Dark Secrets (Dark Secrets #1)(139)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“What do you want to do then?” I took his hand.

“I wanna teach you a song.”

“What song?” I asked, grabbing the guitar when he pointed to it.

“One I wrote.”

I stopped for a second and watched him sink down on my bed. “You write songs?”

“Course I do.” He patted the space of mattress between his legs. “Sit here.”

“O…kay.” I sat with my back against his chest, and David took the guitar, positioning it across my lap in front of us. “What’s the song called?”

“The Knight of the Rose.”

“What’s it about?” I asked, letting David take my fingers and place them on the strings.

He paused. “You.”

“About leaving me?”

“No. It’s not a goodbye song; it’s a love song…” his tone softened away to near silence. “It was just written with the tears of farewell.”

Somehow, that made it hurt more.

David smiled against the side of my face, then took my hand again. “After the first chord, place your fingers here.”

“What’s that chord? I’ve never seen it before.”

“I think I invented it.” He kind of laughed, then strummed it once.

My eyes went wider. “Wow. That’s really…intense.”

“Yes.” He arranged my fingers on different strings and pressed them down firmly, as if to ask if I had it. I nodded. “Okay. I’ll whisper the chords as we go along. I want you to know this song by heart, Ara.”

“Why?”

He moved my fingers back to the A Minor—the first chord. “So you can play it when you miss me.”

I didn’t want to think about that right now. “Who says I’m going to miss you?” I said playfully instead.

“My love—” he pulled me closer, reaching his right hand around to the guitar, “—if you never, not for even one second, miss me once I’m gone, then I will be happy eternally. But we both know that won’t be the case,” he teased.

“You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?’

“Only with good reason.” He pecked my cheek, drawing a smile to my lips, and gave the song life in the same breath, his fingers dancing in an elaborate pattern over the strings. We changed chords then, and the flow of my favourite notes, nearly each and every one I ever loved, filled every corner of the darkness in my heart. I could’ve sworn the room even illuminated with bright, white light. It was as if he’d written down every song that ever made me feel something, and combined them, crafting the notes with an ethereal life-force.

He whispered the next chord in my ear, moving his fingers with mine.

I wanted to separate myself from this world, try not to feel all the pain, the loss, the dying hope of the future climbing to the surface, making me want to cry. I just couldn’t believe he’d be gone soon. Two weeks. Just two weeks, and I would never, ever see him again; never feel his breath on my skin again, never look into those emerald eyes, never kiss his soft, dark-pink lips.

He said it wasn’t a goodbye song, but it had all the sadness of parting in the flow of its notes. How could I not cry; how could I not fall to my knees right now and beg the universe for one chance? Just one little piece of hope that there’d be a happy ending for us. I’d give anything. Anything for that.

The song floated softly to a haunting end, leaving the room silent for a heartbeat. I tried to take a breath but it came out of my lungs instead of going in, making the grief shriek from my lips.

I covered my face as David pried the guitar from my tight grip and placed it on the ground, pulling me against him on my pillows. “Shh. It’s all okay, my love. Everything will be okay.”

But he didn’t believe that. He couldn’t even convince himself.

He stroked my hair back, tucking me up like he’d never let go. “I’ll never stop loving you, Ara. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded, hiccups quietening to soft sobs. “And you know I will too, right?”

He nodded against the top of my head, kissing my hair after, and the last of my strength dissolved. I closed my eyes and drifted away in his arms, allowing myself to dream, for a moment, that things were different—that David and I could be together for the rest of my life.

Our future danced around in my head like a short film—a black and white. I walked toward that boy at the end of the aisle, whose green eyes reflected the awe in his heart as they fell over my white dress, his joy dissolving my nerves, making the people in the pews disappear. It was just he and I, alone, on the edge of fulfilling one of our hearts’ greatest desires.

As I finally came to stand beside him, he took my hand and smiled down at my bouquet; a soft, simple piece of completely white roses, with one immaculately blossomed red one set centre.

“What’s that one for?” David’s soft, warm breath brushed the top of my head, waking my mind a little.

“The part of my heart that will never belong to anyone else; the part of me that will always be only yours.”

“How appropriate,” he said, and shifted under me as he reached into his pocket. “I have something—a gift for you—which comes bearing the exact same sentiment.”

I looked up to the golden light of the morning sun on my walls, my eyes drifting from David’s lips, down the curve of his arm around my waist, to his closed fist. “What is it?”

He unfolded his fingers, revealing a pool of delicate silver chain, slightly covering a heart-shaped locket. “So you may never forget that you—” he pointed to the engraved rose, “—are in my heart.”

“David, it’s beautiful.” I turned the locket over and ran my finger over the fine inscription on the back; though I wasn’t sure, it looked like it was written in French. “What does it say?”

“Tu m’appartiens.” He kissed my cheek and smoothed my hair back, leaving a cool tingle behind where he linked the chain around my neck.

As it fell onto my chest, just below my collarbones, my hand rose up instantly to hold it tight. “What does that mean?”

He slowly pressed his lips to my ear. “You belong to me.”

“For as long as I live?”

“No, mon amour. For all time.”

“I like that,” I said, sitting back against him, and he wrapped his arms across my waist, holding me that way until the sun went down, stealing away the last day of our forever.