Dark Secrets (4 page)

I rested my cheek on
the back of my hand. “I already prefer the
or
.” And as soon as that creepy
sentence slipped past my lips to ruin my life, I dropped my hand,
my head begging to follow.

But, instead of
throwing a spitball at me before quickly fleeing the room, David
just leaned back, crossing his hands behind his head. “You know, I
think I’m beginning to like you already, Ara-Rose.”

Which was great,
except,
I
was
already in love with
him
. “It’s just Ara, by the way,” I
said.

He sat straight and
looked at me with one slightly squinted eye, then folded his arms.
“Okay,
Ara
.
What’s your next class?”

“
Uh, hold on a sec.”
I dug into my backpack, pulled out the schedule and map, then
passed them to David, who read the page, wearing an impish grin.
“What?”

“
We have quite a few
classes together.”

“
Oh.
Okay.”

“
Including music.” He
cleared his throat into his fist.

“
Is that...bad?” All
the blood ran from my face as he handed the schedule back to
me.

He shook his head. “I
mean, not all bad. We have Mr Grant, but I’m in your
class.”

“
Is he...nice?” I
kind of expected a two-headed monster, judging from the smirk on
David’s face.

“
It’s okay, I’ll be
there with you.”

I folded my bottom lip
between my teeth. Music class was going to be bad—I could feel
it.

“
He doesn’t stay in
the room long,” David said. I looked up at him. “Mr Grant. He comes
in, tells us what to do and leaves.”

“
And then
what?”

“
We usually just have
a jam-session.”

“
Wicked.” I shut the
textbook in front of me, finding my cool again. “So? What
instrument do you play?” I could sum up a lot about a person by the
kind of music they liked, and more, by the instrument they chose to
express themselves with.

David sat back a
little, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Well, I actually play
all instruments. But this year I’m focusing on the
guitar.”

Damn. Well, that blew
my prejudice out the window. “Hm. I would’ve figured you for a bass
guy.”

“
Bass? And…what exactly would
that
say about me?” The
heart-stealing smile he presented as he leaned on his elbow made me
shiver—in a good way.

“
Cool? Confident?” A
soft breath left my lips before I added, “Sexy?” And though, on the
outside, I shrugged as I said it, every ounce of cool I’d mustered
stopped moving and groaned, slapping its head.

David stared at me for
a second, his lip twitching as if stuck on a word.

“
I’m sorry. That was
so rude of me.” I covered my brow.

“
No, really, it
wasn’t at all. It was just…” He stared forward, frowning slightly.
“Unexpected.”

I looked down at my
books, unsure what to say.

“
You just seem so shy
and quiet, now. I never expected you to say something
so—honest.”

“
I’m not really shy.”
I traced the edge of the book. “I’m just quiet because I’m new. But
you won’t be able to shut me up in a few weeks.” I laughed but
stifled it quickly. As if that would be reassuring. And I was off
again with the assumptions. Who said this guy would even talk to me
after today? He was only here because the teacher forced him to
bring me up to scale. I kind of felt sorry for him then.

He suppressed a smile,
nodding his head softly. “Well, I look forward to seeing your more
talkative side.”

Was he serious? Maybe
I didn’t make myself clear enough the first time.
Um, hello? I am totally infatuated with you and I
just met you
.
You
should run away, now!
“What? What are you
laughing at?” I asked, hoping my facial expressions hadn’t given
away my strange internal monologue.

“
Nothing.”

I scratched at the
edge of the book again. “Normally, people don't laugh at
nothing.”

He stopped. “Maybe I'm
not normal.”

“
Hm.” I nodded to myself, and since there was no rock to hide
under in here, I covered the awkward tension with a very normal
question that I was rather proud of. “So, are the people here
nice?” I said, when what nearly came out was,
“Hey let’s be rebels and ditch class—go somewhere quiet, talk
for hours and get to know each other,”
but
that would’ve been
way
too creepy.

David nodded, taking a
deep breath. “Yeah, mostly. You shouldn’t have a problem, though.
Seems you’ve struck up a friendship with Emily Peirce?”

“
Is that good?” I
hoped it was. Emily seemed nice, but I’d hate to have ended up
friends with the school bully.

“
Uh, yes.” He cleared
his throat, looking away. “It’s good. Emily has…a special gift for
making people like her.”

“
You
like her,
then?”

“
She’s just easy to
be around. I think you two will be good friends.”

Did that mean
I
was easy to be around?
And there I went again, looking for hidden meanings in words that
weren’t there.

“
I’m sure you’ll be
fine here, Ara. You’ve already made two friends today and school
has only just begun.” He smiled warmly.

That was nice of
him—to say that. It felt so weird that, only half an hour ago, I
was terrified to even step off the driveway, and now I was here,
alone with David, and he just called himself my friend—completely
tarnishing all my first impressions about this once seemingly
nightmarish brown building. “Well, thanks.” I shrugged, but
couldn’t contain my smile. It was a strange sensation, but for the
first time in over two months, I just smiled because I wanted
to.

Chapter
Two

“
Why are they all
staring at me?” I said under my breath as we strolled through the
corridor.

David just grinned,
wiping his thumb across his chin.

“
I’m right, aren’t I?” I scowled at one of the girls, whose
mouth hung open like a frog waiting for a fly. “They
are
staring.”

“
They’ll stop in a
few weeks. They’re just fascinated by anything with colour. And you
are—” he smiled at my yellow dress, “—very colourful.”

Colourful? I wished I
could be smaller—small enough to fit inside a locker.

“
Dave, too cool for
the team jacket this year? Didn’t get your name on the
list.”

David jolted forward a
little with the affectionate slap that guy planted on his shoulder
as he passed. “I’m skippin’ out this year, man.”

“
Dude.
Why?”

“
Tell ya
later.”

“
Okay, later, bro.”
The guy nodded and kept walking, giving some brotherhood click of
his fingers that David copied.

“
Are you on the
football team?” I asked.

“
Not
anymore.”

Okay
. I looked ahead, weaving
through the oncoming traffic, taking his lack of elaboration as a
giant ‘None of your business’.

As we passed a few
open class doors, the crowds thickened, pushing David slightly
closer to me, but not quite close enough to touch. I thought about
‘accidentally’ tripping, so I’d have to catch myself against his
arm, but, knowing my luck, I’d miss and end up on the floor with my
skirt above my head.

“
Turn here,” he said,
waking me from that little daydream.

I walked with my nose
tilted slightly to the roof, taking in the dim lighting and rich
burgundy colour of the walls. “Why is this area so different to the
rest of the school?”

“
They hold concerts
open to the public in that room at the end.” He pointed past the
trophy cases to a set of heavy-looking double doors. “Guess they
wanted to give the illusion of grandeur.”

“
And parade the
victories of their student body?” I nodded to the over-stuffed
trophy cases.

“
Yeah.” He breathed
out through a smile. “Um, Mr Grant’s a bit of an exhibitionist. We
tour around and enter just about every contest there
is.”

“
Sounds like my kind
of music teacher.”

“
Oh, yeah,” he said,
pushing on the heavy door. “He’s real loveable.”

I half
laughed.

“
So, we always have
music class in the auditorium. Good acoustics. And more space,” he
said, and as the door opened, my breath caught in my throat. “It’s
much brighter in here when the House Lights are on,
though.”

“
Are you kidding?
This room is great in the dark.” My eyes followed the long columns
of steeply inclined seats, stopping on the red velvet curtains
framing the stage. It reminded me instantly of ballet—with the
smell of latex, chipboard and wool carpet, while the sound of feet
on the floorboards over a hollow stage, if I closed my eyes, took
me home again. In the aisle before the front row, students had
dragged tables and chairs into a small, disorderly cluster, where
they all sat, tuning their instruments or laughing and
talking.

In the seconds it took
to size up the group, my eyes swept past them and stopped on a long
forgotten acquaintance of mine. “A piano?”

“
Very observant,”
David said, and I rolled my eyes at him. He laughed. “Come on, I’ll
introduce you to her.”

“
Her?”

“
Yep,” he said simply, and as he let go of the auditorium
door, it thudded loudly behind us, making everyone look up; the
shambolic wailing of their instruments stopped abruptly, leaving a
dense silence as we started down the aisle. “It’s okay,” he leaned
closer to whisper. “They’re not necessarily staring at you, Ara,
more the fact that you’re walking with
me
.”

“
Why? What does that
matter?”

“
You’re a
girl.”

“
I know,
but…”

“
Guess I just don’t
really ever talk to girls.”

“
Oh.” I folded my
arms around myself. “Why?”

He grinned and slipped
a guiding hand through the strap of my backpack, resting it just
under my shoulder blade. “I uh—I don’t like any of
them.”

“
Oh.” I tried to
laugh off the nerves, but nothing came out. All I could focus on
was his touch against my cotton dress, so close to my
skin.

As we neared the
stage, some of the kids stood up, but their eager smiles sent my
shoulders to my ears.

“
Hey, guys.” David
nodded his greeting, keeping his hand safely on my back. “This is
Ara.”

I took a deep, shaky
breath, and waved, but the forced smile probably made me look more
like a troll than a friendly newcomer.

“
Ah, a fellow muso.”
A vertical palm appeared at my mid-section, ready to shake my hand;
I looked up from his thin wrist to his sandy-blonde hair, then back
down to his broad, honest grin, warmly inviting
friendship.

“
Um, hi.”

“
Nice to meet you.
I’m Ryan.” He shook my hand then inclined his head to a small,
dark-haired girl in the corner, quietly playing her violin. “And
that’s Alana.”

“
Hello.” I smiled at
her, but my troll face clearly scared her back into the shadows
after a quick nod my way.

Ryan laughed, leaning
closer. “She’s shy.”

“
Oh.”

“
Anyway, that there
is Fiona, and that’s Jess, Jay, Dan…” He rattled off names as I
nodded and smiled at the faces, forgetting their names instantly.
They should’ve all been called Bob—make things so much
easier.

“
So?” Ryan asked.
“What’s your poison?”

I stared at him,
trying to figure out what the hell he meant.

“
He
means
what do you play
?” David added, barely masking his
amusement.

“
Oh. Um. Piano?” I
said, but it sounded more like a question for some
reason.

“
Nice.” Ryan nodded
then pointed to the old brown upright. “Well, that’s Big Bertha.
She’s old and large and always in the way—but she’s in
tune.”

“
Big Bertha?” I
scratched my head, looking at David.

“
We have a name for
everything around here,” David said.

Before I could laugh,
a loud clap resonated around the auditorium. Everyone stopped and
looked to the silhouette at the entrance. “I hear we have a new
student today.”

“
Right here, sir,”
Ryan said, and I was pretty sure I just shrunk about two
inches.

“
Excellent.” His booming voice reached my ears with the
presumption that he was a big, tall man, but as he stalked toward
us, he became amusingly short and round. I tightened my lips,
trapping the laughter, when I caught sight of his blonde ponytail,
gathered at the nape of his neck, tugging heavily on the few
straining hairs clasping for dear life around the edges of his bald
spot.
Stylish
.
But, short as he was, he was also still a centimetre taller than
me; just tall enough to be threatening as he towered over me,
burrowing into my soul with an accusing glare. “Miss Thompson, I
presume?”