, but they felt like jelly; I could barely even
move my toes.

“
David.” I reached
out. “David. Don’t. Please. Don’t go.”

He looked away from
me, his eyes scrunching tightly in the corners as he closed
them.

“
David, I love you.
If I could take it all back, I would. Just, please. Please stay
with me—please don’t leave me again. I want to be with
you.”

“
But you can’t be with me, Ara.” He appeared beside me,
stroking his thumb over the release of tears down my cheek. “I left
you with scars from my involvement in your life, and it’s time to
put it right again. I love you too much to let you get hurt like
that.” His voice trembled; he steadied it with a breath. “And I
can
never
watch
you die again. I swear—” he clutched a fist over his heart, “—as
long as I walk this Earth, as long as I continue to move, I will
have to believe that you are alive—that you still exist, or I will
not survive this human life.”

“
No.” I reached for
him, just managing to grasp his shirt before he could pull away.
“David, please—you’re making a mistake.”

Behind David, the door
flung open and Mike’s smile dropped when he saw my face. “What have
you done to her?” he growled, bounding toward me.

The tense energy tore
away from the space between us as Mike pushed David aside. My
outstretched hand gripped tighter, but my fingers slipped, and
David backed away, one painful step at a time.

“
Ara? What happened?”
Mike asked, tucking my abandoned reach into my lap.

“
No—” I pushed up
from Mike’s embrace and searched the room for David; he hesitated
by the door, holding it ajar as his gaze quickly averted once it
met mine.

“
I
know this will be hard for you, Ara.
Believe me
, I will regret this
decision for the rest of eternity,” his silky voice trembled. “But
I cannot love you the way you are. I will only bring you
pain.”

“
David,” I whimpered.
I’ll die
without you. Can’t you feel that?

“
Non, ma cherie. The
sun will rise again in your world, but for me, it never
will.”

“
Then stay,” I
whispered one last time.

He shook his head.
“We were just a dream of
mine
, Ara…but even dreams eventually
die.”

My eyes closed as the
words he spoke touched my soul and broke my heart; when I looked up
from Mike’s embrace, my David, my knight—was gone.

Chapter
Thirty-Seven

Death, those of us who
outrun it, can never escape it. It held me in its clutches long
enough to steal my life, and though I could breathe and talk and
was capable of human emotion on the outside, inside I was a cold,
putrid corpse.

He left me—backed
away, turned around and held his head high as he fled my life for
eternity. No second chance, no discussion—just gone.

My body would heal, so
they told me—it would take months of rigorous and painful
physiotherapy, but it would, eventually, return to what it once
was. But they were talking about my ability to walk to the bathroom
by myself or breathe properly when sitting up. None of them knew
what torments I suffered inside. Even the psychiatrist in Vicki
couldn’t tell.

“
Ara?” She broke my
reverie, knocking on my already open door.

I looked up from
pretending to read my book. “Hm?”

“
Um—” She shuffled
her feet. “Emily’s on the phone.”

“
Vicki!” I slammed
the book down. “I told you. No phone calls. I don’t want to talk to
anyone.”

“
But, Ara, honey,
it’s been weeks—she just wants to see you’re all right.”

“
Do I look all right?
God, I can hardly even walk myself to the bathroom, I—”

“
Yes, you can, you
did it this morning, remember?” She grinned.

“
Yes, but that
doesn’t mean I want visitors.”

“
Are you sure, honey?
It’ll only be a few mi—”

“
I’m done arguing. I
said no.”

“
Okay. I’ll uh—I’ll
tell her to call back another day.” Vicki nodded and closed the
door.

I stared at the empty
space for a moment, lip quivering, arms weighted with grief. I just
couldn't do it. I just couldn’t let Em see me. I missed her so
much. I missed school, missed normal life, but I was so goddamn
ashamed. I didn’t even want to look at my own father, let alone my
friends.

“
Hey, ba—” I jumped,
wiping hot tears from my cheeks, hurriedly grabbing my book as Mike
swung my door open. “Ara? Baby, are you crying?”

“
Nope.” I held the
book to my chest as he sat beside me. “I’m good.”

“
So, these are tears
of hilarity?” He looked at the title.

“
Yup. Funny scene.” I
forced a smile.

Mike’s eyes narrowed,
his head seeming to shake, though it held still. I knew he wasn’t
born yesterday, but I also knew that with the prudence they all
exercised with me lately, he wouldn’t push for the truth. The
question was etching on his lips, though; he wanted to know why I
cried if I didn’t remember much about the attack, and a part of
him, I was sure, wondered if David had something to do with
it.

He asked me once, if
there was some reason David had become so upset when he saw the
wound on my neck—more upset than anyone else. I simply told him it
was because David loved me more than anyone else, and Mike accepted
that answer, temporarily. But he’d eventually start piecing things
together, I was sure of it.

“
Ara?” Mike said,
snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Quit fazing
out.”

“
Oh, sorry. What did
you say?”

He sighed, eyes on my
ring, then shook his head. “Nothing. It was nothing. I uh—” he
stood up, “—I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

“
Okay, Mike,” I said,
and let him walk away. I couldn’t ask him what he’d just said—not
when there was a strong chance it was about our engagement. We
hadn’t mentioned it since I woke from the coma, and I wasn’t sure I
wanted to yet.

I stared at the door
again for a while after he closed it, trying not to embrace the
past—not to look on it and remember the bad or the good. It was,
and would remain, exactly as the dictionary described it—the
past.

As another night
rolled to a close, Sam sat at the base of my bed and sketched
pictures in his journal. He was good company. It was enough for him
to just sit and be silent; he didn’t need to probe or prod for
details, attempting to assess my psychological state. It pretty
clearly sat high at ‘completely messed-up’ since the attack—it
didn’t take a genius to figure that out.

“
What do you think?”
He held up his book.

“
Wow, Sam, that’s
amazing.” Not just because the grey sketch of the girl looked
exactly like me, but because she was smiling—something I’d not done
since coming home.

He rested the book in
his lap and kept his eyes on it. “Ara?”

“
Yeah,
Sam?”

“
Do you remember
much—about the attack?” He pretended to retrace the lines on his
picture. “Does it keep you up at night?”

I stared at my thumbs,
clicking them over each other. “Yes. It does. But I try not to
think of it.”

“
I’m sorry,” he
said.

“
Me too.” I rolled
over and covered my head with my blankets.

No one told Sam the
finer details of the attack, but gossip had a way of spreading. He
came home late from school the other day, kept back on detention
after punching a kid who told him my dad lied—that the truth was,
my attacker really had…violated me. But no one knew what
actually
happened; I’d
take the truth to my grave—however far away that may be. And I
didn’t plan to stay in New England, either. My story made the news
and all the major papers; there’d be no escaping the stares if I
went back to school. Conclusions based on odd facts were the worst
kinds of infectious humiliation. I’d already planned to jump on a
plane and go back home as soon as I was well. Whether that was as
Mike’s fiancé or not, I didn’t care. I just needed to get away from
here—away from it all.

David once said that
it was kinder for a vampire to kill a human than to leave them
alive, suffering in agony until they finally passed. He was right.
Death would have been kinder. Perhaps that’s why Jason left me
alive—so I’d walk the Earth for the rest of my days, not only
ashamed and broken, reliving the consequences of his cruelty in
every nightmare, but also that I’d suffer it alone—without David.
He must have known David would leave me if I wasn’t capable of
change. He set out to punish David, but I was the one made to
suffer.

A wild winter gale
rattled my windowpane, and the darkness of the night touched every
corner of my room. I couldn’t remember Sam leaving, and though I
heard Dad and Vicki go to bed, I couldn’t remember if they came in
to say goodnight—like they always did.

The music vibrating
through my earphones helped filter out some of the clatter from the
wind, but I should’ve been more careful about the playlist I chose
because, tonight, in the darkness, these songs flooded my heart
with the agony of missing David.

I made myself small
against the wall and hugged my pillow to my chest. The skin along
my cheeks hurt from the constant wiping of tears, but as the cold
turned them icy against my lips, I forced myself to blot them away.
Then, as I sniffled, the memory of David’s scent replayed in the
darkness, an apparition of him appearing before me, making me lose
the fight to subdue my sobs. I could hardly breathe, hardly stop my
shoulders ferociously shaking as I bawled, muffling my cries
against my hands. “You’re not really here, are you?”

He stared down at me,
his liquid-green eyes intense with sorrow, as if our separation
hurt him just as much as me. “If I were, my love, I shouldn’t be.”
Then, as swiftly as he appeared, he was gone again, the tone of his
smooth voice ringing in my ears as if he’d really
spoken.