The air became thick and hard to inhale, closing me in as the dry smell of dirt choked me, reminding me of my time in the darkness. I looked down at my hand. “My ring?”
“It’s here.” Mike pulled it from his pocket and held it up; it looked so small and fragile in his broad, strong fingers.
“I thought it melted.” My voice quivered as the reality of being alive set in.
“Melted?” Mike laughed, and David closed his eyes and looked away as Mike slipped the ring back onto my finger. I had no time to stop him; it just happened, and the hurt on David’s face tore my heart as it dropped into my stomach.
“They wouldn’t let you keep it on,” Mike said softly. “But I kept it close to me every day.”
Like a habit that had been formed over years, I twisted the ring around on my finger, regretting having asked Mike about it. “Where’s Vicki? And my Dad?”
“They went for coffee,” Mike said. “They stayed for a while, but your dad needed a break. He’s not doing so well.”
“Can you call them?” I asked Mike, but looked at David quickly. I need him to go, David. I need to talk to you.
“Sure.” Mike nodded. “Sure, kid. I’ll be right back. David, man?”
David snapped out of his stiff-lipped stare.
“Don’t let her go, okay?” Mike pleaded.
He nodded and took my hand, crushing the ring against my finger as he squeezed it. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her for you.”
Mike paused a second, ignoring the resentment we all heard in David’s tone, then, with his phone in hand, closed the door as he exited. I turned to David, biting my quivering lip.
“I know,” he said. “I know where you’ve been. I tried to bring you back, but I just couldn’t reach you.”
“Why did he do that to me?”
David’s face crumpled, but he stiffened immediately and held straight. “He wanted to hurt me.”
“But why hurt me? Why not someone else—anyone else?”
“An eye for an eye. A girl for a girl.” He looked away. “He’s never forgiven me. I thought we’d moved past it but he was just waiting, all these years, until I finally fell in love.”
“Fifty years is a long time to hold a grudge.”
David nodded, stroking my cheek with the back of his finger. “I’m sorry, Ara. There are no words…” He shook his head. “No words I can offer you to make this all right.”
I grabbed his hand and held it where he rested it along my cheek. “It’s okay. You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
“No. What matters is that you’re alive, and that this will never ever happen to you again.”
“So he won’t… I mean, he won’t come back for me?”
David shook his head, seeming to swallow the words that might’ve accompanied the action.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because he left you alive, Ara. For what reason, I do not know, but the fact that you’re still here, that he gave you the chance to survive, and that he didn’t kill Mike when he found you—”
“What? Jason was there when Mike found me?” I pushed myself up to sit.
David nodded, pressing my chest until I lay back down.
“How do you know?”
“I saw it all.” He rolled his chin toward his chest.
I looked away, going numb all over. “He told me he was going to make you watch.” I hoped he wouldn’t.
“It wasn’t like that, Ara. He wouldn’t show me.” His fists clenched. “I all but ripped it from his mind.”
“Why would you do that?”
“When I saw you here—saw the tearing on your throat, I knew it was a vampire. And there is only one person in this world who would dare touch a girl that everyone knew belonged to me.” He took off across the room, stopping by the window, the daylight reminding us both that the real world still existed out there. “I went straight to him—forced him to show me. Only… I wish I hadn’t.”
“I’m sorry, David. I should never have went with—”
“No, Ara.” He appeared beside me, taking my hand. “None of this is your fault. None of it. I left you. I did this. Not you. You should hate me.”
That’s not possible, David. It’s not your fault. Jason did this, no one else.
He sniffed once, staying silent for a while, eyes fixed on my ruby ring. “I will never understand why he didn’t finish what he started, but I am eternally grateful that he didn’t.”
“The darkness? He wanted me to be lost down there,” I concluded.
“No.” David shook his head. “No. He said something as he left you. Something that just didn’t fit.”
“What did he say?” My brow creased. It felt so weird to use those muscles again.
“He kissed you on the cheek and touched your hair, but he did it gently.” David absentmindedly copied the action of his brother. “He touched you the way I would. Then he said, You don’t know how special you are. I had to break you to realize.”
I looked up into the confusion on his face.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he added. “I know him. I know the dark place he was in when he hurt you. Whatever changed his mind, you don’t know how lucky you are, how lucky Mike is. Ara, he was going to—” He closed his eyes, biting his tongue.
An involuntary shudder edged up my spine. “But he bit me. Why didn’t I change?”
David drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry, Ara. You—”
“I don’t have the gene?” Hot tears filled my eyes again. I felt myself being pulled backward, like I’d stayed put in the crowded lounge of an airport and watched myself leave.
David looked away.
“But, I…” I swallowed hard, barely able to speak. “I changed my mind.”
“Changed your mind?”
“I want to come with you—”
“God!” He turned away, covering his mouth.
“Tell me it’s still possible. Tell me I can still—”
“I’m sorry.” David turned his sad eyes back to me, his lashes dark with tears. “You just… it’s just not in your blood, Ara.”
My whole body stilled, eyes closing tightly around hot tears. “I don’t want to die anymore, David. I can’t be without you again.”
“I know. I know, my love.” He stroked my hair, holding my face to his chest, but there was nothing he could say. “You can never be a vampire. The promise of eternity was never mine to give.”
Something died within my soul then, as all hope fell away like a rose through eternity. David rested his forehead to mine and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.
“How can that be?” My breath touched his lips. “How can it be over now that I’ve made up my mind?”
His jaw tightened. “Sometimes, Ara, life is cruel.”
“I can’t do this, David. I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself that I’ll never get back. This can’t be the end.”
“You’re marrying him.” David’s voice quivered as he nodded toward the hall—to where Mike went to call my dad. “That’s as concluded as things get.”
“But you told me to. You wanted me to.”
David’s fingers tightened around my face. “I’m no saint, Ara. I want what’s best for you, but at the same time…” He let out a heavy breath. “I couldn’t care less if being with me meant the end of your future.”
“Then don’t let me go.” Hope filled my voice. “Stay with me. Run away with me, I’ll—”
“Ara, I can’t. You know I can’t. I have things I need to deal with, things I must return and take care of, and running away”—he looked down into my eyes—“it’s not the answer, my love. Life is the answer, even if loneliness is the outcome.”
I went to protest, but David shook his head and pressed his thumbs firmly into my cheekbones, gently pressuring me to silence.
“You will have a good life with him. I know now that I’m leaving you in good hands.”
We both looked to the hall�
�to Mike, to my best friend and fiancé, practically bouncing around the corridor, with more joy radiating from his face than I’d ever seen.
When I looked back at David, he was already looking at me, his lips twitching as if something rested there, maybe words I wanted to hear him say.
“I don’t want to have a life anymore. I want to be with you.”
“I know,” he said sympathetically, but with a finality to it that discarded any hope.
“Don’t do that. Don’t speak to me like we can’t change this.”
“We can’t, Ara—”
“That’s not true. I had a lot of time to think in the darkness, David, and none of it matters to me now.” I sniffled, wiping the liquid from my nose. “Love. True love. That’s all that matters.”
David shook his head. “You can never be immortal. I sat here by your side, all this time, and I watched you die. I was helpless, unable to save you—forced to let you fade away a little more every day.” His voice broke to a whisper. “You disappeared into nothing, until every trace of what made you mine, what made you real was gone.”
“But I’m still here. David, I—”
“It doesn’t change things, because venom will not change you.” A tight crease pulled his brow at the center. “Look, I know I said once that I will always hope you would one day change your mind, but that hope no longer exists. It’s been ripped away by reality, Ara. I will not stay with you as a mortal. I have to leave.”
“Why? Am I so repulsive that you can’t love me with a heartbeat?”
David stood back and looked down at his clenched fist. “You know it has nothing to do with love—”
“Then what is it?” I almost screamed. I could feel my face burning with heat. “Why won’t you just love me enough to think I’m the only thing that matters? I know I messed up. I know I’m moody and spoiled and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t let you take me away, I’m sorry I went with Jason, and what you’re doing to me now, David, is making me goddamn sorry I ever fell in lo—”
“Ara!” He held a finger up, tilting his head awkwardly away as if he were fighting a deep, instinctual urge within him. “Don’t say what you’re about to say. If you say it, it’s been said, and you won’t be able to take it back.”
I held onto the urge to yell at him, to scream at him, but I could only hold it in so long; it burst out in a singular cry. I folded my face into my hand. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate—”
“Ara, stop.” He gathered me in his arms. “Ara, please, please don’t do this, my love.”
“No. You stop it. Don’t you call me that. You can’t call me that and then leave me.” I grabbed his shirt and looked deep into his eyes, my tears stopping. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll die if you leave, David. I’ll never be able to cope if—”
“You have to cope, Ara.” He unfolded my fingers from his shirt. “You’ve got no goddamn choice.”
“No. I do. This is love. This is life. I’m alive.” I tapped my chest. “I’m alive. We get a second chance, David. Don’t waste that.”
“I won’t.” He looked into me, and I could almost feel him reaching out to stroke my face, but his hands stayed by his sides. “I’m leaving you so you can live. A life with me, running, hiding, like dogs, Ara, would be a waste. I will walk out that door”—he pointed across the room—“and you have the choice to either say goodbye to me now, or never have the chance again.”
I rolled my head back, letting my face crumple with the pain of his impassively conclusive words. “David. Please. You can’t. I won’t live without you. I won’t, and you can’t make me.”
But he took another step away from me. “I’m sorry, Ara.”
The fight in me turned to fear then, and I tried to move my legs—to get up and run after him—but they felt like jelly. I could barely even move my toes. “David.” I reached out. “David. Don’t. Please. Don’t go.”
He looked away from me, reaching for the door.
“David, I love you. If I could take it all back, I would. Just, please. Please stay with me—please don’t leave me again. I want to be with you.”
“Don’t you think I want that, Ara?” He appeared beside me, stroking his thumb over the release of tears down my cheek. “But I left you with scars from my involvement in your life, and it’s time to put it right again. I love you too much to run away with you, knowing what could happen if we were found. I won’t let you get hurt like that.” His voice trembled but he steadied it with a breath. “And I can never watch you die again. I swear”—he clutched a fist over his heart—“as long as I walk this Earth, as long as I continue to move, I will have to believe that you are alive; that you still exist, or I will not survive this human life.”
“No.” I reached for him, just managing to grasp his shirt before he could pull away. “David, please. You’re making a mistake.”
Behind David, the door flung open and Mike’s smile dropped when he saw my face. “What have you done to her?” he growled, bounding toward me.
The tense energy tore away from the space between us as Mike pushed David aside. My outstretched hand gripped tighter, but my fingers slipped, and David backed away.
“Ara, what happened?” Mike asked, tucking my abandoned reach into my lap.
I pushed up from Mike’s embrace and searched the room for David. He hesitated by the door, holding it ajar as his gaze quickly averted once it met mine.
“I know this will be hard for you, Ara. Believe me, I will regret this decision for the rest of eternity.” His silky voice trembled. “But I cannot love you the way you are. I will only bring you pain.”
“David,” I whimpered. I’ll die without you. Can’t you feel that?
“Non, ma cherie. You will live.”
“I don’t want to,” I whispered one last time.
“And yet you will, because all human hearts eventually forget. This… us…” He motioned between us. “This future I wanted, it was just a dream of mine, Ara. And all dreams eventually die.”
My eyes closed as his words cracked my soul, breaking my heart into a million pieces. When I looked up from Mike’s embrace, my David, my knight, was gone.
35
Death: those of us who outrun it can never truly escape it.
My body would heal, so they told me. It would take months of rigorous and painful physiotherapy, but it would eventually return to what it once was.
Eventually, I would be able to walk to the bathroom by myself or breathe easily when sitting up, but no one could say how long it would take to resurrect the part of me that wasn’t rescued that night—the part that still suffered the incessant torture in my nightmares, the flashbacks, and the unending misery. They thought I was strong because I survived what he did to me. But I didn’t survive anything; I lived through it. They weren’t the same things.
“Ara?” Vicki broke my reverie, knocking on my already open door.
I looked up from pretending to read my book. “Hm?”
“Um…” She shuffled her feet, nervously trying to spit the words out. “Emily’s on the phone.”
“Tell her I’m sleeping,” I said simply.
“But, Ara it’s been weeks. She just wants to see you’re all right.”
“I’m not all right.” I moved my attention back to the book, which I hadn’t even been reading.
Vicki stood for a moment, as if I might suddenly change my mind, then left, closing the door behind her. I stared at the empty space for a moment, on the brink of calling out and asking her to bring me the phone. I missed Em so much. I missed school, missed normal life, but I was so goddamn ashamed. I didn’t even want to look at my own father, let alone my friends.
My door swung open again as Mike passed. He knew how much I hated it being closed. But he didn’t pop in and try to speak to me. Even he’d given up now, because I shut down whenever he tried to talk to me. It was just that every conversation led to him trying to find out what happened that night. I knew he just wanted to h
elp, and that he wanted to catch the man that did this, but since he was a cop, he believed that the only way to do that was with some damn good police work. Which was impossible when the victim insisted she can’t remember a thing. So now, I avoided talking and he avoided trying.
In his room across the hall, I heard the news come on the TV, and tried to tune out when I heard them mention me.
“Police are still investigating the brutal attack on a seventeen year old girl, who miraculously woke from a three month coma after…”
Mike popped his head in then. “Hey, baby.”
I snapped out of my stare, wiping hot tears from my cheeks and hurriedly grabbing my book.
“Hey, are you crying?”
“Nope.” I held the book to my chest as he sat beside me. “I’m good.”
“So these are tears of hilarity?” He looked at the title.
“Yup. Funny scene.” I forced a smile.
Mike’s eyes narrowed and I could’ve sworn he was shaking his head, even though it didn’t move. He sighed then, his eyes landing on my engagement ring.
I tensed, praying he wouldn’t bring it up. We hadn’t mentioned the engagement since I woke from the coma, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to yet, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to marry him anymore. So I hid my hand under the blanket, and he took that to mean exactly what I’d intended.
“Are you hungry?” he asked instead.
“No.”
“Do you want some company for a while? We could watch a movie.”
“I’m fine.”
“Would you like your light out—”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, wishing everyone would stop babying me, and checking in on me.
“Okay,” he said sweetly, standing to move away. But he hesitated by the door, then thought better of what ever he was about to say, and walked away, heading down the stairs with his shoulders hunched.
I stared at the window above the front door for a while, trying not to embrace the past—not to look on it and remember the bad or the good. It was, and would remain, exactly as the dictionary described it: the past.
* * *
As another night rolled to a close, Sam sat at the base of my bed and sketched pictures in his journal. He was good company. It was enough for him to just sit and be silent. He rarely probed for details, and when he did, it wasn’t to assess my psychological state, like everyone else. Before the attack, I was ‘depressed and unsteady’ but now I was ‘completely messed up’. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. But Sam was happy just keeping me company.
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 65