Tears of the Broken (24 page)

“
I—I’m sorry,” I whispered into his chest.

“
Ara? You. Have.
Nothing
to be sorry for.” He rolled
my face up with his hands on either side of my
cheeks.

“
But
I—”

“
No.” David folded me back into him and shook his head against
the top of mine. “I won’t let you hate yourself anymore—not for
anything.”

“
It’s my punishment, David. I deserve to be
miserable.”

“
No,” he said through his teeth. “I won’t allow
it.”

“
Why
didn’t you tell me you knew?” I looked up at him.

He
smiled, breathing out through his nose. “Would you have wanted me
to know? Would you still have been my friend?” It was a rhetorical
question; we both know the answer.

“
So,
what am I to you now? I mean, what would you want with someone like
me? I’m just a lost cause. I hurt everyone I ever come into contact
with.” The tension in my shoulders loosened with a sigh. “I’m
nothing but a murderer.” Can’t he see that?

“
Murderer? Ara. Don’t say that.”

“
Well, it’s true,” I yelled, pushing away from his
chest.

“
No,
it’s not true.” He took a step toward me. “You were upset and you
called your mum. How many girls out there do you think would’ve
done the same?” The fury in his eyes softened as he reached for my
face. “You didn’t know what was going to happen. It. Was. Not. Your
fault.”

I
shook my head. It doesn’t matter what I say. He must have some
reason for wanting to be around someone like me. “Why would you
still be friends with me now that you know all of this? Am I some
damsel project to you or something? Do you think you can save
me?”

David shook his head, but no irritation rested in his eyes,
only honesty. “No, Ara. When I first saw you—the day you arrived
here—your dad was unloading the suitcases from the boot, and you,
you stood there in your little yellow dress, staring up at the
house.” He smiled and closed the gap between us, resting his arms
around my waist. “You looked so alone and so beautiful. I wanted to
be the one that got to hold you, and
yes
—I do want to be the one that
makes you okay. Not because I have martyrdom syndrome, Ara, but
because right there and right then, at that
very
moment, I fell in love with
you.” He studied the side of my face then brushed a few stray hairs
behind my ear.

There are no words I can offer him in return. He just
admitted that he loves me, and all I can do is stare at him while
my heart dances in my stomach.

He
folded me back into chest and I let myself feel safe.

“
You’re going to be okay. We’ll get through this. Together.”
He nodded. “Okay?”

“
Okay,” I whispered.

David offered me the comfort of silent companionship as the
sunset stole the afternoon. In his arms I stood, with my eyes
closed and the tranquillity of love keeping my heart beating, while
each breath I took unlinked my soul from the binds of my shadowed
past.

I
never want to go back to before. I want this embrace to last
forever—to stay here in his arms where all of my troubles don’t
seem so absolute and the world doesn’t seem so cruel.

I
know now, as wholly as I know myself, that the empty feeling I’ve
suffered for so long could only have been cured by this moment—by
David, who came into my life as just a boy, and turned out to be a
knight.

Chapter
Nine

David’s headlights cut through the darkness and landed in
round, pale illuminations on the garage door as we pulled into the
driveway where Vicki normally parks.

“
You
okay?” David reached toward me but stopped and placed his hand on
the dashboard. A passing motorbike revved noisily in the
ultra-quiet of the dark street, making my shoulders lift around my
ears. David smiled at me, and I smiled back sheepishly.

“
Um.
Yeah. I’ll just be a sec.” I unbuckled my seatbelt.

“
I’ll come in with you.” David offered in a tone that did not
invite discussion.

“
Uh—okay.” I looked up at the dark, creepy-looking house. “It
does look a bit…quiet in there. I wonder where everyone
is.”

“
I’m
sure they’re just out shopping or something.” He jumped out of the
car and opened my door before his even closed.

“
How
do you move so quick?”

“
I
don’t. You just faze out all the time.” He offered me his hand and
pulled me out of the car.

When
I placed my keys in the bowl by the front door, I stopped and
listened for a moment. “Do you hear? Piano?”

David exhaled softly and looked down at the ground. “I’ll
uh—I’ll wait here.”

Weird. We don’t have a piano. I always wanted one, but this
doesn’t sound like a piano—more like a fuzzy recording of one. The
sound led me to Dad’s slightly open door. Keeping hidden against
the wall, I peered in through the crack and searched the shadows of
his bed, his dresser and his wardrobe until I spotted him on the
floor across from the TV. A single line of moisture stained his
cheek and melted my heart. “Oh, Dad,” I whispered to myself,
looking at the TV screen as the dancer, gliding as gracefully as a
dandelion on a summers breeze, filled my memory with light. My
mother showed me this tape when I started ballet. She told me it
was her greatest triumph as a dancer, to make it the Sydney Opera
House just weeks before she fell pregnant with me, then gave up
dancing forever.

I’m
the dancer in the family now, but I haven’t been able to look at my
ballet shoes since I lost Mum. They sit in a box in the furthest
corner of my closet—where they will stay, forever.

It
broke my dad’s heart when Mum left ballet—it broke his heart when I
quit, too. Now, the sound of that music only chills me to my
bones—haunts my dreams at night.

How
can he watch that tape? Isn’t it enough that she’s gone? But now,
her memory fills the room like she’s still here, and then, when the
tape ends he’ll lose her all over again. I looked away, closing the
door behind me.

“
Ara?”

My
eyes scrunched tight as I stopped dead, then slowly turned back and
opened the door. “Hi Dad.”

He
smiled and looked at the screen as he pressed pause, then patted
the spot next to him. “Come sit with your dad.”

“
Uh—” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder, “David’s waiting
for me downstairs. We’re going to Betty’s, remember? I told you at
lunch.”

“
I
remember, but that was before you ran away from school
crying.”

“
So—” I pushed the door open a little more, attitude rising up
in my voice, like heat. “Are you saying I can’t go now because I
cried at school?”

“
No,
Ara-Rose. I’m saying you can come and talk to your dad for one
precious minute out of your busy day before you do.” He slid up the
bed and held his arm out from his body, opening himself up to a
hug.

With
a small smile, I wandered over and plonked on the edge of the bed,
letting my head fall into the curve of Dad’s shoulder. He wrapped
his familiar embrace around me. “You know I love you,
right?”

“
Mm-hm.” I nodded.

“
And
you know I—”He took a breath and looked at the TV. “You know I
miss her, too.”

I
shrugged.

“
Well—” he rubbed the top of my arm, “I do. And I know this
hasn’t been easy for you. I just want you to know that no matter
what, honey, I love you and you can tell me anything.” He looked
down at me, his eyes narrowing tightly on the inner
corners.

“
I know, Dad. Really, I do.” I sat up and
wiped my hair from my face—still messy and a little windswept from
the sunset walk back to the car. “But…I…well. David and I are
talking now. I told him about Mum.” Or rather,
you
did. But let’s not get into
that.

Dad’s shoulders dropped with a massive sigh of relief, and he
pulled me back into the hug. “Then, in that case, you can go out
with David any time you please, and we’ll even extend your curfew
to eleven. How does that sound?”

I
grinned widely and nodded. “That sounds great. Really?
Eleven?”

He
nodded and slapped a sloppy Dad kiss on my brow. “David’s a good
kid. I know he’ll take care of you.”

“
Thanks, Dad.” I hugged him softly, squeezing once before
standing up. “And, um…Dad?” He looked up at me. “You shouldn’t
watch that tape.”

Dad
nodded and turned the TV off. “I know.”

After a breath of thought, I padded through the darkness of
Dad’s room and stopped by his door. “Love you, Dad.”

“
You
too, honey.”

After I closed his door, the flicker of pink light flooded
out from under it again. I sighed, shaking my head and wandered
down the hall to my room, stopping only to smile at the one Mike
will be staying in soon. I can’t wait to tell him all about my day,
about talking to David, how he said he loves me and…hang on…now
he’s said he loves me, does that mean we’re together or do we need
to verbally establish that?

Oh,
God, there’s that tight feeling again. I lopped my hand across my
gut and pushed my door open.

“
Are
you okay, Ara?” David called from downstairs.

“
Uh,
yeah—” I muttered back, folding over a little more. “Just gotta
throw on some jeans.” Or throw up. “Won’t be long.” I slipped into
the cleanest-smelling pair of jeans I could find on my floor and
grabbed the blue zip-up sweater from my dresser, then scrunched my
hair up a few times and slipped my shoes on as I stumbled out the
door.

“
Ready?” David took my hand, ignoring my sudden start from
finding him directly outside my bedroom.

“
Uh—” I took a jagged breath, “yeah. All set.”

“
You
won’t be needing this.” He grabbed my purse and ditched it back
into my room through the crack of door left open. I heard it clunk
against my dresser with a dull, leather-sounding thud—but nothing
tipped or smashed or broke.

“
Why
won’t I need that? Don’t they sell food there? I’m
starving.”

David shook his head, unamused. “You know I won’t let you pay
for your own food.”

“
Why? Is my money dirty?” I followed him down the stairs, my
careless feet thumping loudly behind his barely audible
footfalls.

“
No.” He opened the front door. “But when a guy takes a girl
on a date, he should pay. It’s the way I was brought
up.”

“
Well—” I sauntered past him; he closed the front door behind
us, “it’s weird.”

“
Don’t pretend you don’t like it when I treat you as a
lady.”

“
Maybe I don’t.”

Despite that, he still opened the car door for me, with his
lips curving up into a careless grin. “Girls always do that,” he
said, “—pretend they think you’re taking their independence from
them if you open a door. But that’s not the case.”

“
Well, what is the case?” I sat down on the front seat—leaving
my feet on the driveway.

“
Simply that we’re demonstrating good-breeding; showing the
girl we’re worthy and capable of taking care of her—that we’re
polite, considerate and nurturing.”

I
folded my arms. “Women don’t need nurturing—or to be taken care of.
We can fend for ourselves. We’re equal to men, you
know.”

“
Ara.” He stared down at me with a stern tightness under his
eyes. “I’m not disregarding equality by being a gentleman; I’m
exercising chivalry.”

“
That’s out-dated, though, isn’t it?” I challenged, with a
grin.

“
Never,” he said in a high tone. “Why should courtesy be
out-dated—or offensive? Is it not polite to offer a seat to a
pregnant woman on a bus?”

“
Yes, but that’s different?”

“
Why?”

“
Because she’s pregnant.”

“
Then, how is it fair to offer a seat to the pregnant woman,
but not the other lady—just because she’s not with
child?”

“
Because that’s just the point—she’s not with…she’s not
pregnant.”

“
But
she’s still a woman. You want equal rights for all.”

“
This is getting off topic.” I swung my legs into the car.
“The point is—” Argh! What was my point?...Oh yeah, “The point is
that I should be able to pay for my own food if I want.”

“
And
you can, but not when you come out with me. I have rights,
too.”

“
So…I’m taking away
your
rights by buying my own food?”
I remarked sourly.

“
Absolutely.”

“
What a load of rubbish.”

“
Think of it like this: some girls believe exerting
independence by denying a man his own rights to be respectful
demonstrates strength. But women are incredibly strong. We already
know this, so unfortunately, by labelling chivalry to be insolent,
she is merely robbing the next generation of civility—ensuring the
extinction of well-mannered men. It’s my right and duty to preserve
the tradition.”