Dark Secrets (85 page)

Mike took a deep
breath, letting it out with a loud groan. “Look—I hurt you. I’m
sorry for that, okay? But you don’t love him. Not like you love
me.”

“
No—you’re right. I
don’t. I love him more.”

“
Ara,” Mike said
softly, “I’m not giving up yet. I know you better than you know
yourself.”

“
Then tell me what to
do,” I sobbed, pressing my fists into my eyes. “Just tell me what
to do.”

“
Come home with me.
Let me love you.”

“
It won't make it
okay. It’ll never be okay.”

“
I know. Ara, we
can't take back what happened. We can only try to move forward. But
if you let me, I’ll take care of you. I’ll hold you until all the
hurt just hurts less. Please—let me do that.”

I took a deep, jagged
breath. “I can't. I can't, because when I do—when I decide to, I
die inside.”

“
Why, Ara? Why do you
feel that way? I—I don't understand.”

“
You can’t, Mike. You
can’t, because you don't understand love.”

“
Love?”

I nodded.

He drew back a little.
“This isn't just about losing your mum and Harry, is
it?”

I shook my
head.

“
So…it’s about
David?”

I nodded.

“
You’re serious? All this is about
David
?” He motioned to my ruined
self on the floor of the school auditorium.

I nodded again, my
chest quivering, my snotty nose snivelling.

“
Ara, I know you
don't want to hear this, but I'm gonna say it anyway, okay?” He
touched my shoulder.

“
Please
don't.”

“
I have to, baby.
You—you’re not okay. You need a hand to guide you right now, and
I—I know you better than anyone. This isn’t normal—the way you
feel. This is grossly magnified by grief. This love you feel for
David—it isn't real.”

I looked up at him
quickly. “You’re wrong, Mike.” The beast inside me grew—rising up
from the ashes of disaster as I clambered to my feet. “It’s
you
I don't feel
for.”

He stood too. “Ara,
that’s not true and you know it.”

“
It is true,” I
screamed. “I stopped feeling for you the day my family died. And I
don’t care if that hurts you, because you need to know.”

“
Ara—” He edged
closer. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

“
I’m sorry, but...I
want you to go home, Mike. We’re never gonna be what we were. It’s
all just too broken now. I just can’t forgive you for pushing me
away.” Then, hurriedly, before guilt could set in, I turned and
headed for the door. But the light barely even touched my face
before I realised what that would have done to him. I couldn’t see
him, but I could feel the cold in the room from the detachment of
his soul.

The thing was, if he
couldn't understand what I felt for David, then he couldn't
understand how to love me. We’d never be right for each
other.

Holding my head high,
with pride moving my feet, I kept walking, even though I knew, deep
down inside, beneath the ogre, beneath the pain I always felt, I
loved him, and I wanted him to take me home.

“
Say it again!” Mike
ordered, grabbing my wrist, whirling me into the cage of his arms.
“Say it like you mean it and I’ll go. But you don’t, Ara.” He
studied me carefully, his eyes darting over every inch of my face.
“You don’t mean it. Say it!” He shook me.

My lip quivered and a
cold tear rolled over my cheek. It was suddenly very clear that he
wasn’t as sure I loved him as he said he was. He believed me when I
said I didn’t care for him—just as I’d wanted him to.

“
That’s it, is it?
Nothing? You have nothing to say to me?” His voice cracked above
the controlled hysterics. “After all these years, after…after all
the…” He let go of my arms, backing away as his hand covered his
mouth. “Oh, God. I did this. I did this.”

Even though my face
crumpled with the saturation of regret, I refused to let myself
hide in my hands. He needed to see I was hurting, too. He needed to
know how I felt. If I couldn’t tell him now, I’d lose him forever.
But I couldn’t speak. My chest felt so tight the words wouldn’t
come. If only he was like David, I could say in my mind,
I’m so sorry, Mike. I love you. I love you! And I
want you to know that. I just…I’ll always love David, though.
Always.

Above the silence, a
mighty growl suddenly broke through.

Mike looked up at me,
his eyes then falling to my belly as the ogre made a last demand
for nourishment.

“
When did you last
eat?” He looked back at my face, and in the pale light from
outside, I noticed the hint of a smile around the corners of his
eyes.

“
Last
night.”

A loud huff of air
burst out through his wide grin. “I shoulda known.” His arms flew
up and wrapped around me, pulling me into his chest with a jolt. “I
shoulda known you could never say things like that.”

As my breath struggled
through his strangle hold and into my lungs, I tried to push away
from him, to protest against his sudden change in direction. But he
squeezed me tighter and shook his head.

“
No
way, baby girl. I am
not
letting you go.”

So, with a sigh, my
shoulders dropped and I gave in, let him hold me—let his warm,
strong embrace make me feel safe and loved again. The way he always
made me feel.

“
Just say it though,
please?” He held my shoulders, looking down into my face. “Just so
my heart will believe my ears. Please just tell me you didn’t mean
any of it?”

“
You know I didn’t,
Mike,” I said very softly.

His chest shuddered.
“I’m so sorry I yelled at you, baby.” He gathered me up; I folded
into him willingly, letting him make an apology for something he
need not apologise for. “I was just so worried. If I’d lost you—if
you were gone, I…I just don’t know what I would’ve
done.”

Even though I knew he
was referring to the fact that I ran away this morning, a small
part of me wondered if what he really meant was,
if I didn’t love him
,
or
if I truly wanted him to go back
home.

And that made me feel
happy, in a silly kind of way, that he could love me so much, to be
so devastated if I would not love him in return.

When we walked through
the front door back home, Dad didn’t even bother grilling me. I
half expected to become the steak to his side of fries with way too
much salt. But he just hugged me—held me tight, like I mattered
more to him than anything in the world—then handed me back to Mike
before walking away, without saying a word.

I looked to Mike for
reassurance.

“
Food?” he said with
a gentle smile.

I nodded. “Yeah. Food
sounds great.”

* * *

The last chimes of the
principal’s speech resonated in my thoughts. Even with my eyes
closed, I could feel the pale glow of the spotlight over me as my
fingers scaled across the keys, breaking the hearts of those in the
crowd tonight.

Of all the worlds my
mind created, this, where I lived each day, was the most painful
one; the world that hovered on the wrong side of truth—the one I
could not escape from, even if I closed my eyes or woke myself up.
In this world, everyone I loved was gone, and the boy the crowd
mourned, Nathan, was gone too. No matter how much we played for
him, he would never hear our songs, but I would play for them
anyway—for all those who lived only in my memories. Including
David.

I truly believed he’d
come tonight, but mine was the last performance, and so far, he
hadn’t showed. So, I sang the words of the song from memory, not
from my heart. All the joy, all the passion I once felt when
singing was non-existent—dead, weighted like heavy rain. But my
music teachers taught me well how to perform when everything around
me was falling away. No one in the crowd would have known how much
I was suffering for the painful realisation that all this was real.
That David really was gone.

We finished the song
to a standing ovation. Mike wiped a mock tear from his cheek; I
smiled at him, then took a bow and sat back down at the piano for
my solo.

After a deep breath, I
closed my eyes, and in the moment it took to open them again, the
room went dark and ultimately quiet. A wispy cool encircled me; the
absence of life filtering emptiness into my world. I sat taller and
looked around the vacant auditorium.

I was alone; everyone
was gone.

How long had I been
sitting here?

A whisper of a memory
salted my thoughts, making me look down at my bone-white, numb
fingers. I remembered playing. I remembered the faces of the
audience—how, afterward, they greeted me and shook my hand. I had
smiled and nodded, while inside, I was dying. I could see it all as
it happened, but couldn’t remember living it. I wondered if Dad or
Mike were looking for me—worried about me.

My posture sunk a
little as I made myself smaller and took a few shallow breaths.
Truth was, I really didn’t care if they were worried. I just wanted
to play, rain my heart into a song until it no longer felt like it
was bleeding.

Ignoring the tension
of the impending grilling, I placed my fingers to the keys again.
Each note poured through them like rainbow-coloured grief—strings
of light that, with every pull on my heart, tore away another part
of my soul; brought to the surface another emotion, another painful
memory I thought I’d locked away for good.

Through all of this
that I’d suffered, I knew that, inside, I was destroyed. I would
never be the same again. I tried once, to move on, to be normal,
but with the loss of David, of my one true love, I knew that moving
on was never in the cards for me. Whatever my existence here was
fated to be, happiness was not it. David was not it.

Like a strong link to
a powerful memory, the faint hint of a familiar scent touched my
lungs. I drew a deep breath of orange-chocolate, and my body
rejoiced the sensation of oxygen, as if I’d not taken a breath
since I last held David.

My head whipped up; I
looked back to the chairs that only hours ago had been filled with
friends and family, and all of a sudden, in the middle seat, softly
lit by the light from the corridor outside, I saw a
face.

David.

He stood up slowly,
like a ghost weighed down by the anguish in the world.

How long had he been
there? What had he heard in my thoughts while he was watching
me?

“
I know this is
hard.” He appeared behind me, his smooth, ethereal voice shattering
my heart. “But you knew this. Breaking up was never going to be
easy.”

“
So, that’s what this
is?” I asked in a quiet voice, looking down. “We’re broken up,
now?”

“
I wish it wasn’t
so.”

“
It doesn’t have to
be.”

“
It does.”

“
But...maybe it
wouldn’t be so bad to—” I spun around on the seat and stopped dead
when I looked at him; it ached inside to see his face after I was
sure I’d never lay eyes on him again.

“
What wouldn’t be so
bad?”

“
To…to be like
you.”

He shook his head.
“You can’t be like me. I’ve spent so much time thinking about
it—desperate to find some way this could work. But, Ara? There’s no
saying you even carry the gene. What if we tried and you—” He shook
his head again. “No. You have to take a chance at life. You have to
live it to its fullest before I could even
dream
of changing you.”

“
But—”

“
No.” He placed his
thumb to my lips. “If you die, Ara, without ever knowing life,
motherhood, I could not live with myself. It is better to have
lived your life in heartache, than never to have lived at
all.”

“
I know. I do know
that. And—” I pictured my future, my children, my wrinkled skin.
“And I want a life, but…but the heartache is worse than I
thought.”

David looked at my
hand, over my heart, and nodded. “I know.”

We held our gaze for a
long moment, leaving our future resting on the pause of a few
simple words. After a while, I sighed, turning my face away when
the words refused to come.

“
He’s right for you,
you know.” David broke the silence, though the tension stayed as
thick as blood.

My quiet breath
sunk.

“
I want you to be
with him. I want you to go back to Perth with him.”

I looked up
quickly.

“
I see in his
thoughts, Ara. I watch him with you. He loves you—deeply.” He lost
his voice on the last word, closing his eyes as he said
it.

“
I know, David. I
know he loves me, and—I love him too.” I had to whisper, afraid my
words would wound him forever; like somehow, making my voice low
might take away some of the sting. “But I can’t go with him. I
can’t. I just can’t leave you here al—”