Dark Secrets (62 page)

“
I didn’t tell him
anything.” I shook my head. “I kind of ran home after that—never
talked about it again.”

“
Oh. So...how will things be when you see him on Tuesday,
then?” I could see the word
awkward
appear in bold all over Emily’s
face.

“
It’ll be fine.” I
hoped. “So, have you guys got a dress for the Masquerade
yet?”

Alana, detecting my
need to divert, knelt up and placed the picture she was holding
into the box. “I’m wearing the same dress my mother wore, and her
mother, and so on.”

“
Wow, that’s so
cool.” I started gathering the pictures into a pile.

“
Mm-hm. It was
actually first worn by my great-great-grandmother at the very first
town Masquerade.”

“
That is totally
cool.” Emily handed me a stack of pictures. “I haven’t found one
yet. I’m still looking. Just…nothing seems to suit me.”

“
I find that really
hard to believe, Em.” I rolled my eyes.

“
Well, what about
you, Ara? Have you got a dress yet?” Alana asked.

I grinned, placing the
lid on the box. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“
Ooh, you do.” Emily
squeaked. “Let’s see it, let’s see it!”

“
Okay.” I bounced to
my feet. “I’ll just be a sec.”

They both positioned
themselves on my bed, anticipation alight in their eyes, and I
bounded into my wardrobe, stopping dead as I closed the door behind
me and saw a giant white bag hanging on the hook.

My breath quickened,
my throat constricting to the size of a straw when I slowly tugged
the zipper down the length of the bag and saw blue. “Damn
vampires!”

“
What?” Emily
called.

“
Oh, ah, nothing.
Just got bitten by a mozzie.” I sucked my finger, drawing away the
mock-irritation of a mosquito bite.

Alana and Emily
laughed. “You sound so Aussie when you say that.”

“
Well, I
am
Aussie.”

“
Yeah, I know,” Emily
called, “you just never sound it.”

“
Well, they say
practice makes perfect.” I looked back at the blue dress inside the
bag, wondering where those conspiring renegades had stuffed my
pretty green dress. And when my eyes brushed past my old purple
sweater and faded blue jeans, I saw it there—shoved away like some
ratty old coat. “Hu!” I scoffed, reaching for it.

So, David wanted to
play dirty?

Well, there was no way
I’d wear his superficial affection, in any form.

I hung my green dress
on the other hook, then zipped up the white bag and wedged it into
a tight space near the wall, dusting my hands off after.
“There.”

But, before I even
stepped away, the sudden weight of guilt nearly forced my shoulders
to the ground.

Would it be so
bad—wearing the dress?
my inner princess
reasoned.
I mean, what could it hurt?
After all, David’s already paid for it.

The dress and I stared
at each other across the silent battleground of
conscience.

It was a pretty dress
and I did love it.

I pulled it back out
and hung it on the hook.

It couldn’t hurt just
to try it on again—see if it really was as perfect as I’d been
dreaming it was all afternoon.

Without allowing a
second for my conscience to overreact, I unbuttoned my jeans, tore
off my top and bra, and crawled into the dress—leaving it on the
hanger until I had my arms through, then unhitched it from the hook
and let it slide into place around the shape of my body.

It was hard to think
I’d be telling him to return this when it felt so amazing on my
skin.

As I reached around to
tighten the satin bows at the back, I felt a cool touch on my
wrist.

“
Shh,” someone
whispered; I spun around mid-gasp and a tall, handsome vampire
placed an elegant finger to his lips. “Shh.”

“
David,
I—”

“
Shh.” He smiled and
nodded in the direction of the girls.

“
You’re lucky you’re
so cute.”

By turn of his hand, I
faced the wall again, closing my eyes when his deft fingers took my
ribbons and twisted each one through the loops of the corset, tying
them up; it tickled so softly, drawing warmth from inside my chest,
making my knees weak. I rested a hand to the wall for
support.

“
All done,” he said,
but as I tried to turn around, he held me in place by my
shoulders.

“
What’re you
doing?”

“
Shh.” Using the tip
of his very cold finger, the vampire traced a line ever so slowly
from the base of my neck, all the way down my spine and across my
shoulder blades, resting just under where my bra would sit. “I’ve
never seen this part of your body before.”

Despite the urge to
dissolve under his touch, I held tight to good sense. “David, you
can’t just come in here, touching me like that, and expect me to
fall into your arms.”

“
That wasn’t my
intention, sweetheart.”

I spun around to
protest against his pet name, but all my anger dissipated as liquid
adoration melted the green in his eyes.

“
You look so
beautiful in that dress, Ara.”

“
I do?” I frayed my
fingers down the diamantes on the bodice.

“
A beauty, I fear—”
he touched his chest, “—that is a perfection I do not
deserve.”

Well, safe to say no
one’s ever said that to me before.

He placed both hands
in his back pockets and lowered his shoulders, shaking his head. My
frown broke into a grin. He just had this way of looking at me,
like, behind one eye he showed the human, the cheeky boy from
school, while the truth of his thoughts hid within the other; he’d
smile from somewhere inside himself, looking at me like he’d never
seen me before. And every time he did that, I was lost. All I
wanted now was to take this dress off and tell the girls to go
home.

“
I love you, Ara.”
David laughed and kissed my cheek. “I have to go.”

“
Hurry up, Ara. What,
are you still sewing the seams?” Emily joked.

“
It’s a corset, Em.
Good things take time.” I turned back to look at David but, as
usual, he left without saying goodbye, leaving me to find only
emptiness.

I drew a breath to
quieten my heart, then stepped out to show the girls my
dress.

“
Oh my God!” Emily
jumped up and ran to me. “Ara, you look like a
princess.”

Alana shook her head,
walking slowly over. “No way, she looks like an angel.”

“
Look at the way it
sets off her eyes. They’re bluer than the sky against that dress,
Ara.” Emily ruffled the layers of my skirt, then sighed. “I wish I
could find a dress like this.”

“
You will. Hey, why
don’t we all go shopping next week? We’ll find something just as
perfect for you,” I said.

Emily nodded eagerly.
“I’m in.”

Alana cringed. “I’d
rather not. I hate shopping.”

“
Really?” I
asked.

“
Yeah, I mean, not
hate it, but I’d rather do other things,” she said.

I shook my head. “I’m
sure you and I are kindred spirits, Lani.”

“
Perhaps.” She
shrugged. “Except I have better taste in boys.”

As I turned away,
chuckling softly, I caught my reflection in the window; the sky was
dark, and though the howling wind and the pattering rain outside
made my stomach sink—for fear there might be a storm on the way—I
saw only a smile on the face of the dark-haired beauty in the
glass.

“
Oh my God, Ara!”
Emily grabbed the price tag, her mouth gaping. “Was this dress
really a thousand dollars?”

Crud! My shoulders
rolled forward. “Actually, yes. David bought it for me.”

“
What?” Alana picked
up the tag and flipped it over, searching for a sale price, I
guess.

“
He wanted me to feel
special. I tried to stop him, but he did it anyway.” And without
that cheeky grin distracting me, I found it so much easier to be
mad at him.

Emily sat down on my
bed, her gaze distant, hands folded into her lap. “I can’t believe
it, Ara. I never thought I’d see the day when David Knight fell in
love.”

“
Did you not think he
was capable?” I asked.

“
No. I’m sorry. I
didn’t. I was sure that, ten years from now, when we met for our
high school reunion, he’d be America’s most eligible
bachelor.”

She had no idea how
right she was. Ten years from now, I’d be so much older than him,
and our high-school-sweetheart-romance would be a memory I thought
about when I was alone. “He might still be,” I added with a light
giggle. “Just because we’re in love now doesn’t mean we’re gonna
get married or anything.” Only, I knew we would—if things were
different. We loved each other enough to commit to a lifetime
together, but I just couldn’t commit to eternity—and David couldn’t
commit to a life.

“
Are you serious?” Emily stood up. “He spends a thousand
dollars on a dress, because he wants you to feel
special
, and you’re not
sure if you’re going to marry him?”

I sighed, feeling
utterly defeated. I wished I could tell her the truth. I knew she’d
understand—be able to give me advice and take some of the burden of
life and death decisions off my shoulders. If it just slipped out,
if I just said it, right here, right now, maybe David wouldn’t be
that mad with me—maybe he’d understand that I needed
someone
to talk to. And
if Emily helped steer my decision toward becoming immortal, then
David would only be grateful, right?

I opened my mouth and,
as Alana sat down in my desk chair, with my pillow in her lap, the
squeaky hinge woke me to reality. I snapped my big gob
shut.

Emily squinted,
studying my face. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”

“
More to what?” I
shrugged casually and started untying my dress.

“
Is it…are you still
in love with Mike?”

“
What? I never said I
was in love with him.”

“
Then, I don’t
understand?”

Of course she
couldn’t. How could anyone? David was perfect. Why would I not want
to marry him?
“What’s to understand, Em?
David and I—we’re in love, but we want different things in life.” I
grabbed a shirt off the end of my bed. “Eventually, we’ll have to
go our separate ways. We both know that. David
understands.”

“
Who are you trying
to convince, Ara? Us, or yourself?” Emily asked.

I held my dress in
front of my chest, pulled the shirt over my head and, once covered,
stepped out of the dress and threw it on the bed. “What does it
matter? It’s not like
you’re
losing him, Emily.”

She shook her head.
“It matters because I care about him. We’ve been friends for years,
Ara, and I’ve never seen him like this. He’s happy. And it was like
he knew you were coming—like he predicted it, or something,
because, about a month before we even met you, he changed—became
the David everyone else can tolerate.”

About the time I
arrived at Dad’s. “So?”

“
So, he smiles. He
laughs,” Emily continued. “And the only time that hasn't been true,
since the moment he finally asked you out, was the day of Nathan’s
funeral. What’s going to happen to him if you don't love him like
he loves you?”

Her ignorance just
made me insanely mad. “Who says I don't?”

“
You just said you
had no plans to marry him. Ara—” She pointed to my door, “—that boy
is practically picking out goddamn rings. You have no idea how
lucky you are.”

“
I do. Actually.” I
sighed, dropping my arms to my sides as I sat on the bed, wishing I
could fall into her shoulder and cry hysterically. “I hate that we
can’t be together. More than you know. But it isn’t my decision to
make. Not really. There are outside factors stopping us from being
together.”

“
Why should it
matter? When you love someone, you give up everything for that,”
she said.

I kind of laughed. I
didn’t know Emily went so deep. Everything she said was true,
though, and it hurt. I just wasn’t brave enough to risk everything
for love. My mother taught me better than that—taught me to follow
my head, because the heart could lead a girl down paths that may
destroy her life. I just wanted to forget about decision-making for
the summer; just wanted to enjoy the time I had with David and
maybe, somewhere in time passing, the answer would just come to me.
“That’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard, Emily.”

She opened her mouth
and drew a long breath. “You’re just too blind to see the
logic.”

“
Or maybe too
sensible.”

“
Guys—” Alana ditched
a pillow between us. “Stop fighting.”