I Love You Like That

by Heather Cumiskey

  “I want to talk to you,” a voice called out.

  Gillian. To Hannah’s surprise, she was alone.

  Hannah spun back toward the porch. She had no desire to be anywhere near her—the catalyst that had led to Deacon’s last breath.

  “The cops ruled his death as accidental,” Gillian shouted after her. “The charges against Toby were dropped. He’s not coming back to school.”

  Hannah pivoted around and stomped toward the car, glaring. “Sounds like it worked out perfectly for you. Deacon’s gone. Your secret’s safe.” She resisted the urge to reach through the window and hit her.

  “There’s no way you can prove I had anything to do with it,” Gillian said. “If you go to the cops with some story, I’m just going to deny everything.”

  Hannah blinked a few times. The girl just didn’t get it. “You’re going to have to live with that, you know. Whatever you did to get that nutcase, Toby, to bring his father’s gun to the park that night, that’s on your conscience and yours alone. He may have pulled the trigger but you paid for the bullet, bitch.”

  “You threatened to out me!”

  “I don’t understand,” Hannah said. Her forehead creased with confusion.

  “Tell everyone I prefer girls, idiot.”

  “I only did that to get you to stop being so mean, to stop bullying me. I’d had enough, okay? I would never have told anyone.”

  Gillian lunged from her seat, nearly climbing through the window in Hannah’s direction. “How could I know that!? You know what that would do to me? I couldn’t live here. I couldn’t go to school. My parents would disown me. My friends. All of it. Over.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened at witnessing her nemesis so rattled. “I had no idea,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t. I swear. I still won’t.”

  Gillian hung her head like it had become too heavy to hold up.

  “But the gun, Gillian. Why the hell?”

  “Toby was supposed to only scare you . . .” she said, rolling her eyes like he was incapable of following directions, or simply just stupid.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me the deal sooner?”

  “Why would you keep my secret?”

  “Because I know what it’s like to not fit in . . . to be different than everybody else. The constant insecurity. The difference between us is that your freak flag is hidden, but mine’s out for everyone to see.”

  “If you hadn’t threatened me, your boyfriend would still be alive. Enjoy living with that!” Gillian snarled.

  “You! You caused all of this to happen, you put Toby up to it. It was easy for you, just another one of your puppets.” Hannah’s heart was beating inside her throat. She turned away trying to calm down. The snow, she realized, had stopped falling. “Like I told Jade . . .”

  Gillian’s head whipped around. “You spoke to Jade?”

  Hannah chopped a patch of ice with the heel of her boot a few times before answering. Jade had come to her house a couple of days earlier, all jittery and unable to sit still. Whether she was high or jonesing for another hit, it irked Hannah that Deacon’s former associate could barely look at her. What was she hiding? Had she played a bigger role in that night than she’d led her to believe?

  She cleared her throat. “She apologized for what happened and for conning me into going to the park that night. She said you were freaking out . . .”

  Gillian stared over the steering wheel, her thoughts somewhere far away.

  “You’ve been torturing me most of my life . . . but I never would have told anybody about you guys. I don’t care. It’s none of my business who you like. I didn’t know how else to stop your taunting . . .”

  “You’re such a loser, Hannah.” Gillian started the car’s engine.

  “Are you even listening? What you do to people hurts! You hit first before they can, cause you’re so afraid of them finding out. It’s got to be exhausting to be you.” She sighed stiffly. “I can’t believe I used to want to be your friend. That what you thought of me once mattered.”

  “Fuck you,” Gillian mumbled, putting it in gear.

  Hannah’s feet froze watching her disappear down the street into a small, distant dot. She stood there for several moments, until the snow began to fall again.

  Alone in her room later that night, Hannah’s head ached from replaying her conversation with Gillian a million times over, wishing she’d said more, so much more.

  She closed her diary and slipped it under her mattress. She was too beat to write. She poked her head outside her door, testing for signs of life. Her father’s television boomed from upstairs, its volume level coinciding with how much reality needed to be drowned out.

  She toyed with going upstairs to check on him; maybe they could play some cards or something, like they used to when she was little. That felt too weird, though. She also knew what his answer would be.

  She flopped onto the gold corduroy couch in the living room. Minutes from the strike of midnight, her thoughts drifted to her mother and sister being in that cold, antiseptic place. She hated how she and her mother had spoken to one another just days before. Why did she let her mother get to her?

  She was especially sad and lonely without Kerry around. Did her little sister even understand why she was there? They’d be coming home soon, and then what?

  Happy New Year’s, family.

  She walked across the room and pulled out the plastic power knob on the dark oak television set, the one Kerry liked to unscrew all the time and hide among her toys. The TV was a Gamma Mimi hand-me-down with grooved, swirling designs and faux drawers with brass handles. It usually took a minute or two for the tubes to warm up. Even once the picture appeared, it often looked like it was snowing along the edges of the screen.

  She turned the volume low before she rocked back and sat cross-legged on the floor in the dark. The picture warmed up right in the middle of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, with Night Ranger singing: “When You Close Your Eyes.”

  Hannah smirked. The ball—which looked more like a neon apple—poked around and missed its intended midnight touchdown on Times Square; the 1985 sign, however, glowed on schedule. The cheering and the kissing couples commenced for the cameras as bad hair bands tried singing “Auld Lang Syne.”

  Somehow the whole thing is orchestrated to make you feel bad, Hannah thought. Pretty people partying, while you, neither pretty nor partying, watch. She slipped her lips inside the neck of her sweater and hugged her knees to her chest. Her warm breath felt good against her skin. “This will be my year,” she said, and exhaled deeply.

  A commercial for the movie The Flamingo Kid came on. The camera zoomed in on Matt Dillon’s face. The actor reminded her so much of Deacon in the way his bushy eyebrows swept up his animated face that she yanked her chin back out of her sweater with a grimace.

  “Hannah?” her father called down to her. She hadn’t heard his TV go off.

  She switched off the living room set without a word and slipped into her room, carefully closing the door behind her.

  CHAPTER 12

  milton, Massachusetts

  THEY HEADED INTO THE WOODS ONCE IT GOT DARK with Thomas holding their one light source, an old camping lantern stolen from another kid’s room. The quarter moon swirling in the clouds did little to lead the way. Without Thomas’s help, Deacon realized, he never would have found the route to the large lake north of campus.

  The frozen ground crunched under their boots as they trekked in the negative temperatures, accompanied by a relentless wind. Deacon’s black Dr. Martens were already soaked through from the clumps of snow he’d picked up along the trail. He couldn’t feel his toes anymore. He blew into his cupped hands and jammed them back into his overcoat.

  “Fucking freezing out here. My balls are about to fall off,” he called out. The cold air stung his face, making his eyes water. The large clearing ahead told him that the lake was nearby. In a few minutes, it would be over. Soon, I’ll be coming home to you.

&
nbsp; “They’ve been calling this weather system the Big Freeze, asshole. Where’ve you been?” Thomas yelled over his shoulder.

  The sound of Thomas’s chattering teeth reminded him of their long swim practices as kids. Thomas’s scrawny body used to shake like nobody else’s—in and out of the pool. The other kids teased him. But Deacon never left his side.

  “Fuck it’s cold,” he said, dismissing the memory.

  “Should have done more blow,” Thomas said, laughing, and just like that they were thirteen again, embarking upon another caper together.

  “Totally. Where’s the cooler, asshole?” A chunk of the fast food he’d eaten earlier traveled up Deacon’s throat. His nerves were steadily chipping away at whatever guts he thought he possessed. Shit, this is hard.

  “Here, over here.” Thomas led him off the trail and deeper into the forest. They stepped through the trees, slipping over the knotted roots simultaneously. They both caught themselves before they fell but bumped into one another as they did, jostling Deacon’s bad shoulder. A sharp pain stabbed his lungs when he tried to breathe. The bone-cold Massachusetts air had never been his friend.

  He was wondering how much more he could take when Thomas finally stopped inside a cluster of trees. Their trunks cocooned the boys from the wind, silencing the air and making the frigid temp almost bearable.

  Thomas spun around, holding the lantern at arm’s length in front of him. His lips moved like he was counting trees. His eyes expanded as they landed on a large tree ten yards away, and he sprang toward it. Deacon saw that the ground on one side of it had been dug out at some point.

  Thomas passed Deacon the light and knelt down to remove the tree brush concealing the trunk’s rotted opening. That accomplished, he stooped again to drag the large, cumbersome cooler from inside the tree.

  Deacon lowered the lantern and the Coleman lettering appeared. Thomas braced his gloved hands against the lid. They slid off; the cooler was slick with ice. He crammed the tip of his boot inside the lip of the cooler, pressing his weight on it, and pulled up hard. The plastic top swung open, revealing stacks of cash.

  Thomas sank to the ground on his knees.

  “’Bout how much?” Deacon asked.

  “What? You know . . .” Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “You think I’ve been skimming?”

  Deacon didn’t respond.

  Thomas pulled his lips tighter and the skin between his brows knotted into a wishbone. “It’s all here. The entire amount we made together before you left. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Just tell me . . . how . . . how did we do this?” Deacon demanded, blinking rapidly and nodding.

  Thomas’s face stiffened. “Why the fuck—”

  “Just do it!” Deacon screamed, sending Thomas tumbling off his knees.

  “What’s your problem, asshole?” Thomas glared, pushing his hair away from his eyes. He rose to his feet and smacked the snow from his jeans.

  Deacon ignored Thomas’s stare down. Finally, his friend threw up his hands in exasperation.

  “It took us over a year . . . we used my father’s transport business and paid off the drivers. The coke came from the harbor nearly every other week. We took turns with the transactions . . . and agreed to hide the cash here until you could come back for it. I never touched it, man. This was ours . . . our baby,” he said, slapping the side of the cooler.

  “Our baby,” Deacon agreed solemnly.

  “Ours.” Thomas smiled.

  “Our baby just got fucked,” Deacon said, opening the top of his coat and yanking on his collar. Like a lightswitch, the bottoms of the trees illuminated. Two sets of headlights climbed the other side of the clearing, stopping just short of the lake. Car doors flew open. Dots of light bounced in the distance, growing bigger.

  “Hurry, someone’s coming!” Thomas grabbed Deacon’s sleeve, pulling him along behind him.

  “Just look, will you!” Deacon’s voice caught. He ripped off the wire and opened his palm, revealing the recording device under the glow of the lantern. His eyes filled with tears.

  The blood drained from Thomas’s face. “W-what? No, no, no! You didn’t just, you didn’t . . . we’re friends . . . we’re friends . . . to the end, D, like you always said . . . just us!”

  Deacon covered his ears, twisting his body away. Thomas’s voice escalated. He was a shit and he knew it. I had to; they didn’t give me a choice.

  “We were in this together . . . since we were kids . . . how could you? You said you’d never work for them . . . fucking liar! I hid you in my room, fed your damn ass . . . and all this time . . . you were a narc? Why? Just tell me why!”

  A high-pitched sound rang in Deacon’s ears. He couldn’t feel his feet; they were frozen to the ground. His brain screamed for him to run. His body only swayed. The beams of light disorientated him and concealed the only way out through the trees.

  “Look at me, asshole!” Thomas insisted. “I’m through being invisible next to you. I won’t be ignored, not now!”

  He pivoted around just as Thomas flew at him. His hands clutched Deacon’s throat, his thumbs pressing deeper.

  Thomas’s sudden strength knocked Deacon off balance. He gripped his friend’s wrists, but couldn’t break them. He could no longer see Thomas’s features, just the light surrounding his head like a halo. Thomas wedged the air further down Deacon’s windpipe. Darkness filled in the edges of Deacon’s peripheral, then slowly, it started closing in . . . growing darker . . . and darker . . .

  It’s over . . . it’s over.

  “Nah you don’t, we need him,” barked Kodak. He and Eastman jerked Thomas back, sending Deacon onto the ground, gasping for air.

  Thomas struggled against them, swearing, “You’re never going to live this down . . . because you’re never going to live. YOU. WILL. DIE. FOR. THIS!”

  Deacon coughed uncontrollably. The front of his throat burned. All at once, his stomach unclenched and their last meal together resurfaced. Everything blurred around him. Half wheezing, half crying, he spat, trying not to choke on his vomit.

  When his stomach was empty, he leaned back wearily against a tree, dazed, and rested his head on its bark. His lungs hurt. His heart hurt more.

  “Yo kid, you okay?” asked Eastman, panning a flashlight over him and checking for damage the way you would with a small child.

  “He’ll be fine. Just got his ass kicked,” Kodak said with a laugh.

  Deacon exhaled heavily inches from the glass, fogging up his view. He moved his mouth onto another spot until the majority of his window in the backseat of the Feds’ white Buick was covered. He didn’t want to watch the crew of cops standing with Kodak and Eastman cuff his former friend. His fog screen failed, though; Thomas’s unwavering glower cut through it easily.

  The second cop car drove off with Thomas moments later. Deacon’s head fell into his hands. Even without cuffs, he was their prisoner. He cried without making a sound, wondering if what he’d done to Thomas had been worth it. He didn’t know Kodak and Eastman’s plan for him. He did know that he didn’t want any more memories from this night. Screwed your only friend to save yourself. Coward.

  He could hear the two of them arguing next to the hood diagonal from where they’d put him, behind the driver’s seat. He peered through the metal cage partition. They were hunkered over an Exxon map that Kodak was holding sprawled across the windshield on the passenger’s side, using East-man’s flashlight to illuminate it. The map shielded him from their view. If he was going to escape, this might be his only chance.

  He tugged gently on his door handle. Locked. But wait . . .

  Eastman’s mangled seatbelt caught his eye. It had fallen behind the driver’s seat and was wedged in his door. He shoved harder against it, trying not to make a sound. Just one good push.

  His heart thudded outside his chest as he threw his upper body into his door like a running back in football. It flew open, and he paused. Somehow the Feds’ bickering had drowned out the sound of
the door opening.

  He’d have to find his way back in the dark. He couldn’t lose another minute. More sourness crawled up his throat. Go . . . go . . . go . . .

  He heard Eastman slap his partner’s chest. Faster now, run!

  “Oh nooooo, we’re just getting started,” growled Kodak, as he circled the back of the car, heading him off. Eastman came at Deacon’s back. “This isn’t over by a long shot.”

  Deacon stumbled back, away from Kodak, and Eastman grabbed him and pulled his arms behind his back, sending sharp pains through his sore chest and shoulder. He was trapped.

  The fallen flashlight by Kodak’s feet shone up at the agent, giving his sneering face and jagged, pointy teeth a ghostly presence. He resembled a triggerfish like the ones Deacon’s grandfather kept in his home aquarium. Nasty fish, Deacon had always thought. The fish could rotate each of their eyeballs independently, which was sort of what Kodak was doing now.

  Puffing hard and somehow sweating in the frigid air, Kodak pulled a set of cuffs from his belt. “Now look what you’re making us do. We’re going to have to cuff and shackle you for the trip.”

  “Probably better anyways,” Eastman snorted past the cigarette still in his mouth.

  “Yep kid, you’re going someplace warm—very warm— this winter,” Kodak said.

  “You can thank us later,” Eastman quipped, blowing smoke into Deacon’s face. The fast-smoking agent held his cigarette between his first two fingers like a cue stick.

  “Jail?” Deacon blanched. “You said if I wore the wire and got Thomas to confess, I wouldn’t do any time. That was the deal we made.”

  “That was just a test to see if you had the balls,” Eastman said. “Now the real game begins. You’re going on a little vacation . . .”

  Deacon envisioned them shooting him in some alley and dumping his body until Kodak added, “Want the good news? We’re going with ya, kid.”