“All I have is eternity.” He snapped out of his intensely deep stare, shrugging, then leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
“I won’t need that long. But, David?”
“Yes, my love.” He stopped by my door.
“Are you in any danger? Because you told me?” I hugged both legs to my chest. “Like, will they be mad with you?”
The door swung open and he stood between here and gone. “No. But if you ever say anything and they were to find out…”
“I won’t say anything.” I rested my cheek on my knee.
“Good.” He gave a nod and disappeared, leaving my door swinging in the breeze he left behind.
I sat there, in the middle of my room, hugging my knees to my chest, until the afternoon turned to evening. When Vicki flicked the hall light on and came up the stairs, I ducked in the darkness, waiting until she passed. And I noticed then, crumpled at the foot of my bed, the damaged remains of the blue rose David stole—the representation of the moment that changed everything.
I jumped up quickly, butt numb, legs stiff, and grabbed the flower, pressing it to my nose. Despite all the damage done, despite the petals falling away, weeping, it still smelled just as sweet as before. Which was comforting to me, because, for all the things that seemed irredeemable, some things were still okay.
I grabbed my diary and pressed the flower between the last pages, then snapped the book shut and sat on my bed in the dull light shining in from the world outside my room.
Chapter Seventeen
“Ara, come down and have some dinner, please,” Vicki called from the bottom of the stairs. Again.
“Not hungry.”
“Don’t care.”
“Argh!” I slammed my diary on the bed and stomped into the hall. It just didn’t seem right to go downstairs and eat dinner with the family—like a normal person. Nothing was normal anymore. I mean, I should probably be telling my dad that I may have gone crazy, because I’m pretty sure my boyfriend just told me he’s a vampire. I smiled, stopping halfway down the stairs. That would be pretty funny—to see the look on their faces if I said that.
“Ara?” Vicki rolled her head forward, raising a brow. “Your dinner’s going cold—move it.”
“Oh, sorry.” I started down the stairs again.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Well, that’s to be expected.” She walked into the dining room and sat beside Dad.
“Feeling better?” Dad asked.
“Mm-hm.” I sat down too.
“Emily called while you were resting,” Vicki said. “She wants to come see—”
“What did you tell her—about why I fainted?” Everything around me seemed to rock, then grow larger and wider, before rapidly shrinking back in.
“Ara, it’s okay,” Dad assured. “We told Emily you have low blood-sugar—that you hadn’t eaten. No one knows anything about your mom.”
My shoulders dropped; I let out a breath of tension and drew back relief. “So, David caught me, huh?”
Dad nodded. “Yes.”
“Did you see him catch me?”
“No. That’s the weird thing. I wasn’t really paying attention.” Dad set the bowl of peas on the table and looked at me. “All I saw was David by the er—well, David was a few feet away. I heard everyone gasp, so I looked over at you, then he was there, lifting you off the ground.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He should join the track team,” Dad said.
“Yeah. He is really fast.”
“What’s the matter, Ara?” Dad asked.
“I’m fine. I’m just really tired.”
“Honey, you can fool some of the people all of the time—but you can never fool your dad.” He grinned.
“I know. It’s just—David.”
“David? What’s he done?” The warm blue of Dad’s eyes turned to ice.
“Dad—nothing. He just. He has to go away soon. I’m going to miss him, that’s all.”
“Go away? Where?” His tall posture seemed to shrink back down a little.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”
“Okay,” he said slowly, then looked at Vicki.
With a sigh, I stood up and issued a pleasant smile. “I’m going to bed. I’m tired.”
“But you didn’t eat anything,” Dad said.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“Okay, that’s fine, Ara.” Vicki held a plate out to me. “But at least take some food up with you. You look skinny.”
Stifling the urge to scowl at her and tell her to mind her own business, I looked up from my bony hips and nodded, taking the plate. “Thanks.”
“Night, honey,” Dad muttered, way too casually. He knew there was something up, but he wasn’t going to ask. Dads are smart sometimes, but even smarter to stay out of it.
There was no comfort for me in the dark tonight. I couldn’t dream that I’d wake up and meet David across the road tomorrow; couldn’t fantasise about the day we’d get married or how we’d sit on a porch swing, rocking back and forth while we watched our grandchildren play in the yard, because those dreams were the darkness, now—a haunting kind of darkness. They were what kept me going when I didn’t want to breathe; they were what made me think that perhaps I wasn’t cursed. But it was ever clearer that I was being punished—haunted by those dreams forever—because David and I couldn’t possibly be together.
A dancing flame flickered against the wick of the vanilla candle by my bed; I sat in its gentle glow and blew out the match, breathing the cindering smell of wood as the flame withdrew. Across my room, the girl in my dresser mirror appeared; I touched my fingers over my face, over the scars, watching her do the same. Once, David had made it all okay; he made the scars seem faded, he made the days feel sunny, but now, despite the gentle glow of the candle taking some of the darkness from my room, he’d also made the nightmares that used to hide in the shadows when I was a little girl peek out from the past. All the things my parents said weren’t real—all the monsters and demons—actually were. I mean, there could be a bogeyman under my bed, for all I knew. And David was one of those monsters; he was the epitome of nightmares—the very thing that made me draw my foot from the edge of the bed and hide it under my covers. But a small part of me wanted to accept him. A small part of me—a very small, irrational and rose-coloured-glasses part—didn’t care. I just loved that damn vampire so much.