Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(90)
Author: A.M. Hudson

I leaned my back against the ancient rock wall and covered my face, finally letting myself cry—let the tears fall down, uninvited, unwanted, worthless, because they were shed for a pain that would never heal. And I just couldn’t make it stop. Too much was hurting inside. I’d been dragged through too much and it was all finally coming down on top of me.

You should be ashamed, the other version of me said, appearing beside me.

“Go away.” I hid my face in my hands. “You’re not real. Go away.”

She just laughed. You pathetic waste of life. How dare you? How dare you cry for him? How could you let yourself fall in love with a ghost—one who mutilated and tortured you—burned his own brother alive?

“Stop!” I yelled into my hands. “Stop it. I can’t let myself believe I loved him!”

Oh, you loved him. You did, and you know it.

“No!” I stopped the thought abruptly, but it crept back in to betray me with its truth.

What is it that hurts, Ara? She asked from deep inside my nightmare. Is it that he’s gone, or that you’re psychotic and perverted for loving him?

“Both,” I said, finally defeated enough to admit it in this real world—away from the pressure of snakes or falling from cliffs.

This will kill him, you know, this will kill David when he finds out.

“No! Stop it, please. I’ve done nothing wrong!” I shouted. “Nothing!”

Nothing?

A wild summer wind swept over the sand and brushed it stiffly across my legs; I composed myself with a few jagged breaths, wiping my soaking face. I was exhausted. That’s what this was really about. Even my soul was tired. I just needed rest. If I could just go to sleep, I’d wake up and see that everything really was okay—that maybe it was true, maybe I did love Jason, but maybe it didn’t matter, because he was gone, and I still had David.

The shadow of the lighthouse, sitting high atop the cliff, stole the white from the sand as it stretched across the beach in a grey shadow. Behind it, the sun blinded me when I tried to make out the distance from here to the top. I wanted to jump up there but, exhausted as I felt, I’d probably slip and fall off. So, I wandered away from the windbreak of the cliff and let the ocean breeze wrap around me, bringing the soft scent of frangipani fabric softener and salty sea spray. And with that smell, a tiny little positive crept up to make me smile; at least I never have to do dishes or laundry, ever again. That’s pretty cool.

“Amara?” The confused tone of a pleasantly deep voice made my shoulders sink as a hand came upon me.

“Hello, Arthur.” I glanced back and smiled.

“My lady?” He stopped beside me. “What are you doing out here by yourself? You should be resting.”

“I know.” I nodded and folded my arms across my chest. “I didn’t feel like being alone.”

“But—” Arthur looked around. “You are alone.”

“Not like I am when I’m inside.” I turned to the thrashing waves and flicked my head so my hair blew away from my neck. “Out here, I have the wind and the open air to distract me—it kind of makes my heart beat for me, you know, but when I’m alone, in the still, it’s like I’m too warm, wrapped up in a blanket I can’t get out of.”

Arthur’s brows pinched in the middle, and my eyes, as I looked at him, watered from the blinding light of the high afternoon sun. “You’re not all right, are you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He let out a breath and wrapped one arm, then the other, over my shoulders, and tugged me until I fell into his chest, my cheek against the indent between his breastbones. “Just cry. My darling girl. Let it all out.” He stroked my hair. “I’m here. I’ll make it all better.”

My chest heaved, each breath a jagged shriek that coughed back out. Arthur’s embrace was so firm that I no longer felt the wind, so tight that my lungs struggled to draw air, and so loving I almost felt like his girl.

“It’s been a long few years, hasn’t it?” he said in a low, soothing voice. “You’ve been through so much for such a young girl, and I imagine you’ve probably not spoken of how deeply you’re hurting?”

My chest shuddered, the sobs turning to short, quick breaths as I settled myself. When I pulled slightly away from Arthur and saw the wet outline of a face all over his white silk shirt, my cheeks burned. “Oh, my God, Arthur, I’m sorry.”

He looked down too, wiping his hand over my mess. “I wear the tears of the queen with honour.”

I laughed once. “It sounds funny when you say queen.”

His teeth showed on one side as he breathed a smile. “Yes, but you are queen. And we are all so proud of you.”

“I thought I failed, you know.” I stepped away from his arms and let the wind dry my cheeks. “I can’t tell you how scared I was that I’d let everyone down.”

He only nodded, as if waiting for me to speak. Then, like falling asleep with a heavy book on your chest and suddenly waking to lift it off, I sat in the sand with Arthur, by the lashing whitewash, and, leaving out the part about David being alive, told him everything. Everything. Told him all I saw on the Walk of Faith, everything I came to face—all the failures, all the truths—especially the truth about Jason. And he listened, with his hands linked together, his arms falling loosely over bended knees, smiling, nodding every now and then.

As the blanket of shame, fear and sadness blew away in the wind, I took a deep, shaky breath and turned my head to look at him for the first time since we sat down. “I’m sorry.” I grabbed his arm and looked at his watch. “I’ve been talking for an hour.”

“Then you have nowhere near been talking long enough.” He touched his hand over mine.

I sniffled. “You’re a good friend, Arthur.”

He opened his mouth, his chest lifting with a deep breath that he let out slowly. “I’m glad you told me all this.”

“What do you think it all means—all that snake business?”

He sighed. “I’m not sure. But, like you said, this snake, this entity who came to you, it wanted you to realise the truth of yourself, right?”

I nodded, more than a little eager to hear his take on it.

“Perhaps, that is the truth. Perhaps you loved them both—Jason and David, and maybe when you come to terms with this, your life can take a journey on a new path.”

“I have come to terms with it, Arthur. So where’s this new path?”

“No, my dear, you have not. You have admitted it—barely, but you have not come to terms with it.”