I missed him, missed his smile, missed everything about him. I wanted to believe, just for a little longer, that he was still here. So I wandered over to the rock and fell into imaginary arms against it, tucking my knees up to my chest. I just needed to believe I might see him again. I’d have given anything—anything to have him here again—even let him read all my inappropriate thoughts just to lay eyes on him for one second.
“I miss you so much, David.”
In the silence, for the first time, I allowed myself to realize what I’d done; what I’d done to my life, my friends, my family. I should have told Mike so long ago that I could only love David; I should never have said I’d marry him. I should never have left the locket with the rose; should never have said goodbye. I just kept failing. Over and over again, making the wrong choices.
Or maybe they were the right choices, and no matter what I did or chose, I wasn’t capable of being happy. Maybe, if I’d chosen David, I’d still feel this way.
I gave my head a little crack on the rock as if it might knock some sense into me. It didn’t. It only hurt. No matter what I tried to do to make things better, to make sense of things, all I did was cause hurt. Perhaps they’d all be better off without me.
My attention moved to the lake and its rushing swirls of rising water, fighting against the storm to stay calm.
Perhaps they’d all be better off if I just launched myself into the lake—let the wintry cool of the water overtake me and set me free from all this. I could eternally rest in the place I knew David would return one day.
I wondered how long they’d miss me—how long they’d search for me—and sighed, knowing deep inside that it wouldn’t be long. Not now. Not now that Mike had Emily. He’d be able to move on sooner than he would before. At least I knew he’d be okay. Everyone would. I’d stayed alive long enough to see them all move on—to see them all realize they could cope without me.
But my life was so far gone there wasn’t any point trying to salvage it. Everyone I loved had moved on.
“Or are dying of heartache every day because they can’t be with you.”
I looked to the side—to a pair of heavy black boots sitting loosely around the cuff of jeans, shaded by a thick, heavy trench coat. A flicker of fear raced through me for a heartbeat until I looked all the way up to the side of his shoulders and jaw, lit by pale moonlight. And even through my tired, teary eyes, I knew his face.
“David!” I launched to my feet, stumbling back against the rock.
“Why would you think like that, Ara?”
The gristly, solid feel of rock under my palm grounded me. I traced my finger along it to know I was awake. “David. Are you real?”
“Ara, tell me why you would think those things.”
I reached out, my hand shaking, and stepped jaggedly toward him, drawing a long breath when my hand fell against his solid form. “You’re real.”
“Ara.” He cupped my hand and gently pushed it off him. “Don’t do this.”
The feel of his body under my fingertips lingered like a tingle. I rubbed my thumb over it, holding my breath. “You’re really here.”
“If I am, I shouldn’t be.”
My brow folded, flattening out again as I thought back to a night in my room, one of the last times I was sure I saw him. “But you are.” I moved in quickly, resting both hands on his chest, snuggling closer as if he’d embrace me. “You are here.”
His hand hovered near the base of my skull—so close to touching me, holding me—but he dropped it to his side and stepped away, leaving me cold and breathless, heartbroken. My shoulders came up as my hand covered my mouth, and I stumbled back a few steps, feeling for the rock and then sliding down it to the ground again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you. I only wanted to stop you from thinking those thoughts.”
“What thoughts?” As our eyes met and the fact that he’d been listening all this time became apparent, I shook my head, looking away. “It’s true, David. I am better off dead.”
“No!” He dropped to his knees in front of me. “You don’t get to decide that. You still belong to me.”
“I belong to no one, especially not you. You gave me away, remember?” I bit my quivering lip.
“I’m only trying to do what’s right.”
“Well, everything you’ve done so far has been what’s right—for one of us.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know what I’ve lost because I chose to do what was right for you, Ara.”
I scoffed, looking away.
“I’ve only ever thought of you.”
“Sure. That’s why you left without me.” I pushed him away with my forearm as I used the rock to help me stand, then swiftly marched over to the lip of the lake. “What’re you even doing here, David? I thought you were off somewhere with the monster.” I turned to look back at him, but there was only empty space there, making my shoulders drop. I’d imagined him. Again.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Ah! You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He smiled from beside me, keeping his eyes on the lake, his hands behind his back.
And it made me smile too, allowing warmth into the moment for the first time.
“You have mud on your jeans, did you know?” he said in a playful tone.
“Stop it. Don’t talk to me like everything’s okay.”
“Why? If I’m breaking my own rules, I might as well enjoy it.”
I shook my head softly, looking away to hide my smile.
David took my hand then and frowned. “Why don’t you wear your wedding ring?”
It started as a lump in my throat and grew into a very large, very full laugh. “Boy, you have been gone, haven’t you?”
He gave me the glare of a warden to a psych patient. “I’m confused, Ara.”
“I didn’t marry him.” I held up my hand. “I ran away—left him at the altar. Why do you think I’m not in Oz?”
He stood silent, dropping his face slowly into his hand.
“What? Do you have a problem with that?” I asked.
“I—” His jaw rocked. “I’ve been so tortured imagining you this past year in his arms, having his baby. Happy. It killed me to think you were happy—without me.”
I looked away, feeling naked under his sudden gaze. “Don’t worry, I can empathize with that.”
The long breath he exhaled was loud enough to carry the gentle bass in his voice; he looked sideways at me, a smile lighting the corners of his eyes. “You were supposed to be moving on. What happened, and why can I smell Mike on you if you’re not together?”
My lip quivered. I pressed them together, but they turned down like a falling crescent moon.
“Ara? What’s wrong? What happened?”
A hundred images of golden flesh, strong hands, flowing blonde hair and Mike’s face, as I saw what I saw, flashed into my mind like photos taken rapidly. I looked up at David, wanting to tell him what happened but so ashamed of myself for feeling hurt by it that when our eyes met, and I saw all the kindness and love there that still belonged only to me, I just couldn’t control it. All the hate I had for him when he left me just slipped away to understanding; he pushed me into Mike’s arms, and now I could finally see why he was so torn that I actually went. I told Mike to move on, but that’s not what I wanted. Not really.
“Emily and Mike? Really?” he said.
I sniffed. “Mm-hm.”
“Aw, Ara.” He appeared in front of me then, cupping one hand to the nape of my neck, barely able to mask the smile on his face. “Believe me when I say I know how much that hurt you. But…” He laughed to himself. “I have never been so happy to hear that you’ve been miserable in all my life.”
I held back my oddly timed amusement. “That’s not very nice, you know.”
He smiled simply. “You know what I mean.”
“Sadly, I do.”
His fingers inched further into my hair, tangling a little.
“I thought I left you happy. I thought you could just happily move on.”
“Then you don’t know me very well.”
He laughed. “Do you know what a relief it is to me that you can’t move on?”
I did, because I’d feel just as relieved if he couldn’t move on.
“Do you really think I could?”
I was confused for a second until I realized he must’ve read my thought. “Yes.”
His jaw stiffened, as did his fingers, becoming almost restricting, like he wanted to pull me close, but wouldn’t. “I regretted leaving you the second I closed that door in the hospital. All I wanted was to take it back. All I wanted was to find a way for us to be together. I never stopped searching, Ara. When I found a way—and I won’t tell you what that is—I went back for you.” He looked deep into my eyes. “Do you know that? I went back for you. But you stood there, looking like an angel in that dress, and you said goodbye to me.”
“No.” I shook my head, pushing his hand off my face. “You were in my thoughts all day. It took everything in me to say goodbye to you. If I’d known you wanted me still—that there was still hope—I would’ve ditched the damn bouquet and come with you.”
“Then why did you tell me to…?” His lips sat parted as confusion sunk the muscles in his cheeks.
“Because I thought I had to move on. I was trying to be strong. You should have known.”
“I—” I could actually see the same shock I felt when I found out about Lilithians flood through him as he realized he could have had me all this time. “I was just so broken, Ara. When you left the locket by the rose, I—” He pressed a fist to his lips.
“How could you ever think I wanted to move on?” I tugged his hand away from his mouth, a little too roughly.
“I thought you hated me. I left you. I walked away when you needed me more than you ever have before. I failed you, Ara.” He took both my hands. “I failed you and I didn’t know how to make that better.”
“And you thought one mistake would make me hate you enough to want to forget you?”
“Yes.”
“Would it work that way in reverse?”
“No.”
No, of course not. A mistake wouldn’t tear us apart, but my simple inability to be immortal would.
I drew a long, tension-relieving breath. “Why are you here, David? Why are you even talking to me?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to, until I heard what you were thinking.” He looked back at the rock for a second. “Would you rather I didn’t talk to you?”
“Yes, if you’re going to leave again.”
“Really?”
“David. It’s too much for me. I’m dead.” I dropped his hand, my fingers gently tangling in the hair at the top of my skull. “I died the day you left me. I can’t do this anymore. Either you stay, or I…”
“Tell me you don’t mean that?” he pleaded.
“I’m sorry. I do.”
“What happened to you?” His whole body screamed disappointment. “What happened to the girl who once said that your life is made up of mistakes—that they make you who you are—happy, or sad, or—”
“She’s dead, David!” My fist tightened in my hair. “She died the day your brother came and—”
“Ara, don’t.” He bundled me into his arms and held me tight. “Don’t say things like that, please don’t say that.”
“Why? Does it hurt you to know how your own brother destroyed my life, how, when I needed you, you left me alone and it killed me? Bit by bit, it killed me.” I pushed out from his chest.
“I know. I know it did, and I—”
“I know you’re sorry. I know you wish it hadn’t happened—that Jason hadn’t done that—but no matter how hard I try, I can’t let it go.” I tapped my head with a sharp finger. “I can’t forget, and I don’t hate you, David. I don’t hate you, but I’m so hurt. So hurt.” My voice disappeared under sadness as I pressed my palm to my chest. “I can’t get past it. I’ll never be okay.”
His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out.
It occurred to me then that none of this was relevant. Nothing changed. Just because he knew the pain I was in didn’t mean he was going to stay. He couldn’t stay—I knew this much—the Set, the laws, the… punishments.
But I didn’t care. I really just didn’t care anymore.
“You’re right,” he said, toughening up. “That doesn’t change things. I can’t stay.”
“I know.” I laughed sardonically. “You asked me to give up my life for you, but you won’t give up anything for me.”
He took a quick step toward me. “I won’t give them something else that I love. Something else to take from me, something else good to destroy. If they catch me, which they will—one day—and I’m with you, they—”
“Fine.” A surge of rage moved my arms. I shoved him with the driving force of all my heart and soul. “Just go! If you’re going to do it, do it now!”
“Ara, please?”
“No! Just go. Just leave me to die, David.” I ran for the lake and stepped out into the icy cool, losing my breath to the chill in two layered intakes, unable to catch it for a second as the water touched my waist.
“Ara!” David yelled, and everything went dead quiet under his voice. The moonlight lit the water with a pale-blue line, the wind stopped blowing and the trees became so still I was afraid I’d managed to die in the first rush of cold.
“How did you do that?” I turned back to look at him standing on the shore, his head angled to the ground, his trench coat dripping, seeming heavy with the weight of rain. “How did you stop the storm?”
“I can manipulate many things in my world, Ara-Rose.” His fingers folded around my arm suddenly. “But the one thing I cannot control is you. And what scares me is that I know”—he sharply turned my face to look at him—“I know, from the thoughts in your head, that you will; that if I leave you, you will kill yourself, and it scares me. How do I compete with that? What am I supposed to do with that?”
The stillness in the lake, the trees and the breeze made me feel almost breathless. The water around us felt warmer than it first was, and even David’s icy touch became heated somehow.
“Just let me die. You won’t stay, and I’m no good without you. I don’t know why you keep pretending you love me.”
“Pretending!” His eyes darted over my face. “You know exactly what you are to me, Ara-Rose.”
I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Don’t. You. Ever. Think. For one-second that you don’t matter to me.” He planted a restless, aching kiss to my lips and pulled away.
I responded only with a sniffle at first. “I matter… But not enough to risk punishment.”
“Ara—”
“Did you think of me?” I asked. “When you were gone, did you ever even think of me?”
He shook his head. “I tried not to.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t imagine you in my dreams the way you really were.”
“What did that matter?”
He swallowed hard, his throat moving with the lump. “I had to force myself to close my eyes just to picture the way yours lit up when you smiled—the way your eyelids fluttered in your sleep, the way your body shivered under my touch. All those little subtleties were so uniquely you. No other creature in the world responded to me the way you did. There was no movie I could watch to compare your touch, no actress I could look upon to see the turn of your lip when you were thinking, and when I lay awake, remembering you, remembering the things we did with each other, it was sterile. Bland. All those little things were gone. I could never have imagined them—could never have dreamed of such beauty, because you are not anything like I’ve ever encountered before.”
“So you tried to forget me?”
“No. I just didn’t want to insult your memory by picturing you wrong. It would be like hanging a Monet in a hall lit with disco lighting.”
&nbs
p; I smiled at that.
The calm of David’s magic on the night remained, a feeling like silk on my heart, and I knew the storm was constant up above our secret little world, raging, and I’d be called to return to it too soon, leaving David, the calm, the warmth, the lake, behind.
“Can we pretend?” I looked at him in the darkness, wishing I could see his face clearly. “Just—can we pretend you’re staying? Just for a while?”
“What good would that do?”
“So I can feel alive again, know what it feels like to breathe for a moment.”
He raised a brow. “You sound like a vampire.”
“Ha.” I wished I were.
“No, you don’t.” He grabbed my hand and pulled it gently until we faced each other, the silky water lapping just under my bra line, dragging the ends of my hair downward.
“No, but I do wish we could have been immortal together.”
“If there was a way—” He left it hanging.
I wondered why he didn’t mention the Lilithians. Wondered if it was because it was too late to choose that option, or if maybe he didn’t want that anymore.
“We can have one thing, though,” I said. The hopeful glint in my smile, hinting at the obvious things I wanted to do with him, brought a surge of heat to my chest.
David checked his watch. “I don’t have long.”
“Long enough,” I said, reaching forward to slide my hands inside the neck of his jacket, pushing it from his shoulders. It floated on the surface of the lake before dipping, then disappearing beneath the dark.
David and I watched it. “Never liked that coat anyway.”
I looked up at the strange calm. The clouds overhead were moving fast, flashing blue with streaks of lightning every few seconds, but here in David’s world we couldn’t even hear the thunder.
“This doesn’t feel real.”
His hands tightened on my body, scrunching my clothing up inside fists of desire as I wrapped my legs around his waist, letting the water lift me into his arms. “Well, if this is a dream,” he said, “it’s a damn good one.”
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 87