Dark Secrets (10 page)

David leaned closer
and whispered, “Second in command.”

I wondered where that
placed me if I hung out with one from each group.

Emily’s voice trailed
back in suddenly with my attention span. “Ryan hangs out on the
basketball courts, mostly.” She looked at Ryan for confirmation; he
shrugged with a small nod. “And Alana hangs with those guys.” She
pointed to the Music class kids.

“
Cool.” I nodded.
“Well, thanks for keeping me company today, you guys. I would’ve
felt like a total loser sitting by myself.”

“
That would never
happen.” Emily tilted her head to the side. “Someone would’ve come
and talked to you. If they could get past David, that is.” She
threw him a mock annoyed stare.

David grinned and
leaned back in his chair, resting his hands behind his head. “Can
you blame me? I kinda like fresh meat.”

I inched away from him
jokingly, and a sudden whoosh of air brushed past my hair,
impacting something that screeched loudly. Silence washed over the
room. We all turned to the kid behind us, who sat straight again,
rubbing his head.

“
What gives?” His
friend stood up, aiming his voice at the jocks.

“
What up, losers?
Mommy forget to pack your helmet?”

Apple pulp covered the
chess club boy’s hair and shoulders, while the remainder of the
offending fruit rolled around on the ground just near his feet.
“That’s it,” he said, and with teeth tight in his mouth, jumped up
and grabbed the apple.

“
Just leave it,
Dominic. It’s not worth it,” one of his friends said.

“
No. I’m sick of
this.” His knuckles turned white around the apple.

No one in the room
seemed to have moved; I think they were bracing for an all-out war.
But someone should have done
something
. If even one person stood
up for that boy, just once, maybe those jerks would leave him
alone.

I pushed my chair out,
and as I took a step toward him, Emily squeaked, “David?
Don’t!”

My eyes flicked from
the apple that was in Dominic’s hand, to the other side of the
cafeteria where juice rained in a shower over the jocks, a million
tiny pieces of apple sticking to the wall behind them.

A cool silence
lingered.

David’s arm came back
down to his side, his shoulder still leaned into the throw, when
the whole room erupted—every person, sitting or standing, started
clapping and cheering. Even the helmet-comment jock raised his
thumb.

David took a few pats
on the back and shook a few hands, and when he looked at me again,
his eyes betraying fake amusement by displaying anger, I closed my
gaping mouth and walked up to the chess-kid. “Hey? Are you okay?” I
asked.

“
Yeah, I’m fine,” he
moaned and sat back down, rubbing his head. “Those guys are just
assholes.”

“
Yeah. They had no
right to do that. I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t moved, it would’ve hit
me.”

“
Guess it’s good you
moved then.” He gave me a smirk, his whole face still
red.

I shrugged. “Nah, I
can handle embarrassment pretty well.”

“
Lucky
you.”

I smiled softly at
him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He nodded and shifted
his black knight to another square on the chessboard. “I’m used to
it.”

“
Yeah, but it was
cool what David just did,” one of the other guys piped up, still
laughing.

“
Right. Today. But
tomorrow he’ll just be a big jackass again like the rest of
them.”

A bucket of
realisation flooded over me like heat. “Really? He’s a
bully?”

The boy glanced at
David, then shook his head; not a no, but maybe more like he was
shaking it at himself, then went back to his game, ignoring
me.

David turned quickly
away then, dropping his head, tension making a stiff line across
his shoulders.

“
Is that true?” I sat
back down in my spot.

“
Really, Ara,” Emily
said. “He sits with the jocks, but he’s not like them at all.
Anymore.”

Anymore? I searched
his face for a second, but he kept his gaze on the table between
his wrists. Ryan and Alana looked back at their food, making
sideways glances at each other. “So what’s the big deal, then?” I
shrugged and looked at Emily. “Why are you all acting
strange?”

Emily took a breath
to speak, but David cut in. “Because I
was
a jackass, Ara.” He turned to
me, and a flicker, resembling disgrace, fluttered under his
eyelids. “When I first came to the school, I used to do stuff like
that all the time.”

“
Oh, okay. Well…” I
blinked, studying the side of his face. “I still don’t get it.
You’re not like that now, so—”

“
I had hoped it might
be some time before you learned of this. You know what they
say—about first impressions.” David looked at me with those big,
green eyes, and all I could think was how unfair it is that guys
have thicker, darker lashes than girls.

“
I doubt Ara’s first
impression of you is that you’re a jackass, David,” Emily
said.

My eyes went from her
to David again, humour-laced confusion making them smaller. “Wait,
you were worried about
my
first impression—of
you
?”

David exhaled a breath
through his nose.

I wanted to laugh.
“Um. I’ve already decided who I think you are and, David?” I looked
over at the chess club boy. “What you did for that kid—it was
really nice. Jackass-jocks, they don’t do things like
that.”

“
And neither do
fragile, very breakable young girls.” He grew taller in his seat,
his tone sharp.

I inhaled a huff of
insult through my open mouth. How dare he? Fragile? Breakable? “I
can take care of myself, thank you,” I scolded. “How’d you even
know I was gonna throw it back at them?”

“
I could tell—from
the way you charged forward, guns blazing.”

“
Really, Ara. You
should avoid revenge throws when it comes to fruit at this school,”
Emily warned.

“
Yeah,” Ryan added.
“We’ve had kids hospitalised with lemons in places they don’t
belong.”

I cringed, hiding my
disgust. “Well, thanks, but I’m fine. I know how to hold my
own.”

“
Sure. Until you hit
the wrong person in the head and they come after you,” Ryan
said.

I doubted they’d come
after a teacher’s daughter. “I’d be okay. I’ve done self-defence
training.”

“
Serious?” Emily sat
taller.

“
Yeah, well, kind of.
My friend’s a cop, so he taught me how to fight off bad
guys.”

“
Cool. You should
teach us some moves.” Emily motioned to herself and
Alana.

“
Won’t matter, Ara,”
Ryan said. “If they know you’ve done self-defence, they’ll make a
point of showing you how weak you really are. And you’re like—” he
presented me with a flat palm, “—tiny. They’d pin you in
two-point-one nanoseconds.”

David glowered at Ryan
then looked back at me, turning his whole body to face mine. “Look,
the fact is, they don’t care who you are or who you hang out with.
If they get it in for you, you might as well leave the
school.”

“
Then I’d just
leave.”

“
Precisely why it was
just better for all if I turned it into a game.”

“
Well, I don’t need
someone making those decisions for me. If I want to get myself in
trouble, that’s my prerogative.” I folded my arms, sounding too
Aussie on the last word.

After a second, David
breathed out through his nose, his shoulders sinking. “You’re
right. I’m sorry I stepped in; it was not my intention to offend
you. I just didn’t want—” He swallowed hard.

“
Didn’t want what?” I
hated when people stopped talking mid-sentence.

His jaw went tight as
his eyes narrowed, tracing every inch of my face like I was the
most irritating person in the world.

“
It’s an apple bomb,”
I said. “Get over it.”

“
It’s not the apple
bomb issue I have a problem with.” He sat back a little, gaining
distance. “It’s you and your altruistic need to get yourself marked
as a target.”

Altruistic? Me? Boy,
he so did not know me. I cleared my throat, half aware of all the
eyes at our table baring down on David and I. “And why would that
irritate you so much? You don’t even know me. I’m not your
problem.”

My words only made him
rub his brow; he took a long breath, turning the tension around the
table into dense air. “Ara. You just don’t get it.”

“
Don’t get it? Don’t get
what
?” I wanted to stand up so I
could yell louder. “That you had no right to play white knight and
step in when I was going to help someone. I am not a little girl. I
can take care of myself.”

He opened his mouth
then closed it quickly. “You know what, fine. Go ahead. Throw a
damn apple at them and see what they do to you.”

“
Fine.” I unfolded my
arms, stood up and grabbed the apple off Alana’s plate.

“
Whoa!” David had his
hand on my wrist before I even drew it back by my side. “I was
bluffing, Ara.”

A smirk formed
laughter in the back of my throat, my shoulders shaking with the
sound. “And I was calling your bluff.” I pointed at him, letting
him take the apple. “You should see the look on your
face.”

Emily and Ryan laughed
too, but Alana just looked ultimately worried. David, however, drew
a breath to support a probably very massive serving…

“
So, Ara?” Emily
interjected. “You moved over here from Oz. Why?”

David snapped his
mouth shut, and my posture drooped a little—not likely noticeable,
but enough to make me feel smaller. We both sat back down with a
little too much weight in the slump. “I—uh.” I wanted to say
mind your own business
.
As I scanned the room, wishing the jocks would throw a banana or
something, David reached across to grab the salt from my tray and
knocked my milk carton flat. Everyone jumped back just as brown
rivers spread across the plastic table, trickling onto the floor,
right where our laps had been.

“
Ara, I’m sorry. That
was an accident.” He lifted our trays out of the mess, shaking his
head. “I’ll get a sponge.”

After he walked away,
I looked at Emily and we both broke into laughter.

David didn’t know it,
but I owed him—big time.

When the bell rang, I
stacked my dirty tray on the trolley and smacked straight into
David’s chest as I turned around. “Oh, David, you scared
me!”

“
Sorry.” He smiled
and placed his tray on mine, staying awkwardly close to me. I took
a half a step back so I could look up at him without straining my
neck. “Are you okay, Ara?”

I crossed my arms over
my chest and hunched my shoulders a little. “Why would you ask
that?”

He looked around the
almost empty lunchroom. “I’ve seen you avoid the topic of your
family and your home twice today.” He stepped closer—close enough
for me to discover that the top of my head only just met his mouth.
“I just want you to know that I am an excellent
listener.”

“
I—” I couldn’t speak; he was way too close to me. His lips
nearly brushed my hair as I nodded, and the heat of his breath—with
an underlying cool, like he’d just had a mint, yet warm and
sweet—trickled over the bridge of my nose. I took another step back
from him, afraid I might accidentally stand on my toes and kiss
him. “I…um. It’s nothing. I’m fine. I just—”
really should’ve made up some elaborate lie before I came to
this school, is all.

“
Okay, Ara.” David
took a deep breath and looked to the side. “Like I said, I’ll be
here when you want to talk. I—I can see there’s something bothering
you. I don’t have to know you to notice that.”

“
Well. That’s…a
little bit concerning.” I laughed it off. “Look, when I need a
friend? I promise, you’ll be the first person I come
to.”

“
Okay.” He looked
into my eyes for a long moment. I wondered what he could see there.
I’d been told my emotions displayed themselves on my face, but for
my sake, I really hoped not. “Come on.” David ushered with a nod.
“Let’s get you to class.”

The shrill peal of a
whistle summoned football practice to start behind me, and the dull
thud of a boot on the ball made my skin itch to be off the field.
But I wasn’t ready to go home, so I perched myself on a tree stump
at the edge of the road and looked across at the white house. It
was a different world over there; the maple trees lined the paths
on both sides of the street, and behind them sat quaint little
houses—whimsical yet mysterious—like something from a fairytale.
They were pretty much all the same as my dad’s, just different
colours; some grey, some olive green, but mostly white. The kind of
houses that, on the fourth of July, had flags hanging from the
porches, and kids running from the long, grass-lined driveways
waving sparklers around. Dad’s house was the only one with a hedge
fence, though, since, thanks to Vicki’s aversion to Man’s Best
Friend, we were the only family on the block without a dog.
Instead, we had an overfed cat, whose one value was keeping my feet
warm in winter. I could see his tail sticking out from behind the
gutter over the porch—the same place he was sitting last time he
fell from the roof. Stupid cat.