Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  “Ara-Rose. Time to get up.” Vicki banged on my door, making me jump.

  “I’m up,” I called, throwing my covers back. I wandered over and shut my window on the stormy day, drawing the curtains across, then slumped in my desk chair with a loud groan. All my homework was ruined—every little bit. I tried to separate the dry pages from the wet ones, but dropped them all with a huff of defeat. It was no use. I’d have to start all over again. But I just didn’t feel like being a part of the world right now. Everything in my life that was once worth living for was gone, or thousands of miles on the other side of the world. After months of trying so hard to keep it together, to be normal and move on, I’d finally had enough. I couldn’t think of one good reason to get dressed.

  From under my pile of class literature, I slid out my diary and opened it. Last night’s rain missed most of my books, thankfully, but the corner of my diary got a bit wet—well, soggy was a better word.

  It cracked as I opened it and turned to a blank page. The fading smell of home lingered in its binding, slowly being washed away by ageing and the sticky, inky smell of a blue pen.

  So many thoughts had been written down in here from times when everything was okay—and not so okay. I fanned the edges with my thumb, considering a flip back through memory lane, but thought better. Before I knew grief, my problems were so mediocre, so unimportant. I don’t think I could stand to hear myself drone on about my hopeless thoughts on boys or friends who wouldn’t talk to me after a fight. Back then, I was so narrow-minded, so naïve and ignorant to the world. I think it’d just make me want to throw up, or slap myself.

  I grabbed a pen from my drawer and leaned over the diary, expelling every twisted, deranged and ludicrous thought in my head. The one word that stood out though, as I read back over it, was Dad. Somewhere inside me, I still wondered if David was some hired help my dad called on to make me okay, and now that I was okay, David had to give some lame-ass excuse to leave. Bad thing was, I wouldn’t put it past my dad to do that. And even if that wasn’t the case, it didn’t matter. I felt awful last night. I had never cried so much, and I never ever wanted to again. David had his nature-documentary timeline, and that was fine. But I didn’t have to put up with it. If he really had to leave in the winter, then he could go, but I wouldn’t let him destroy my heart on the way out.

  I snapped my diary shut and stood up. I had to end it now. It had to be my decision. I just needed some goddamn control over something in my life.

  With a new sense of purpose, I jammed my iPod into the dock and blasted my Girl Power playlist. If I was going to take a new approach to life, then I’d need a montage—and a sexy outfit.

  I sang along, making a huge mess as I pulled nearly everything out of the neat little crevices in my wardrobe, then tossed my jeans, red tank top, and the only heeled shoes I owned into the bathroom. Then, in true montage style, shut the bathroom door and emerged again as the new, sexy, I-don’t-take-no-crap me—complete with red lip-gloss. I stopped by my dresser to dash on some mascara, and the soulless face of my past stared back at me. “Don’t pout,” I said to her. “We’re breaking up with him, and that’s that!”

  * * *

  The new me walked fiercely toward the roadside, her head down, eyes away from what she knew was waiting there. Then, as the montage music ended with an abrupt and sudden silence inside my head, I looked up at him and my resolve wavered.

  He sat there on a tree stump, bag on the ground by his feet, head in his hands, looking utterly overwhelmed by the weight of the world.

  But despite how that made me feel, the new me in the heeled shoes stood taller, gave a not-so-gentle reminder of why we were doing this, and charged onward. No more David Knight.

  He stood up as I crossed the street, his eyes practically bulging from his head. “Ara? My God, you look amazing!”

  I shrugged away from his touch, nearly falling backward as the heels of my pretty black shoes sunk into the turf.

  “Ara…” David warned, inching toward me as if I were standing on a cliff. “Don’t. I know what you’re about to say. Please don’t.”

  “I’m sorry, David, it’s better this way.” The words felt like shards of glass in my throat. “Look, yesterday was great and all, but we both know where this is going. I don’t see the point in dragging it out.”

  “Dragging it out?” His shoulders came forward with his words. “We love each other, Ara. Spending the next few months together is not, by any means, dragging things out.”

  “It is to me. You’re the one leaving. You don’t have to care, you don’t have to suffer like I do.”

  “Is that what you think?” He stepped into me. I stepped back, raising my hands. “Ara, you know nothing about what I will suffer for leaving you.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. Because you never tell me anything.”

  “I speak to you of my heart all the time, Ara, so don’t try to deny that you know how I feel—”

  “But you don’t speak to me about your life. Until you suddenly spring up with the news that you’re leaving—that you were always going to leave!”

  “I couldn’t tell you that, because it would open doors to conversations that you, by your own admission, are too fragile to handle right now!”

  “I told you yesterday that I was ready—”

  “That was a lie, and you know it.”

  “I… well…” I shuffled my feet, folding then unfolding my arms. “Maybe I’m ready to hear about it now.”

  Looking a little bewildered, he rubbed his head. He clearly didn’t expect that. Didn’t expect me to mean it.

  “So?” I said, finally deciding my arms should be folded. “Spill it.”

  “There are so many things, Ara. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “How ’bout the reason you’re leaving? That seems like a pretty good starting point.”

  “I—” The words hung just on the edge of his lips.

  “Just spit it out!”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to tell you,” he confessed. “Free to do so, with no excuses to hide behind, I just don’t think I can say it.”

  “Then we’re done.” I turned away.

  “I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me,” he called, so I stopped walking. “I’m afraid because, despite what you think about yourself, I know how kind and loving and warm you are. But you’re also very judgmental, Ara.”

  “And you think I can’t handle the truth?”

  He smiled tenderly. “I know you can’t.”

  I looked away, exhaling.

  “Look, we have a few months left. I just want you like this—this sweet, beautiful girl who loves me; who looks at me like I’m good. I couldn’t bear it if you hated me, Ara. I can’t bear this.” He motioned to the distance between us. “Please don’t break up with me.”

  “I have to, David.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I’ll fall more in love with you.” I forced back tears. “If I keep doing this, it’ll only make me break down when you’re gone, and I won’t get back up this time. I’ve got nothing left in me.”

  “Please don’t say things like that,” he said breathily, as though everything I just said turned his lungs to steel. “All I ever wanted was for you to be okay again.”

  “Yeah, well”—I looked right into him, making sure my words hit the deepest part of his heart—“now you’re the one hurting me.”

  He bent slightly and pressed his hands to his knees.

  “Good bye, David.” I turned away. “And please don’t talk to me if we pass each other in the hall.”

  “Do you really mean that?” His voice travelled across the distance effortlessly, carrying the entire weight of his confusion. “Ara, please tell me you don’t mean it.”

  “But I do,” I said in a weary voice. “If you’re going to leave, at least let me be angry at you. I need to be angry so it won’t hurt so much.”

  “Ara, you have to trust me; you have to believe that I wil
l only ever do what’s best for you. Me leaving, keeping you free from my world, it’s what’s best. You can’t see that now, but if you were to know the truth, you’d see it then, and I know that for a fact. I know I don’t need to put you through that.”

  I bit my teeth together in my mouth.

  “Please just give me you; just give me this girl I love, just for a few more months. I’m begging you.”

  “I’m just not strong enough to keep loving you, knowing I have to let you go. I’m sorry.”

  “So you have the strength to walk away, but not to stay and fight?” His hands went into his pockets.

  “Fight for what? For a guy who loves me enough to leave me for my own good?”

  “You have no idea how right you are.” He laughed to himself, shaking his head.

  I stood for a long time, watching him watching me. And I just had to ask. I knew it couldn’t be true, but I had to hear him say it. “Is this just you letting me down gently?” I searched his face for evidence. “You promised my dad you’d make me okay again, and now that—”

  “Do you really believe that? Do you really think I would do that?”

  “You’re a nice guy, David. But this”—I presented my difficult self—“this is a lot for anyone to take.”

  “Ara?” He reached for me again.

  I pulled away. “Just answer the question.”

  “No. What you just said… it’s not true. I never made any deal with your dad. I love you.”

  “But it doesn’t matter in the end, does it?” I said dryly. “You’re leaving, whether you love me or not. Whether you explain why, or don’t. Our story still has the same ending.”

  “Ara. What can I do?” He stepped closer, his hands ready to grab me. “Please just… just tell me how to fix this.”

  “You can’t.”

  As I turned away, his hand shot out and he spun me into his chest by my arm. “I’m not going to let you go that easily.”

  “Well, you don’t have a choice.” I pushed his hands off me. “Just like I don’t.”

  “Choice, huh? So, you want a choice?” he called. I kept walking. “Fine! I can tell you why I can’t stay. I can give you a choice, but you won’t like your options.”

  I stopped walking again. “Would one of those be an option to stay together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—”

  “But not like you want, Ara. It won’t be like this—”

  “But at least whatever I decide would be on my own shoulders. It would be in my control.”

  “And what then?” His brows pulled in tightly, the pain in his eyes making them darker. “What if you hate me after? I will die inside if you hate me.”

  “Either way, someone gets hurt.”

  “You’re right.” He nodded once, as if that only just occurred to him. “It never mattered to me before the way it does now—not with anyone I’ve ever loved. But I would die a thousand deaths to save you from the pain of a paper cut, Ara, and if telling you the truth does nothing but give you a fire to hate me with—to make it easier for you to let me go—then I will tell you. But I can’t do it here. Not now.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe closer to the time I have to leave—”

  “Right.” I scoffed, shaking my head. “So you get your last few months with me loving you, and then you sneak off, as you planned all along?”

  “No. I get my last few months with you loving me before you hate me for what I am!” he yelled. “If telling you would change the path ahead of us, I would do it now. Right here, at risk of anyone overhearing. But this information will serve only to keep you from taking your own life when I leave, Ara, because you’ll be thanking God that I’m gone.”

  “Do you really think I’ll feel that way? You know what your secrets are. You know me, know how I’ll react. Do you truly believe I won’t accept you for everything that you are?”

  “I honestly don’t know… anything, anymore. I don’t know what to say, what to do here, Ara.” He held both hands out by his sides, shrugging softly. “You won’t be with me unless I tell you, and yet you need me to stay, because you’re not okay without me. But you’ll hate me if I tell you. So, please, Ara, just tell me what I should do?”

  “I don’t know.” I hugged myself.

  “I’ve never been in a relationship like this before,” he said, hands going in to his pockets, “where I actually care what happens. And it feels like I’m on fire right now, mon amour. I’m so confused that the easiest thing to do… the right thing, just seems to be to walk away.”

  Exhausted, so over being sad and having holes in my life, I sighed. “I don’t think I care anymore. Just go, if that’s what you think is best.”

  He rolled back on his heels, his eyes focusing on some black pit of nothingness, and despite the invisible strings tying my heart to his—trying to make me move toward him—I forced myself to turn away, leaving everything behind.

  It only took me ten paces before the cooling wind eased the rage within my heart, though, and I realized I didn’t mean it. Not really. It wouldn’t be easy to learn things about David that would make me hate him, but at the end of the day, I would rather hate him than see him walk away without us giving this a fighting chance.

  I turned back to smile and tell him that, but he was already gone. There was no sign of him. Anywhere. Not even at the furthest part of the field.

  “Ara!” Ryan called, running toward me at full speed.

  I quickly swiped the tears away, forcing a smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He stopped running and looked at my cheeks. “You okay?”

  I nodded, sniffling. “What’s up? You look… have you been crying?”

  He put his hands on his hips, panting. “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nathan Rossi.” He caught his breath. “He passed away early this morning.”

  “Oh no!” I covered my mouth.

  “I gotta find David. You seen him?”

  “Does he know?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s just it, he was closer to Nathan than any of us. We’re worried ’cause no one’s seen him today.”

  “I have,” I said, with a deep feeling of regret coating my open wounds.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “I never gave him the chance.”

  He nodded to himself, his hands still on his hips. “Did you have a fight?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Okay, come on.” The stench of his sweat wafted up when he put his arm around me. “I’ll take you to the office—get you a tardy slip.”

  “Thanks, Ryan.”

  * * *

  Emily sat with her hands wedged under her knees, her legs swinging over the edge of the stage, trying to talk through the pain. I wandered down the aisle silently, hugging my sheet music, trying not to disturb her speech.

  “If he was here right now, he’d probably clap us on the shoulder and tell us to get up—that the show must go on.” She sniffed, wiping her face softly with a tissue. “I know it’s been a hard day, and”—she motioned around the room—“most of us have gone home. But Nathan’s gone, and… I know this whole thing started out as a way to help his mom with the hospital bills, but now she’s got a funeral bill on top… of… that.” Ryan leaped up and sat on the stage, wrapping his arm over her shoulder. “So, having said that, rehearsals will continue and so will the show, as a memorial concert.”

  “But we’re not doing it this week, right?” someone in the front row asked.

  Emily shook her head. “We don’t have to. Any votes on when we should hold it?”

  “Yeah,” a boy said. “Weekend after next. The funeral’s this Thursday, so…”

  Emily looked around the rest of the group. “Everyone agree with that?”

  People shrugged or nodded. Emily looked at me, and I smiled, bringing one shoulder up to my ear.

  “Okay, so two weekends from now. And we’ll need to draw up new ticket sale signs�
��if you guys can take care of that?” She nodded toward the art students, who nodded back. “Okay. Thanks for coming, everybody. Now”—she stood up—“let’s get this show on the road.”

  The small group dispersed, murmuring among themselves, while Ryan walked Emily offstage and talked to her quietly at the base for a second. She nodded, wiped her face, then hugged him tightly and walked away.

  “Hey, Em,” I said, deliberately avoiding how are you or I’m sorry.

  “Hey, Ara. Where’s David?”

  “Didn’t Ryan tell you?” We slid into the end seats on the front row.

  “Mm. No. What happened?”

  “He uh… he left school for the day.”

  “Really?” She slid down in her seat, folding her fingertips over her eyes. “I feel like such an idiot for crying at school. I wish I’d left too.”

  “Aw, Em, don’t. Hell, even I’ve cried at school before.”

  “Really?” She sat up a little.

  “Mm-hm.” I hugged my music sheets.

  “Well, why? Was someone mean to you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Who?”

  “Remember the theatrical kiss thing—with David, the toilets, my first day?”

  “Oh, yeah. Summer and that short girl she hangs around?”

  “Yeah.” I laughed.

  “Summer was telling us the whole story, you know, that afternoon.” Emily leaned back in her chair. “No one believed her, though—about David kissing you. I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t told me about it in History class.”

  “Why? Is it so hard to believe David would kiss me?”

  She laughed once. “That wasn’t what we didn’t believe. It was how Summer said he was doing it to stand up for you. David doesn’t stand up for anybody,” she added with a hint of spite.

  “He stood up for the Apple King at lunch that day.”

  “Yeah, it seems you’ve unearthed a new David.” She looked down at her hands, flipping her silver padlock bracelet. “So he went home, huh?”

  I shrugged. “Do you think he’ll come back?”