Dark Secrets (Dark Secrets #1)(28)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“Hey there, beautiful.” David landed beside me in the grass.

“Hey.” I smiled, pulling petals off a daisy, whispering, “He loves me; he loves me not.”

“Don’t do that.” He cupped my hand, crushing the flower slightly.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t say he loves me not.”

I looked across at him and, seeing his playful smile, returned one. “Why can’t I say it?”

“Because it’s not true.” He ditched the flower and rolled me onto my back, landing beside me, with the grass closing in around us.

“Then what is true?” I asked, twirling my hair around my finger.

“The phone,” he said.

“Huh?” I frowned, staring up at him until the song of a bird transformed into a high-pitched screech, then sat bolt upright in my bed, leaving the dream behind to a cold-slap reality. “Oh, shut up,” I said to the phone, flopping back down with my pillow over my face.

To my surprise, it actually did, and I once again drifted off to fantasyland, finding myself beside a tree, with warm beams of light wrapping around me again, but no David.

“David?” I looked behind me, above me, below me. He was gone. But where did he go? People didn’t just disappear from fantasies.

“Ara-Rose?”

I turned slightly, seeing only my reflection in the glass of the phone booth behind me, disappearing with each flicker of a fluorescent light outside the corner store. “Mum?”

“Ara-Rose, where are you?”

I felt the weight of the pay phone in my hand then and squeezed it. “I had a fight with Mike.”

“With Mike? What were you doing at Mike’s? I thought you went to Kate’s.”

“Mum?” I said, panic rising in my tone; I could see her face then, in the glass; she rubbed her forehead, washing away the weeks of sleepless nights. She looked tired and so worn. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this, but I didn’t care. “I’m scared.”

“Tell me where you are?”

“Mum, they’re coming for me.”

“Who?” She leaned forward, her reflection showing the panic in her eyes. “Ara, tell me where you are.”

I looked over my shoulder at the dark shadows, stealing the light from the pavement as they fingered their way along—getting closer. “You need to come, Mum. You just need to come get me.” I kept looking over my shoulder, unsure what was out there; I couldn’t see past the street light over the booth, but I could feel them, knew they were lingering, waiting for me to hang up.

“I’ll come. Just stay there, Ara. Just stay there.”

“Hurry,” I said, feeling a coolness take the air. Then, the line went dead. “Mum.” I hung up the phone a few times, pressing all the numbers, but the receiver was empty—no static, no noise. Behind me, the lights in Ronnie’s store went out and the wind stopped; I touched a hand slowly to the glass, and another came up to meet it.

“Ara!” A deep voice snapped my mind back like an elastic band on a wrist; my eyes flung open.

“Dad?”

“Ara, your phone’s been ringing every few minutes for the last twenty. Will you please answer it?”

I rolled over, rubbing the haze from my eyes. “The phone?”

“Yes,” Dad said and closed my door, leaving me in darkness.

I jumped up, grabbed the phone, tripping over the clothes and shoes on my floor, and landed in my desk chair. “Hello?”

“Hey, baby, did I wake you?”

“Mike?”

“Yeah, how you doin’?” he asked, then took a quick breath. “Oh, yeah, the time thing. Sorry, Ara. I’ll go.”

“No, wait.”

“Yeah?” he said softly.

“I…” I put the phone to my other ear. “I was dreaming about her, Mike.”

He went silent. “Your mom?”

“Yeah.” My voice cracked. “I keep thinking she’s gonna come pick me up and I’ll go back home again, and—”

“Aw, Ara, please don’t cry, it—you’ll break my heart, baby.” He completely lost his voice then. ‘I just, you don’t know how much it kills me that I can’t be there with you right now.”

I smiled softly, sniffling. “I’m sorry I didn’t take your calls the last few months, Mike.”

“I know, baby girl. Okay. And—you know me, Ar. I’m always here for ya, no matter what. Okay?”

I wiped the mess of warm, salty tears from my cheeks. “I just—it’s been so hard without you.”

“Have you talked to your dad, yet—about what you told me? Have you told anyone?”

My head rocked from side to side.

“Ara, I can’t hear you when you shake your head.” He chuckled.

My sudden burst of laughter forced static down the phone line. “You always know how to make me laugh.”

“Look, you need to talk to someone.” His voice took on the serious note he seemed to have adopted over the past two months. “It’s not healthy for you to keep all of this inside, baby girl. You said you made friends? Why don’t you have a girlie night and do one of those big deep-and-meaningful things?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know them well enough, Mike. I’m just not ready to share that part of my life with anyone.”

“Well, what about that David dude. I bet he’d listen?”

“He might. But, I don’t want him to hate me if I tell him the truth.”

“Ara, grow up. You need to talk to someone about this. Now, I don’t care who—your dad, Vicki, Sam even, but—”

“I’ve got you to talk to.”

“I’m not there, Ara.”

“You will be soon, right? My dad said you can stay here.”

“Yeah? Tell him thanks. And stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not. Look, I’ll talk to someone, okay. I do know you’re right. I just—”

“You’re just gonna bottle it up until you’re in a straightjacket.”

I bit my tongue.

“I’m gonna call you the second my interview’s booked, Ara, and we’re gonna pencil in a day for me to arrive. Then, if you haven’t told David or Emily or someone what happened, I’m gonna do it for you,” he said. “Got it?”

“Okay, Zorro.” I laughed. “When do you think they’ll do your interview?”