“You know nothing of what Pepper suffered,” he said in an eerily calm voice, and let go of my arms, pulling me up off the wall just a little first.
“Dav—” I started, but he walked away, ignoring me. Fear kept me where I stood, fighting the voice in my head that told me to run after him. Everything I said—everything—was the hurt in me talking. And I regretted it deeply, all of it. Especially saying I would never have loved him if I’d known what he did to Emily. I didn’t mean that. I felt it at the time, but I didn’t really mean it.
I swore then, that no matter what he did next to make me suffer, I would never stoop to that level again, never say anything I knew would kill him inside. He wasn’t the monster anymore. I was.
And that was all I needed to move my feet. I darted after him, blocking his path on the narrow stairwell, both my arms reaching across to either side of the railing. “Stop.”
“Ara, get out of my way.”
“No. You need to listen.”
“Nothing you have to say is of any consequence to me. You wanted me to leave you alone, never talk to you again, well . . . you got your wish.”
“That’s not what I want, David. I was angry. And I’m so sorry for what I said about Pepper.”
His glassy green eyes softened a little then as he saw the truth deep inside me. “That will never suffice, Ara. You knew, before you said that, the extent of the damage it would do. So don’t try to take it back now.”
I crossed my hands over my heart, guilt eating it up until I couldn’t feel it beat anymore.
“Now, get out of my way before I do something to hurt you,” he added.
“I’m not afraid of you, David. I know you won’t hurt me.”
“Then you know nothing about me.”
“Really?” I faced him as he pushed past. “I know you’re ashamed of what you did to Emily.”
The vampire in him surfaced, stopping him in his tracks, changing the way he held himself. “I’m not ashamed, Ara.”
“I think you are.”
He turned slowly and walked back up the stairs, stopping on the one just above me.
“Just tell me why you never talked about it with me, David—why, even after I asked you, you lied.”
“Our marriage is over. You deserve no explanation from me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No.” He went to walk past again. “You don’t.”
I grabbed his arm. “I do, David, because, despite what I’ve done wrong, I married you. We shared a life together and I am the mother of your child. You do owe me an explanation.”
“Get away from me,” he yelled. “There’s nothing to explain.”
I blocked his path again. “I’m not going anywhere until you answer me.”
He frowned at me, a little surprised. “You’re really not going to let this go, are you?”
I shook my head.
“Fine.” He leaned on the wall and folded his arms. “I didn’t tell you because, when we first met, you and Emily were already friends, and I never planned to be with you past the summer. When that changed, it was too late to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d have gone crazy, Ara. You’d never have trusted me after that.”
“Of course I would have, David. I would’ve trusted you more knowing you would always tell me the truth—even if I didn't like it.”
“That’s bull crap, Ara. You would’ve hated me—left me.”
“Are you kidding?” I jerked forward. “David, you know me! Look at me. Look at who I am inside,” I said, tapping my chest. “Even if you’d slept with her while we were together, you know I’d have found it in my heart to forgive you.”
“Huh!” he scoffed, looking away.
“David.” I touched his wrist and he looked back at me. “You know that.”
His folded arms dropped slowly to his sides. He couldn’t deny the truth in that statement. “You’re right. I should've told you. I’m sorry.”
Those words moved in through my ears and made everything in me feel warm and kind of renewed, taking the anger and diluting it until it was nothing. “I forgive you, you know.”
“You what?”
“I know you don’t need my forgiveness, but . . . you and Em, it’s in the past, David, and—”
“Ara.” He stopped me. “Don’t say that until you know the full story.”
I shook my head. “When I decided to be with you, I accepted you then for everything you were and had been in your past. Good or bad. I can’t take that back now just because I find out that you’ve done something you’re not proud of. You didn’t rape her. You might not have been what she wanted her first to be, but I know you’re good inside, David, and—”
“That’s just it, Ara. I’m not.”
My mouth stayed open, still shaped to my last word.
“She cried,” he started, shifting awkwardly to a new position. “She said it hurt, and I just rolled her over and told her to shut up—hid her face because I didn’t wanna see her tears.”
And with his words came images, ones I made up in my own mind. “Did she ask you to stop?”
He shook his head. “I told her the pain was normal for the first time. But it wasn’t. If I’d been gentle . . . if I’d. . .” He folded the back of his hand to his mouth.
“If you’d been like you were with me.”
A quick memory lit his thoughts up—of he and I in my room—our first time, and he smiled, shaking his head until a frown came over like a grey cloud. “I hurt her, and I made her feel ashamed of herself, made her feel like she was worth nothing to anyone. And, the worst part was, Ara, I just didn’t care.”
“But you had no human compassion.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I didn’t. Which made being friends with her after the compassion set in really hard. So hard I . . . I just wanted to forget it happened.”
“Funny, I’d kinda like to forget it, too.” I rubbed my head as if I could erase the last hour of my life.
David laughed. It was so nice to hear that laugh again. “Perhaps we can all just move past it, then.”
I lowered my hand to my side and nodded up at the king. “I’m not sure Mike will feel the same way.”
Reality moved back in to this vortex we’d stepped in then, and everything crappy my life had become in the last week surfaced again. David breathed out through his nose, accepting that fact and many others that had changed his life lately, too. “I have to go.”