I Love You Like That

by Heather Cumiskey

  Hannah’s lips formed a steely smile. “I’d take that any day.”

  A few weeks later, the kids at the bus stop were chattering about how Leeza’s family had gone to live in an apartment somewhere in Norwalk. Hearing this, Hannah had made up her mind to reach out to her and let her know that in time, those snarky kids would forget and move on to their next victim. The humiliation didn’t last. Even mean girls like Gillian lost their sting eventually.

  She approached Leeza by her locker the next time she saw her. “Hi, how's it going?”

  Leeza continued to gather her books, ignoring her.

  Hannah wasn’t buying her snooty popular-girl charade. She knew she’d become a social outcast. None of Leeza’s so-called friends talked to her now.

  “Leeza, I just wanted to say that I am sorry to see your family move—”

  The girl slammed her locker shut and turned on her heel.

  “Really, you’re just going to blow me off? I’m trying to be nice to you. I know what it’s like to have a family that lets you down. I’m still living it. And you’re going to ignore me? You don’t deserve my empathy. Wow.”

  “Why would I stoop so low and talk to you?” Leeza rolled her eyes.

  Blood rushed to Hannah’s face. “Because you’re at the bottom, too, bitch.”

  “You’re the reason everything got so screwed up that night. Deacon would be alive if it weren’t for you.”

  The mention of his name, along with the accusation, smacked Hannah in the face. “Like you were even there.” Her lower lip quivered. She sucked in her breath to hold herself together.

  “All I know is what Gillian said.”

  Hannah knew Gillian had started that rumor around school to save face in case anyone tried to connect her to Deacon’s murder. It still hurt like hell to hear it.

  “You mean your former best friend? She wasn’t there that night. She laughs along with the neighborhood kids as your parents’ cars get repossessed, and you still believe what she says?”

  “I don’t need your pity. You’re the last one—”

  The busy hallway cooled around them, their classmates transfixed. Hannah rummaged for whatever crumb of courage she had left.

  “It wasn’t pity. I was trying to be a friend. But you wouldn’t know because you’ve never been one.” Hannah turned, staring ahead down the hall and ignoring the rubber-neckers as they split to either side, creating a path. Her body trembled all the way to class.

  She hadn’t seen much of Leeza after that. Before the end of the school year, Gillian had managed to attract a new crew of hungry posers—more wannabes clamoring to scale the popularity ladder for some adoration and attention. This new coven eclipsed the last one in size.

  Thinking about sophomore year always brought Hannah back to Deacon.

  Six months without you. Now it’s summer.

  She rolled onto her back and stared up at the moonlight poking in around her curtains. Sweet memories of him climbing in her window the first night they kissed flooded her mind.

  The hole he’d left behind strummed inside her chest—as if she could forget it was there. Letting the tears spill out the corners of her eyes, she placed her hands over it and looked up at the ceiling, summoning his ghost from above.

  I’m more alone than ever. Come back to me . . . in my dreams . . . come back to me.

  CHAPTER 22

  South beach, Miami

  DEACON WAITED OUTSIDE THE BANK ON THE CORNER OF Collins Ave and 5th, tapping the steering wheel and moving his uninjured hand from the one and three position and back again as if it were a clock. The day was already a scorcher, the heat transforming the sidewalks and streets into hot skillets. While walking through the Leslie’s parking lot to his car, he’d felt its intensity through his shoes.

  Claudia was inside, opening up another account for the cartel under a phony entity. She had recently joined the ranks of a few of the other females in Chalfont’s operation in charge of setting up his accounts and performing most of the money laundering. No one suspected the fresh-faced California blonde was pushing money through for a dangerous drug lord, when the only thing she looked capable of pushing was Florida orange juice in a TV commercial. If the banks knew who her employer was, they didn’t show it. The margin of profit was so high on these miscellaneous accounts that most welcomed her like family.

  Claudia had become Chalfont’s recruit after several members of his familia were arrested the night of the raid. No longer behind the scenes, she now dealt with the cartel’s top henchmen regularly.

  Deacon knew she worried that Chalfont would see through her and sense her hatred for him. Being in continuous proximity to the man who had caused her young boy’s death, however, had only escalated her resolve to exact revenge.

  Deacon wiped his brow and cupped his forehead in his hand as he leaned against the car door. He didn’t bother with the radio. Another Madonna song wasn’t going to alleviate his loneliness. He blinked the moisture from his eyes and spotted a group of utility workers fixing the streetlamp across the street.

  One hardhat rode the cherry picker while the other two stayed below, monitoring his ascent. They reminded Deacon of the janitors that kept him company in those early-morning hours in Darien High’s cafeteria. He remembered how they’d greeted one another with slaps on the back and animated exchanges as they moved about their jobs.

  A familiar ache punctured Deacon’s chest, solidifying his crappy mood. He’d dreamt of Hannah last night. During those fleeting hours of sleep, her face, lips, and curly, wild hair had flashed through his mind like a never-ending movie reel. He’d woken with his sheets twisted around him.

  He shook off the image and pulled his baseball cap down over his sunglasses. Since the night of the raid, he and Claudia seldom went anywhere alone anymore, and spent much of their energy trying not to garner any attention. The charade was exhausting.

  Last night’s deal had been especially rough. Deacon had been with Chalfont’s henchmen in the multi-tiered parking garage by Lincoln Road Mall when three police cars barreled in behind them, blocking the entrance. Deacon had been standing in front of the truck as it was being unloaded; at the sight of the cop cars, he’d quickly ducked and scrambled into the shadows. Behind him, Chalfont’s men had yelled, “Es Xavier Coyne! Arréstenlo . . . hijo de un señor de la droga is here!”

  When Chalfont began calling Deacon “mijo,” jealousy among the other men had spread nearly as fast as Xavier Coyne’s growing reputation throughout Miami. Being Chalfont’s pet came at a price.

  To his relief, the cops hadn’t acted on the men’s unsolicited tip. Deacon crawled around and under cars and eventually got out, and no additional cops came after him. Whether they knew about his informant status or simply didn’t believe Chalfont’s henchmen, he wasn’t sure—but either way, he knew that he was one lucky son-of-a-bitch to have made it out of that parking garage.

  The officers had sealed off the area, sending Deacon to hide for hours behind a storefront while more cop cars patrolled the surrounding blocks. It was 3:00 a.m. before he was finally able to make the trek back to the Leslie. Along the way, he underestimated the Miami streets, ignoring a homeless man in the shadows muttering something about spare change, just seconds before the shiny blade of a kitchen knife met with his hand and forearm.

  Sitting outside the bank with his wrapped hand, he stared at the utility workers numbly. The skin around his ears bristled at their simple life, where broken things were fixed easily and left in a better state than they were found. It was the flip side of his world, treading water among broken people living broken lives and situations swiftly fixed by bullets and decrees of loyalty to the familia. It was Chalfont’s way or your last day breathing.

  Deacon shuddered. He’d do anything to change places with one of the men across the street.

  “Xavier, is that you?” a warm, gravelly voice called from the sidewalk behind him.

  The interruption roused Deacon from his thoughts—and
just in time, before they spiraled off and darkened further under the sky’s unrelenting heat lamp. In his side mirror, he spied one of the neighborhood regulars waddling toward his driver side window. He shifted his baseball cap off his forehead and rallied his energy for conversation.

  “Paul.” He nodded. “Headed out for some leche?”

  The old man was somewhere in his sixties and dressed in a striped polyester shirt and coordinating pants that favored that burnt squash color everyone had seemed to love in the ’70s. He wore his trousers pulled up over his half-melon belly, wrapped in a wide whale belt. His concave chest sprouted a few gray stragglers; they poked out from his shirt, glistening below the gold pendant around his neck.

  He pulled a face at Deacon like he was an imbecile. “Where else would I be going, stupid?”

  “Where’s the missus?” Deacon asked. “Her wheels getting oiled?”

  “I left her for dead, dick,” he said flipping off Deacon with one of his gnarled, arthritic fingers.

  Deacon couldn’t help but laugh. The ache in his chest loosened some. Paul always managed to get him out of his head and spinning thoughts. Their short exchanges left him feeling closer to human. For a few minutes, he’d forget how far he was from home . . . and from her.

  Out of the throngs of senior citizens living in South Beach, Paul was the only one who had approached him. It had all started over his car, a black Chevrolet Camaro—the first type of car that had come to mind when Claudia asked what he wanted to drive in Miami. Better than Toby’s stupid red one, he thought.

  Paul had approached him the first day he drove it, asking him the car’s year, how it ran, and its city and highway miles per gallon. Deacon hadn’t had a clue about the last part, and that had instantly summed up his intelligence in the eyes of the old man.

  “What kind of twit doesn’t know that?” Paul had demanded.

  Deacon was speechless. He hadn’t owned the car long and this information was off script.

  “Are you some rich kid from New York or something?” Paul sniffed. The guy called it like he saw it.

  “Nah, born in Colombia. Moved around a lot.”

  Paul’s string of inquiries made him uncomfortable. He found it hard to keep up his pretense with the inquisitive old man. It was something about his kind eyes and the way the lines around them softly crinkled when he spoke, even with the putdowns and expletives streaming out of him. A colorful repartee had eventually developed.

  “Well, see ya,” Paul said abruptly.

  “Give my regards to—”

  The old man waved him off and headed across the street to the drug store. Deacon turned his attention back to the utility worker coming off the cherry picker.

  He looked down at the cheesy Rolex Claudia had given him. He was sure that the Feds had pulled it off some dead body. He rechecked it twenty minutes later after several customers had left the store—none of which were Paul. Bored, Deacon decided to follow him inside.

  The front cashier counter stood empty, as did the aisles. Where is everybody? The hairs on the back of Deacon’s neck stiffened. His head swung around to the sound of a child’s whimper. A sharp voice cut through the silence: “Give it to me, old man!”

  Deacon swung his gaze to the back of the store. Two teens had Paul backed up against a wall near the pharmacy. Both youths wore matching bandanas and identical tattoos on the side of their arms.

  The panic on Paul’s face clutched something inside of Deacon. The boys were taunting the old man; the bigger one was demanding the gold around his neck, the smaller one holding up an Rx bag in Paul’s face—the old man’s prescription, Deacon assumed.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Knock it off!” Three heads swiveled toward him. The boys’ mouths dropped open.

  Deacon reached for the pistol Chalfont had given him during their first meeting. He briskly strode toward them, holding the gun next to his leg. It felt cold and awkward in his hand. He prayed the gang members weren’t armed; he’d never fired it. Thankfully, they didn’t waste a minute before running out of the store. The smaller one dropped Paul’s pills in his haste to escape.

  Deacon, exhaling with relief, placed the gun back inside his jacket—but not before Paul saw it. Deacon’s face pinched with shame. He didn’t want the old man to see him as a thug and no better than those street kids. For some reason, Paul’s respect mattered.

  He picked up Paul’s prescription from the ground and handed it to him. The old man braced himself against the counter, grabbing his chest and coughing violently. Then he removed the carefully folded handkerchief from his pants pocket and dabbed his forehead with it. Minutes slipped by as Deacon waited beside him, unsure what to do next. Through wet eyes, Paul tried to thank him, but the words seemed to be getting stuck.

  Deacon hesitated a bit before placing his hand on Paul’s shoulder. He motioned toward the refrigerator case. “Come on, let’s find you that leche before Ida starts thinking you left her.”

  CHAPTER 23

  darien, Connecticut

  HANNAH STIRRED TO THE SOUND OF THE FRONT DOOR slamming—not once, but twice. Good, he’s gone. Her father leaving for the office was her cue to get moving. She was on the early shift that morning, serving customers behind the confectionery bays at The Candy House, a freestanding shop in the center of the mall.

  She was proud of herself for applying early for a summer job. She’d known she’d need something to do when school got out—and she especially needed the money. Lately, she’d been catching her father staring out of the living room window from his recliner with an opened doctor’s bill or past due notice from the rehab facility in his lap. He’d meticulously refold it, squeezing his thumb and middle finger together along the creases, before slipping it inside the torn envelope. She’d find them later stuffed under the tray of kitchen utensils. Every week, the drawer became harder to close.

  The Stamford Mall’s corridors converged on The Candy House similar to a five-pointed star, making it the ultimate people-watching spot. It provided zero privacy; Hannah was on constant display. She often plastered a smile on her face when a cute guy or bunch of boys strolled by, hoping to get noticed. It wasn’t working so far. After dating Deacon, she found herself craving the attention and ego boost of having a boyfriend more than ever. Even though she hung out with Peter, it wasn’t the same.

  In between daydreams, usually involving the last cute guy who had just walked by, her tasks were pretty monotonous, from filling candy trays to cleaning bay windows. The shop was slow until the afternoon, when weary shoppers began to crave a sugar fix. Hannah ate candy and little else throughout her shift, starting with the gummy bears, gummy worms, and Swedish fish, and then moving on to the chocolate-covered Oreos and caramel turtles. By the end of it, her stomach usually swirled in pain from the zoo she’d managed to consume.

  She stretched her body long in the bed, flexed her feet a few times, and let out a sleepy sigh. She’d give anything to roll over for another five or ten minutes, but she knew she’d be late if she did. Still, her body didn’t move.

  She blinked the sleep from her eyes, focusing on the random cracks and peeling paint around her window’s wooden frame. The steadfast sunlight projecting onto the bed left her feeling something between possibility and dread.

  Another day without you.

  She kicked off her sheets and let the sun’s warmth sink into her body and tickle her skin. She watched the little hairs on her arm rise. Her hand traveled to her breast and her nipple rose easily. She closed her eyes, remembering the way Deacon had touched her that November day when they both were off from school. He had been so gentle and loving when they were alone together in his bedroom, without parents or beepers and with the house to themselves.

  Why people called it “losing your virginity,” she’d never understand. She hadn’t lost anything, only gained it, from the darkly romantic, handsome boy who, during those fleeting hours, had unabashedly revealed his heart to her. She had been his everything as he caressed
and dragged his lips over every inch of her, creating little fires wherever he went. And he went everywhere. Each time he’d left a spot, she’d felt her skin yearn for more. How is this possible? she’d wondered. It was obvious she’d been dead inside until he showed her what love could do. It was love. They had both known it. Now she was starving for him again.

  She threw her legs over the side of the bed and begrudgingly sat up, rubbing her neck. Dreaming of Deacon would put her in a funk all day if she let it. She ran her hands into her hair and shook her scalp awake, yawning hard.

  She listened for any movement above from her parents’ or Kerry’s bedroom. She’d check on her little sister before she left for work. Her mother still had trouble getting up in the morning, leaving Kerry to watch too much TV. Her family didn’t join swim clubs; they hadn’t enrolled Kerry in summer camps. She was probably bored to bits, and it was still only June.

  The previous night, Hannah had gone with Peter to see Rambo: First Blood Part II. They were now in a comfortable routine of going to the movies or watching them at his house. Peter’s was far cleaner than hers and typically smelled like lemon Pledge. His mom kept their fridge stocked with snacks Hannah liked and always asked her how she was. Hannah barely spoke to her parents, even on a good day.

  The nights they stayed in, Peter would microwave the popcorn while Hannah grabbed the sodas and a blanket for herself before turning off the lights in his den. His family’s nightly entertainment centered on an extensive VHS movie collection, many recorded off the TV. The two of them still checked out the rentals at Blockbuster most nights.

  Hannah had learned that Peter possessed some definite opinions when it came to his cinema. He knew every actor out there, especially when it came to gory horror and strange sci-fi flicks. The more spurting blood the better. Neither genre interested her, though anything was better than sitting through the freak show at her house.