Bird Song (64 page)

“Oh God,” Stacy whispered as she realized that something was wrong.
 
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” she cried, her eyes flitting between the four of us.

Graham whipped around, his fist closing in around the teardrop.
 
“You knew?”

“I-I…I…” Stacy stammered, looking at me for help.

The desperation in her face was so acute, on reflex my mouth opened and the truth began to flow out.
 
“Graham, Lark is a-”

The final word was caught in my throat as I felt a hand clamp over my mouth, a strong arm pulling me back, away from Graham, away from my friends.

“Lark is a what?” Graham asked.
 
“Let go of her, Robert!
 
Tell me what Lark is!”

“No, don’t!” Stacy shouted.
 
“Don’t tell him, Grace.
 
Please!”

Graham grabbed her arm, his grip ungentle, his eyes filled with anger and betrayal.
 
“Don’t tell me what?”

Stacy’s eyes began to water and she looked at her arm, Graham’s fingers already leaving reddish bruises on her pale skin.
 
“It’s not right for us to tell you; Lark’s not ready to tell you.”

“Ready for what?
 
How can she not be ready to tell me about whatever
this
is but she could tell you?” he asked as he shoved his hand beneath her nose, the crystal in his palm screaming out a silent accusation.
 
“My
best
friend has been lying to me for God knows how long; you, my ex-girlfriend, have been lying to me, despite making
me
promise on my grandmother’s grave to keep your secret to myself!
 

“And for some obviously selfish reason, neither of you could find it in yourselves to trust me enough to tell me about any of this until
after
I happen to pour my heart out to Lark, who in turn tells me that she’s in love with some dead dude who she watched magically grow old and senile.
 
And after all of that, she’s
still
not ready?”

He let go of Stacy’s arm and pointed to the shimmering stone in his hand.
 
“If this is what she’s not ready for, you’re mistaken, Stacy.
 
And, just in case you were wondering, I’m
more
than ready for whatever this is, because whatever
this
is, it doesn’t change how I feel.
 
I’ve been feeling it for far too long and far too deeply for it to simply just go away.”

Stacy grabbed Lark’s arm, surprise and hurt shimmering in her eyes, and shook her head.
 
“You knew…you knew about how he felt about you and you still let him ask me out.”

Lark, having remained silent all this time, stepped forward, an explanation ready to burst from her mouth, but Stacy held up her hand to stop her.
 
“No, don’t—you don’t have to explain anything to me.
 
What you did, you did because you were my friend.
 
You kept the truth from me because you didn’t want to hurt me—I understand that.”

She turned to look at Graham, a sad smile on her face.
 
“I told you we weren’t suited for each other.”

Despite the tension in the air, Graham managed to smirk at that.
 
“Well, you don’t get to hear this from me that often so cherish this moment—you were right, Stacy.”

“I know I’m right—I usually am.”

Graham shook his head; Stacy was always going to be Stacy.
 
“I need to know what’s going on.”
 
He looked at Lark, and then at me.
 
“Grace, I need to know.
 
Whatever it is, whatever the hell all of this is, I’m ready for it.”

“Are you, Graham?” Robert asked, his voice overflowing with doubt.
 
“Are you certain you’re ready for this?”
 
He stepped towards Graham, pushing me behind him as he did so.
 
I choked on my response when I saw the back of his jacket begin to push upwards, bulging from the activity beneath it.

“Robert, no!” I cried, already too late.

“You think the truth is going to make all of your questions go away,” Robert said, a statement more than a question.

The sound of ripping fabric and Stacy’s gasp were lost in the sound of the darkening forest coming alive at the appearance of Robert’s ebony wings, nothing but black, branch like protrusions at first, followed by full plumes glistening like wet onyx.
 
He expanded them, their tips reaching out well beyond our little circle to touch the trunks of trees several meters away.

“What…what the hell are you, man?” Graham breathed as he took a step back, his eyes widening in shock, his breathing speeding up from fear.

“I’m the truth that you’ve been looking for, Graham, what you’ve been so desperate to know,” Robert said snidely as he stepped forward to close the distance between them, his wings fluttering as they folded inward.
 
“You wanted to know the truth, you wanted to see what Grace has been lying to you about.
 
Here it is.”

“Robert, stop,” Lark finally shouted.

Graham’s head whipped around to look at her, as though seeing her for the first time.
 
In truth, it was.

“If he’s a…a bird, then what are you?”

Lark shook her head angrily.
 
“He’s not a bird, Graham.
 
Take a good look at him with open eyes—see him for what he is.”

With great difficulty, Graham turned to face Robert, the two of them making for a striking study in contrast; Robert, with his dark hair and pale skin was almost a negative of Graham’s blonde hair and tanned skin.
 
“I don’t know—I don’t know what you are.
 
You’ve got wings, man!
 
What the hell kind of person has wings?
 
Birds and bats have wings—you’re a manager of a movie theater, for Pete’s sake!”

“Astute as always, Graham,” Robert said mockingly.

Stacy grabbed Graham’s hand and pulled him towards Lark.
 
“You aren’t helping, Robert.
 
If you cannot figure out what Robert and Lark are by looking at him, Graham, then take a look at her—really look at her for who she is, without pretending, without pretenses.”

“What’s a pretense?”

“God, just forget that and look!”

Graham’s gaze became glued to Lark, his eyes taking in her silver dress that matched exactly the light silver of her eyes.
 
He watched her as the last glint of light disappeared from the cracks of the canopy above us, night finally settling in.
 
The increased darkness revealed to Graham what it was that he could not see in Robert, what death had not robbed from her.

“Holy wow,” he breathed, as the soft glow that emanated from her began to stretch out.
 
“That’s incredible…it’s like you’re some kind of angel or something.”
 
He stepped closer to her and stroked at the diffused light, his movements making it seem like he could actually
feel
the light itself.

“That’s because that’s what I am,” Lark admitted in a shaky yet hopeful voice.

“I’ve always known that,” Graham replied with a soft laugh, though his face revealed nothing but wonder and amazement.

Lark took a hesitant step closer to him, her eyes cautious.
 
She raised her hand up, her palm facing out towards him.
 
His hand lifted to press against it, his gasp coming out in a stuttered burst as the connection became complete and the truth that couldn’t be explained in mere words began to flow between them.
 
“Awesome,” he whispered as his gaze locked with hers.

Stacy and I held our breaths as we waited, my heart racing, speeding up with each deep breath that Graham took in.
 
His eyes grew wider with every minute that went by; recognition, confusion, and understanding blinking in flashes, something that the two of us were very familiar with.

Lark’s face seemed to grow brighter as she shared with him things that I knew were only for him, things that she had never shared with anyone…not even Luca—I don’t know how I knew this, I just did.
 
Perhaps it was the sly smile passing over her lips that was quintessential Lark; maybe it was the way her pupils grew darker as the light silver ring that was her eyes grew thinner and lighter, telling me that she was pleased, inordinately pleased.

I only knew that when she finally attempted to lower her hand, and Graham refused to let it go, there wasn’t anything else left to fear from him learning the truth.

“This is incredible,” he breathed, his free hand lifting to touch the velveteen steel that was Lark’s face.
 
“Freaking amazing, even.”

“Are you certain?” Lark asked hesitantly.

“I’m more than certain,” Graham nodded enthusiastically.
 
“How can I not be?
 
I’m in love with a
flippin
’ angel!”
 
He sobered up immediately as he realized that Lark wasn’t beaming like he was, her smile still sad, despite his acceptance of who she was.

“What’s the matter?
 
Isn’t this supposed to be a good thing?
 
I know the truth now—no more secrets.”

Lark shook her head.
 
“It’s not that.”

Graham looked at her and grimaced as he saw the pained expression in her eyes.
 
“Then what is it?”

“I told you—it hurts to know what I feel for you.
 
It hurts to
feel
it.”

Graham looked at her with stark confusion.
 
“I don’t understand.”

I dodged around Robert and grabbed Graham’s arm.
 
“Graham, there’s something you need to understand about Lark and her kind.
 
They cannot tell lies—it hurts them.”

“What lie did she tell?” he asked, his confusion only deepening.

“She told you—us, actually—she promised to never love anyone else, feel anything like that ever again.”
 
I looked at Lark, finally understanding why she had never been able to talk about it without looking so troubled, so pained by it all.
 
“Loving you wasn’t what she had planned—love isn’t ever something you plan out, you can’t ever promise to never feel it—so when you became a part of her life, she became a liar, and loving you physically hurts her.”

Graham’s face drooped as realization began to dawn on him.
 
“You mean that by feeling the same way about me that I do about her, she’s in pain?”

I nodded, sadly.
 
“Yes, but…”
 
I looked at Lark and saw the despair in her eyes.
 
“But something’s not right.”

Everyone’s gaze was focused on me as I began to go over the past events, the moments where lies had done nothing but been mild irritants, and where assumed lies had been actual truths.
 
“Lark, you promised to never feel for Graham what you felt for Luca, right?”

She nodded, her confusion now matching Graham’s.
 
I looked at the two of them and then I looked at Robert.
 
“Remember when I had received that note from Sam and I thought it had been from Robert?
 
You kept getting those annoying pains because the note was a lie—you just didn’t know it was a lie at the time, which is why it hurt so much.”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with this?
 
I know what I felt, Grace.
 
I did love Luca, very much—you do not mistake those feelings for simple juvenile affection,” Lark replied.

“Yes, I know.
 
That’s not what I meant.
 
Ugh—why is it that when I don’t want you in my head, you’re always in there and when it would be easier if you were, you choose to stay out?”
 
I shook my head and grabbed Lark’s hand, removing it from Graham’s.
 
“You’re feeling hurt because you’re lying to yourself, Lark.
 
Don’t you see?

“You’re not feeling the same thing for Graham that you did for Luca because it’s
not
the same thing.
 
It can’t be.
 
Graham loves you, genuinely loves you, which is something that Luca did not, and you feel the same way.
 
If Luca did love you, he wouldn’t have demanded you make that promise in the first place.
 
He would have wanted you to move on and be happy.
 
He wouldn’t have wanted you stuck on pause, denying yourself happiness and love all because he was gone.
 
That’s not love, Lark; that’s control and manipulation.”

Robert came to stand beside me and took his sister’s hand from mine.
 
“Little sister, I’ve no reason to help you and Graham be together…except that I can see it would make you happy.
 
Grace is right: you’ve carried this burden, this false love with you for too long.
 
You’ve let it eat at you and destroy what love should mean, what it should be.
 
Let the past die.
 
Let it find peace with Luca.”