Dark Secrets (17 page)

My shoulders dropped.
“Was it that obvious—what I was thinking?”

She smirked. “Have you
ever looked at your face when you do that—when you disappear like
that?”

I shook my
head.

“
It’s funny. You
just…your eyes drift off to the ceiling, and your lips just sit
apart like you’re waiting for someone to kiss them.” She tried to
hold back her laughter, but it shook her whole body. “Except, that
time, you were looking right at David, chewing your lip, kind of
blushing at the same time. I think—” She pointed to my chin. “I
think you need to wipe the drool off.”

“
Stop that.” I
brushed her hand away; she laughed. “God, I can’t believe I let my
imagination run away with me at school.”

“
Yeah.” She hugged
her books, looking down the corridor after David. “Maybe next time
do it with a book in your hand so people think you’re reading
something juicy.”

“
Good idea,” I said,
half groaning. “Do you think David’s upset with me?”

“
Upset? Are you
kidding?” Emily laughed, pointing to where he’d disappeared. “Ara,
that’s not David upset.”

“
So,
that’s…offended?”

“
No
way, not unless he’s gay. And judging from how his fists just
clenched up and his whole body went all rigid, I would guess he
is
definitely
not
gay.”

“
So why did he run
away?”

She started walking.
“He does that. I think he really likes you. And if he got the vibe
I got coming off you, then he walked away because you made him feel
something.”

“
What do you mean by that?” I hoped she wasn’t being rude,
implying I made him...you know, feel...
something
.

“
I mean, David
doesn’t really do emotions. The few times I’ve ever seen him close
to feeling anything—he takes off.”

“
Why?”

She just shrugged
again. She seemed to pass everything off with that move.

“
Well,” I said, “I’m
just glad he can’t read minds, or he might never come
back.”

Sam caught up and
babbled about his day while I nodded and smiled and drifted in and
out of consciousness, my mind on my own day—on the fact that David
never came back to school after I practically jumped him in the
corridor. But I fell back to attention, with the hot sun bearing
down, the smell of topsoil and wet grass all around me, when I
heard the word
David
. “Huh?”

“
Yeah, you and David
Knight. My friend Steve said he heard from Trav that you slapped
David in the hallway at school today.”

“
What?” I practically
yelled, my steps coming to a halt.

“
Yeah, they say he
left school in a real hurry—tires screeching and all.”

I rolled my eyes.
“That’s a grape turning into a sultana, Sam.”

He stared at me,
blinking.

“
I
mean, it’s second-hand whispers. David left school today because he
was sick.”
Or because I wanted to
fornicate with him.

“
Oh yeah? Well, I saw
you two on the stairs this morning—he was standing real close to
you. Rumour has it you guys are an item.”

“
Nope. Nothing going
on there.”

“
Nothing going on…
yet
?” He grinned.

I chuckled quietly.
“It’s not like that, Sam. We’re just friends.”

“
Do you like
him?”

I smirked. If I so
much as hinted on the truth, the whole school would know by first
period tomorrow. “No. I really don’t. I mean, he’s cute and we have
a lot of fun together, but he’s not really my type.”

“
Does he know
that?”

“
Yeah. And what’s it
to anyone else, anyway? How does what two seniors get up to become
news to Freshies?”

Sam just laughed
lightly. “Very little goes on in that school, Ara. Star football
player quits the team this year then starts talking to a girl,
after notoriously dismissing every advance so far. People are
wondering if you’ve got a golden vagi—”

“
Whoa!” I held my
hands up. “What a horrid thing to say.”

He rolled his eyes.
“So, there’s nothing going on with you and lover-boy?”

“
God, no,” I said,
flooding with fury.

“
Liar.”

“
Sam, look at me.” I motioned to what my old friends called a
twelve-year-old dress sense, then to my scarred face. “I’m never
going to be
anyone’s
girlfriend.”

He went quiet until we
reached the driveway. “Hey, Ara?”

“
Yes?”

“
When we get in, can
you peel me one of those apple snakes I saw you do the other
day?”

“
You
saw
that?”

He nodded.

“
Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll
even teach you how to do them.”

“
Really?”

“
Yep.”

“
Thanks,
short-stuff.” He wrapped his arm over my shoulder as we jumped the
creaky bottom step and ran to the top of the porch.

“
Ooh, that’s a good
one,” I said to Skittles, scribbling the title down on a scrap of
paper.

The cat licked his
paw, stopping to eye the movement of my pen for a
second.

“
Don’t pretend not to care, Skitz. You like him just as much
as I do.” I placed the pen by his paw and leaned on my hand,
watching the blue sky fade over the horizon. So far, Dad’s project
on myths, Mr B’s assignment on playwrights, and the list of numbers
I was supposed to work out for math had not been touched. Instead,
I had a ten-song list of cry-your-eyes-out-over-not-being-loved
tunes for my
David
Playlist
.

I leaned on my other
hand then, scraping a thumbnail between two front teeth, wondering
where he went after school, if his parents tore shreds off him for
ditching, if he even had parents, where he lived, what condiments
he liked on his toast in the morning, what the last song he
listened to in his car was. So many things. And all the while, my
song list grew, pushing homework further and further down my list
of priorities.

“
That’s it!” My chair
nearly tipped back as I jerked away from the desk, scaring the cat
and sending the little blue bird on my window into sudden flight. I
needed to get out of the house. My nails were stinging down to the
quick and all this over-thinking made my brain hurt.

I changed my clothes,
grabbed my blue, nylon-string guitar, and headed outside to the oak
tree.

Yellow leaves rained
to the ground, falling from the old tree as the weight of each sway
drew a low creak from its branches, reminding me I was growing up
and that, soon, this swing would be a thing of my past.

My soft, light-blue
dress swayed around my knees in the gentle breeze, sweet with the
diluted fragrance of frangipanis. I felt better just breathing
again. But, from here I could see the school parking lot, which
only brought back the memory of my embarrassing
eat-the-cute-guy-in-the-corridor display, making me hold that
newfound breath.

When my head dizzied
from the movement, I sunk my toes into the cool, slightly moist
soil and grabbed my guitar. The stranger I usually saw in my mirror
glared back at me from the glossy surface; I ran my fingers over
her face then gently along the strings, making a dull, tuneless
song as I thought back to when I first saw this guitar; it had been
on display in the music store window, and I had fallen in love with
it immediately. How was it so uncomplicated to love an inanimate
object, yet, when it came to a boy, a girl would fall all over
herself to hide her true feelings? Well, unless she was me. Then,
the truth would come out in embarrassing displays…in corridors…at
school. I dropped my head into my hand, replaying that whole fazing
out thing for the hundredth time.

But what was the
point? Really? I mean, it wasn’t like I could take it back by
reliving it.

With a deep exhale,
laced with the heat of humiliation, I squared my shoulders and
twisted the pegs on the neck of the guitar, then strummed a soft A
minor; the first chord my mum played on this when she bought it for
me. And a song formed from there, taking me through my David
playlist until the thinking about him got too much to bear
again.

My fingers stopped
dead on the strings. I couldn’t get this boy out of my head for
five seconds.

“
Please, don’t stop
on my account.”

I smelled his sweet
scent before I felt his presence behind me. “David? Where did you
come from?”

“
Seriously? Do I have
to give you the birds and bees talk?” His fingers appeared around
the ropes of the swing just above my head.

“
Funny,” I said
sarcastically, but in truth, I actually did think it was
funny.

“
I uh—I went back to
get my books from my locker—saw you sitting here,” he said. “I hope
it’s okay I dropped by.”

“
It’s more than
okay,” I said, lifting my feet as he gently pushed the
swing.

“
Hey, uh—” He cleared
his throat. “I’m sorry I left like that at school
today.”

“
Oh
God, David, don’t
you
apologise. I was the one who—”

“
Ara, you did nothing
wrong.”

I planted my feet,
stopping the motion of the swing, then laid my guitar on the grass.
“What do you mean? Emily tells me I practically licked
you.”

“
Licked me?” David
laughed, settling onto the ground right in front of my legs,
resting his arm over his knee.

“
Yeah, the
whole...fazing out thing.”

“
Oh, that.” He dusted
his hand off on his jeans, leaning back a bit. “Sorry, I never even
noticed that. I mean, I knew you fazed out, but it was actually
your strawberry shampoo that reminded me I had something to
do.”

“
My shampoo?” I
raised a brow.

“
Yeah.” He grinned,
his white teeth showing.

“
O...kay.”

“
So, what were you
thinking then? In the hallway?” His eyes searched mine for a
moment, an incredibly suggestive grin warming them.

I looked away,
feeling almost naked. “Just that...”
I
like you! I like you and want you to like me so bad it kills me!
It. Kills. Me!
“Just that it’d been a long
time since I was in anybody’s arms.”

“
Why’s
that?”

I shrugged. “Guess I
just don’t really like to be touched anymore.”

“
Why not
anymore
?”

I rubbed my chin, kind
of wiping off my scars.

“
Don’t do that,” he
said, rising onto his knees.

“
Don’t do
what?”

He pulled my hand down
from my face. “Don’t rub at your skin.”

“
I—” I studied the
grass under my bare feet.

“
Ara? Look at me,” he
asked softly, tilting my chin to lift my gaze. “Why do you hide
your face so often?”

“
Because it’s
hideous.”

His eyes lit up,
shimmering like a green marble held up to the sun.
“Hideous?”

“
Okay, maybe not
hideous. But—” I couldn’t bring myself to ask how he could possibly
look at my scars.

“
Can I say
something?”

I nodded, keeping my
eyes on his.

He so slowly reached
out and brushed his fingertips just over the fine hairs on my face.
“These scars you despise so much, Ara, they’re not what you think
they are.”

I held on as long as I
could, but I just couldn’t let him touch them anymore; I gently
pulled his hand away and turned my face.

He sat back down on
the ground, his elbow on his knee, knuckles just beside his lips.
“I know you think everyone can see them, but that’s not true. It’s
only up close that I've ever noticed, and I have, not once, ever
thought you were hideous, Ara. Not ever.”

I rubbed my jaw into
my shoulder, reliving the memory of waking to tiny cuts and slivers
of glass in my face. “I don’t see how you can say that.”

“
That’s because you
don’t know how beautiful you are.”

I smiled at my feet,
afraid to look up, afraid to see sarcasm in his eyes. And as if it
came out of nowhere, a hand slowly appeared, moving cautiously
toward mine, but stopped just above my fingertips, hesitant, like
he was asking me—making sure it was okay. I tensed from ankles to
knees, holding my breath, feeling my heartbeat surround everything
in my world. It all could've turned to ash under my feet—the
ground, the swing, the day, the future, and I would’ve remained
oblivious to it, because even the suggestion of touching him—of
holding his hand—closed off everything else that could possibly
matter.