Dark Secrets (41 page)

“
Mike?” I said,
taking a step toward him; he didn’t hear me. I followed his gaze,
and my heart shot into my throat, falling straight back down into
my gut when I saw two coffins, side by side; one white, small, the
other long. I wanted to fall to my knees between the open graves,
to touch them one last time—have longer to say goodbye, but Dad
stepped up and whispered in my ear as they lowered them into the
ground, “They’re together up there, Ara.”

I jumped back and
looked across at Dad, still standing beside Mrs Rossi.

“
It’s just us now,”
his voice played in my ear.

I looked back at the
boxes containing my entire family as the priest spoke over the
smallest one. “Can I please go with them, Dad?”

He didn’t respond.
Because he couldn’t. He wasn’t even really standing beside
me.

“
As we lay this child
to rest,” the priest said, “may the angels greet him in Heaven.
Father, for you are the all forgiving.”

But what if there was
no Heaven? What if Harry was lost out there somewhere—alone, crying
for me, and I never came to him?

He was too small to be
all alone—too small to be gone. He shouldn’t have been there. He
should’ve been safe in his bed.

I wiped my face,
smudging the rain into the tears while I watched Mike sprinkle a
handful of soil over the coffins. Then, he looked at me, and my
heart stopped beating as our eyes met.

“
Mike?” I called out
to him, but he just shook his head, unable to speak through his
tears.

“
Ashes to ashes, dust
to dust.” The words of the priest filled my ears; they sounded too
real, like I was still there.

“
Ara?”

My mind snapped back
to reality. People sobbed hysterically around me, and Mrs Rossi
fell into my dad’s chest, hiding her face.

Lost in the
unbelievable realism of my memory, I hadn’t felt David place his
arm around me. His voice, saying my name, echoed in the distance of
my memory. I looked up at him for long enough to see extreme
concern behind his eyes.

“
I’m okay,” I said,
letting my gaze drift back to Nathan’s box.

As it slowly lowered
closer and closer to the ground, I thought about the empty
space—the horrible moment which brings everything into reality the
minute you leave the funeral and walk into that vacant house.
Before they’re gone, before you bury them in the cold, hard ground,
everything seems surreal, like they’re just on a shopping trip or
somewhere in the house where you can’t hear them. But when their
flesh touches the earth and settles in its final destination for
all eternity, it takes with it the cloud, the safety of the cage
that hides you from believing they’re never coming back.

When Nathan’s mom got
home, she’d fall apart. She’d cry until there were no tears left
and it would still do her no good. Nathan would never come
back—Harry was never coming back.

My shaking hands
turned to ice. David’s grip tightened around me.

All the things they’d
miss out on; it was too much to bear. Nathan would never finish
high school, Mum would never see me get married, hold her first
grandbaby and—I swallowed hard, pressing my shaking knees
together—Harry would never go to school, never paint his first
picture, never learn to walk. He never even got to have a birthday
party.

The oxygen around me
felt over-used. My head rocked back and forth inside, and as the
shivers ran from my hands, up my arms and into my chest, I heard a
quiet gasp—and everything went black…

…
Grains of sand fell
through a narrow passage in a glass jar and hit the base with a
soft pattering. The ground swayed gently beneath me, and the frosty
rushing of my whole world felt calm now, closed in by the warmth of
the summer sun. It was just David and I, watching the rain fall
onto the leaves above us—staying perfectly dry in the hidden
clearing where I had my first kiss.

But as I felt the rain
on my skin suddenly, I looked up to an open grey sky and the
nostril hairs of a man, his breath brushing my fringe.
“Dad?”

“
Shh,” he whispered
into my head. “It’s okay, honey. I’m taking you home.”

“
What
happened?”

“
You
fainted.”

“
I what?” I rolled my
head to the side and looked around the church parking lot. “I
fainted?”

“
I should have known
better. It was just too soon,” Dad said, more to
himself.

“
You’re going to be
okay, Ara,” Vicki said from beside Dad, holding an umbrella over me
while she dripped with rain.

I touched my hand to
the back of my neck and pulled out a piece of grass. “Did I hit my
head?”

Dad nodded. “David
caught you, but he was a fraction of a second too late.”

“
He only stepped away
from you for two seconds to place a rose into the, er…and you
fell,” Vicki added.

“
I must admit,
though—” Dad half laughed, “—he made it to your side quicker than
I’ve ever seen anyone move. I almost didn’t see it
myself.”

“
So, he didn’t even
get a chance to say goodbye to Nathan?”

Dad whispered
something softly to Vicki—something ending in the word
David
. My ears pricked
up.

“
Is he—” I hesitated,
“—is David mad with me?”

Dad’s head moved
slowly to look at Vicki again.

“
Ara, why would he be
mad with you? You didn’t mean to pass out,” Vicki said.

They wouldn’t
understand, so I said nothing else. Dad placed me in the backseat
of the car and the door swung open on the other side. “I’m fine,
Vicki, you can sit in the front with Dad,” I started, but my eyes
fell on something magnificent. “David?” And that was it. That was
the final straw. I buried my crumpling face in my hands. I wanted
to tell him to go away, but his arms, as they fell around me,
pulling me into his cool, firm chest, held me so tight my body
couldn’t shake. Even the soaking rain, making his suit icy cold
against my face, didn’t bother me. I just needed him so
badly.

“
Shh, sweetheart.” He
stroked my hair, whispering into the top of my head. “It’s okay.
It’s going to be okay.”

“
No, it’s not.” I
sobbed uncontrollably. “Nothing ever is.”

“
Don’t say that.” He
slid down in the seat a little more and wrapped his arms tighter
around me. “You mustn’t say things like that.”

“
Dad?” I lifted my
head, speaking a little louder to project my voice over the heavy
pounding of rain. “I’m so sorry—did she see? Did Mrs Rossi
see?”

“
Ara, honey. Mrs
Rossi’s more worried about you, okay?”

“
Oh no.” My head
shook against my hands.

“
Ara, please stop
crying?” David asked softly, brushing my hair from my
face.

He smelled so good and
he was just so sweet. That rich, orange-chocolate scent, the scent
that could only be David’s, matched his gorgeously gentle
personality so well.

My sobbing stopped
short for a second when a loud rumble emanated from the ogre within
my belly.

“
Ara? Did you eat
breakfast?” Vicki asked in a high-pitched tone.

David’s chest sunk as
he breathed out deeply, pressing his cheek against my forehead.
“No, she didn’t. Silly girl.”

“
Ara?” Dad sighed.
“You know better than that. What were you—” He stopped, almost
visibly biting his own tongue. “It doesn’t matter. When we get
home, you need to go straight upstairs. Vicki and I will fix you
some food and bring it up. Okay?” Dad looked in the rearview
mirror.

I nodded, letting
David pull me closer to his saturated shirt. We were almost home
now. The sweet smell of the frangipani trees in Mr Herman’s garden
scented the cold, wet air coming in through Dad’s window, and I
breathed the last few minutes of David I would ever get.

Chapter
Sixteen

Dad let David carry me
upstairs, much to my disgust and against my very strongly worded
protest. When we stepped into the warm, soft light of my room, a
wave of relief washed away the tight feeling in my chest. David
stood me on the ground, pulled the quilt back on my bed, then
lowered me onto the mattress—smoothing the rain away from my legs
before sliding my shoes off my feet.

“
Thanks.” I smiled
down at him.

“
My pleasure.” He
smiled back and, as he stood up, placed my shoes neatly,
side-by-side, next to my bedroom door.

Something clicked
then; the air stopped flowing to my lungs for a second and pieces
of my life over the last few weeks started to fit together. My
window—that night—I
closed
it. But it was open—in the morning.

“
Lay back,” he said,
and I did, very slowly, all the while moving pieces of the puzzle
around in my head. He pulled the quilt up to my chin, sitting
himself on the bed beside me.

“
David?”

“
Yes, Ar—” He frowned
at my wide-eyed expression, then stood up, stiff and slow. I saw
his throat move as he looked over at the shoes. I looked at them,
too.

That was all the
confirmation I needed.

“
I can
explain.”

“
You snuck…into my
room
?” I said. “Why? I mean—how did
you even
get
in
here?”

“
I—” He stopped and
straightened up suddenly, keeping his eyes on me. “Come
in.”

I looked at the
door.

“
Hey, honey.” Dad
popped his head in, smiling widely at a plate in his hand. “Made
you a salad sandwich.”

“
Thanks, Dad.” I sat
up. Though I was hungry and felt pretty sick because of it, all I
wanted was for him to go away so I could figure out what the hell
David was doing in my room that night and, more embarrassingly, how
long he’d been watching me.

“
Mrs Rossi called,”
Dad said, sitting beside me, handing me the plate. “She asked me to
tell you that she was overwhelmed with happiness to see you today
and not to worry about fainting, because if you hadn’t done it
first, she would have.” He laughed softly. “And then she added that
she wouldn’t have had a handsome young man there to catch
her.”

David’s shoulders
lifted once with a chuckle.

“
I
told her I’d have caught her, but,
apparently
—” Dad looked a little
solemn, “—I’m not a handsome young man.”

I smiled softly. “It
was nice of her to call.”

“
She was worried
about you.”

“
We all were,” David
said, then moved away and leaned on the wall beside my door, his
arms over his chest, a thousand thoughts dancing across his face.
And all I read there, in his eyes and on his brow, was
agony.

“
Ara?” Dad waved a
hand in front of my stare.

Clearing my throat, I
looked at the smile badly masking his concern and almost laughed.
“I’m okay, Dad. Really. I guess I just need to eat.”

He exhaled, relieved,
I guess, and nodded. “Okay. Do you…need some time
alone
?”

One of David’s brows
arched up slightly.

“
Just give me a
second to talk to David?”

“
Sure thing, honey.”
Dad stood up and patted David on the shoulder as he passed,
shutting my door behind him.

The silence in the
room hovered over the howling winds outside. David closed his eyes
for a second, rolling his chin toward his chest. I wondered who
should speak first; the prosecutor or the defendant.

“
Eat,” he said, out
of the blue.

My eyes narrowed and I
bit my teeth together. “I think you have a few confessions to make
before you go asking me to do anything.”

His arms dropped to
his sides with a heavy sigh. “I’m not talking until you’ve eaten
something.”

Keeping my eyes on
him, I picked up the sandwich and tore a corner away with my teeth.
“Happy?” I muttered with my mouth full, slamming the sandwich back
down on the plate.

David nodded once, the
frown he wore erasing the usual smile from his eyes. Everything
about him seemed odd without that smile. Empty, almost.

“
Okay,” I said after
I swallowed, “I’ve eaten now. Fess up, for once.”

He walked slowly over
and knelt by my bed, taking both my wrists and setting them gently
beside my legs. “I love you. I would never do anything to hurt or
dishonour you, and I would never intrude on you in a corrupt
manner. But, I
did
come to your window and I
did
come in to your room.”

“
Why?”

“
I’ve been worried
about you. Your dad said you were suicidal, and I wasn’t sure if he
might be correct. After we—” he rocked his jaw, blinking a few
times, “—after I kissed you and then took you home, I—I knew what
you were thinking, Ara. I knew you just…wanted to stop the pain. I
was really worried you might. So I—” he shrugged and jerked his
head to my window. “I jumped through. Came to check on
you.”