Dark Secrets (46 page)

“
Well, at this point,
I can officially inform you that we are a secret society—so, much
of the information about our laws and abilities, I cannot divulge.”
He smiled, his eyes becoming small. “Even though I already
have.”

“
But you can reveal
yourself? People can know what you are?”

“
Only on one condition.” He paused and took my hand. “That is
why I
told
you I
must leave, Ara—in the hope that it might come to this—to you
finding out once and for all about me, about what I am. Otherwise,
I would’ve just left you.”

“
Like you did to all
the others?”

“
I never said
that.”

“
You move on every
two years; you must’ve made friends. Am I the only one
you—?”

“
You’re the first
human I’ve ever told, yes.”

And for some stupid
reason, that made me feel special, close to him. But I didn’t want
to feel like that anymore; I hated what he was, and I wasn’t sure
if I actually might’ve hated
him
, too. But I knew that some part
of me didn’t want him to go away. Not for forever. My lip quivered.
“So, you can tell me that you’re a vampire, but you have to leave
if you do?”

“
No—” He pulled my
face against his chest. “Silly girl. No. I can tell you only if I’m
sure that you’re—”

My head whipped up to
see his face when he went quiet. “I’m what?”

“
I
guess the right words are…my
significant
other
.” David almost read over his own
words in the air, then, seeming happy with the terminology, looked
at me. He smiled, pressing his finger under my chin until my teeth
fit back together.

Significant
other
? “But…you’re a vampire. I can’t be
your significant other, David. We can’t even be
together.”

He swallowed hard. “We
can, if you loved me enough.”

“
David, you know I love you. But you
kill
people in order to live,” a
hint of hysteria touched my tone. “I don’t know if I can be a part
of that. Not as your friend, not as your lover, and
certainly
not as a
vampire.”

David froze in place,
like a stone carving. The expression of confusion seemed eternally
placed within his eyes, and his chest stopped moving as if he’d
given up breathing. “Believe it or not, Ara, it’s kinder to kill
them.”

“
Er!” My lip twisted
up in disgust. “I don’t want to hear anymore, David. Kinder? I—I
just can’t even conceive of the idea.”

“
Perhaps you have
heard enough, then.” A slight nod moved his head, but his face
stayed frozen; the smile I loved completely blanketed by pain. “I
shall leave you now.”

“
Wait, don’t go
yet.”

He stopped, but didn’t
look at me.

“
I just—I just need
some time to think. Do you think you can give me that?”

“
All I have is
eternity.” He snapped out of his intensely deep stare, shrugging,
then leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

“
I won’t need that
long. But, David?”

“
Yes, my love.” He
stopped by my door.

“
Are you in any
danger? Because you told me?” I hugged both legs to my chest.
“Like, will they be mad with you?”

The door swung open
and he stood between here and gone. “No. But if you ever say
anything and they were to find out…”

“
I won’t say
anything.” I rested my cheek on my knee.

“
Good.” He gave a nod
and disappeared, leaving my door swinging in the breeze he left
behind.

I sat there, in the
middle of my room, hugging my knees to my chest, until the
afternoon turned to evening. When Vicki flicked the hall light on
and came up the stairs, I ducked in the darkness, waiting until she
passed. And I noticed then, crumpled at the foot of my bed, the
damaged remains of the blue rose David stole—the representation of
the moment that changed everything.

I jumped up quickly,
butt numb, legs stiff, and grabbed the flower, pressing it to my
nose. Despite all the damage done, despite the petals falling away,
weeping, it still smelled just as sweet as before. Which was
comforting to me, because, for all the things that seemed
irredeemable, some things were still okay.

I grabbed my diary and
pressed the flower between the last pages, then snapped the book
shut and sat on my bed in the dull light shining in from the world
outside my room.

Chapter
Seventeen

“
Ara, come down and
have some dinner, please,” Vicki called from the bottom of the
stairs. Again.

“
Not
hungry.”

“
Don’t
care.”

“
Argh!” I slammed my diary on the bed and stomped into the
hall. It just didn’t seem right to go downstairs and eat dinner
with the family—like a
normal
person. Nothing was normal anymore. I mean, I
should probably be telling my dad that I may have gone crazy,
because I’m pretty sure my boyfriend just told me he’s a vampire. I
smiled, stopping halfway down the stairs. That would be pretty
funny—to see the look on their faces if I said
that.

“
Ara?” Vicki rolled
her head forward, raising a brow. “Your dinner’s going cold—move
it.”

“
Oh, sorry.” I
started down the stairs again.

“
What is wrong with
you?”

“
I’m just
tired.”

“
Well, that’s to be
expected.” She walked into the dining room and sat beside
Dad.

“
Feeling better?” Dad
asked.

“
Mm-hm.” I sat down
too.

“
Emily called while
you were resting,” Vicki said. “She wants to come see—”

“
What did you tell
her—about why I fainted?” Everything around me seemed to rock, then
grow larger and wider, before rapidly shrinking back in.

“
Ara, it’s okay,” Dad
assured. “We told Emily you have low blood-sugar—that you hadn’t
eaten. No one knows anything about your mom.”

My shoulders dropped;
I let out a breath of tension and drew back relief. “So, David
caught me, huh?”

Dad nodded.
“Yes.”

“
Did you
see
him catch me?”

“
No. That’s the weird
thing. I wasn’t really paying attention.” Dad set the bowl of peas
on the table and looked at me. “All I saw was David by the er—well,
David was a few feet away. I heard everyone gasp, so I looked over
at you, then he was there, lifting you off the ground.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah. He should join
the track team,” Dad said.

“
Yeah. He is really
fast.”

“
What’s the matter,
Ara?” Dad asked.

“
I’m fine. I’m just
really tired.”

“
Honey, you can fool
some of the people all of the time—but you can never fool your
dad.” He grinned.

“
I know. It’s
just—David.”

“
David? What’s he
done?” The warm blue of Dad’s eyes turned to ice.

“
Dad—nothing. He
just. He has to go away soon. I’m going to miss him, that’s
all.”

“
Go away? Where?” His
tall posture seemed to shrink back down a little.

“
It doesn’t matter. I
don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”

“
Okay,” he said
slowly, then looked at Vicki.

With a sigh, I stood
up and issued a pleasant smile. “I’m going to bed. I’m
tired.”

“
But you didn’t eat
anything,” Dad said.

“
I’m not really
hungry.”

“
Okay, that’s fine,
Ara.” Vicki held a plate out to me. “But at least take some food up
with you. You look skinny.”

Stifling the urge to
scowl at her and tell her to mind her own business, I looked up
from my bony hips and nodded, taking the plate.
“Thanks.”

“
Night, honey,” Dad
muttered, way too casually. He knew there was something up, but he
wasn’t going to ask. Dads are smart sometimes, but even smarter to
stay out of it.

There was no comfort
for me in the dark tonight. I couldn’t dream that I’d wake up and
meet David across the road tomorrow; couldn’t fantasise about the
day we’d get married or how we’d sit on a porch swing, rocking back
and forth while we watched our grandchildren play in the yard,
because those dreams
were
the darkness, now—a haunting kind of darkness.
They were what kept me going when I didn’t want to breathe; they
were what made me think that perhaps I wasn’t cursed. But it was
ever clearer that I was being punished—haunted by those dreams
forever—because David and I couldn’t possibly be
together.

A dancing flame
flickered against the wick of the vanilla candle by my bed; I sat
in its gentle glow and blew out the match, breathing the cindering
smell of wood as the flame withdrew. Across my room, the girl in my
dresser mirror appeared; I touched my fingers over my face, over
the scars, watching her do the same. Once, David had made it all
okay; he made the scars seem faded, he made the days feel sunny,
but now, despite the gentle glow of the candle taking some of the
darkness from my room, he’d also made the nightmares that used to
hide in the shadows when I was a little girl peek out from the
past. All the things my parents said weren’t real—all the monsters
and demons—actually were. I mean, there could be a bogeyman under
my bed, for all I knew. And David was one of those monsters; he was
the epitome of nightmares—the very thing that made me draw my foot
from the edge of the bed and hide it under my covers. But a small
part of me
wanted
to accept him. A small part of me—a very small, irrational
and rose-coloured-glasses part—didn’t care. I just loved that damn
vampire so much.

But at the same time,
I couldn’t separate myself from the idea of a life lost.

Then again, I wasn’t
sure I could live with myself if I let him go.

For such a short time,
I thought I was going to be okay. David rescued me, showed me what
real love felt like, gave me my first kiss. No one had ever kissed
me like that before, and no one had ever told me they loved me—and
meant it. And now that was gone—the hope of being with him always—I
just felt empty and more confused.

Disregarding my
resurfaced fear of The Bogeyman, I flipped my legs over the side of
the bed and wandered to my desk, opening my diary in front of
me.

Dear
Diary,

It’s funny how love
goes; you think you have morals and strong beliefs, but when you
strip it all down, the truth is that I want to love him. I want to
forget about what he is and just love him. But, by accepting him,
I’d be condoning murder.

On the other hand, I
can go on forever not loving him, when there’s nothing I can do to
save those people, anyway. Will I punish myself for what David
is?

I looked up from the
pages to the phone by my elbow. I wished it would ring and, in my
moment of weakness, I could tell my best friend everything. He’d
know what to do. But he’d tell me to run. In fact, he’d be on the
first plane over here, stick me in a duffel bag, and carry me off
to a faraway land, pack me into a crate, and stand guard for the
rest of my life.

Okay, perhaps the
phone ringing was a bad idea.

I dropped my head into
my hands.

Outside, dotted
twinkles of silver sparkled in the night sky; once, they were
glimmers of hope for me, but tonight, stared back down into my
insignificant little life, offering no solace or resolution at all.
But matters of the heart; they were never solved rationally. Love
is irrational. Love is unfair.

There would be no
going back. No lazy afternoons by the lake, warm and safe in
David’s arms. We’d never get married or have babies, never grow old
together and get arthritis, and if I became a vampire—never
die.

Before I lost my
family, death was always something that, for me, seemed years
away—hundreds of years. But in the face of immortality, all I could
think of was how restless it must be to know you’d never find
peace, never reunite with those who’ve passed, never find out what
was on the other side. And sure, you get to live forever, but I bet
the novelty would wear off pretty soon—and then what? Then it’s too
late. And what if I became a vampire and, after a few thousand
years, he got bored with me?

“
That
—” a voice broke through the
silence, “—could never happen.”

“
David?” I shot up
out of my seat and pinned my back to the wall beside my dresser.
“How long have you been there?”

He sat comfortably in
the nook of my window, his back against the frame on one side, his
foot propped up on the other. “Long enough.”

“
Long enough for
what?”