Blood drips down my temple. It soaks through my skin to retrace its steps back inside my veins. Something I can’t stop, an infestation swarming through me. Only it’s not my warm blood, but the iciness of the river that crawls inside.
“You need stitches, and I’m not doing it this time unless you get me a pitcher. Make that two pitchers. And a pizza. Jake deserves a beer, too, for saving your life.”
My eyes focus on the figure sitting behind Sean. Reality comes rushing back. It’s the night of the house party, and Jake didn’t fall through the ice. I did.
I push Sean out of the way and crawl over to Jake, crushing him in my arms.
The lights Jake saw were from Ed’s Tahoe. He waited until we got the body through the ice before he crept up from behind and bashed my head with his baton, sending me to my knees. Sean showed up minutes later, but it was too late, Jake had just shot Ed after hearing his threats.
“You’ve become a burden, Dylan. A liability. You have no value to me anymore. I’ve given you warning after warning not to fight at these parties. You’re a snitch, not a hitman.”
He was beating me repeatedly with his baton, and I was quickly losing consciousness.
“On top of killing two men and yet another botched job, you got Jake mixed up in all this. It’s one misstep too many. He’ll talk to his friends or Pete. Someone will find out. Time to end this before you bring me down. It’s your fault you all have to die.”
Jake’s tears warm my neck. He sniffs while trying to catch his breath, his nose dripping with mucus, clothes soaking wet from dragging me out of the river.
“You had no choice,” I tell him. “You did the right thing, Jake. You did the right thing. You saved my life.”
He pulls a Glock from his pocket and tosses it in the snow. Sean is quick to step in and pick it up.
“Glad you were smart enough not to use this at the party,” Sean says. “We would’ve been rushed by the rest of the guys inside.”
“Where’d…” I stop myself from asking Jake where he got the gun, now’s not the time. What matters most is we’re alive. I grip the back of his head and touch my forehead to his. “I love you. I love you so much, Jake.”
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” he whispers.
Sean laughs, and I can’t help but chuckle myself. “Don’t worry about that.” I kiss his forehead. “This night stays between the three of us. You hear me?” He hugs me and I stroke his back, never wanting to let him go.
“Let’s get outta here,” Sean says. “Someone could’ve heard the shot. And we need to get you warmed up and sewn shut.”
A wave of panic pollutes my body. I pat my pockets for my phone. Heather. Is she alive?
I stand. Jake stands with me, latched to my side. “I have to go to Heather’s. I need to see her.”
“Nuh-uh. You’re not driving like this,” Sean says. “You were just out cold. Can you even walk straight?”
I ignore him and wobble up the bank as quickly as I can, Jake doing most of the work to keep me on my feet.
“Don’t leave me alone tonight, Dylan,” he whimpers, looking up into my eyes. “Ed’s face …” His mouth drops open, struggling to breathe. We reach the parking lot, and his braces glint in a streetlight. “Why did Ed try to kill you?” His knit batman hat falls over his eyes. “What are you guys involved in? Are more people coming after us? Are we going to die?”
Braces.
Batman.
Glock.
Wound over my left eyebrow.
Headaches.
Two seconds.
Wake up!
I remember these things from the black and white world I was trapped in.
For a moment when I get to my truck, I do nothing but stare at my reflection in the glass, wrangling with reality. Am I alive? Or is this the afterlife, and I’m here with Jake who died last year?
“Did you ever think about who died that night?” Ed had asked.
I didn’t realize it was him. Ed. He got shot, not me. And then he died next to me in the river.
“I remember,” I say, looking down at a cut on my palm from something in the water. It was Ed. He dug his nails into my skin. This is real. This is real life, and Jake is alive.
“Ed’s dead.” I smile. “The river got him.”
“Play with the water, Dylan, and it’ll kill you,” Ed had said.
I remember the sound of his frenzied screams as I broke away from him in the river. Blood from his gunshot wound swirled around me. Then the outline of his black uniform faded into darkness. I thought the current might push him back, and he’d hold me under until I ended up at his side in an icy grave.
“Here.” Sean hands me my phone. “You must’ve dropped it on the ice when Ed hit you.”
The screen is stuck on text messages between Heather and me. I can scroll through them, but I can’t open the keyboard or close Messages to call her.
I look heavenward, pleading for another miracle, weak with horror that it may be too late. “Sean, give me your cell.” I hold out a wrinkled hand, my entire body shuddering violently.
“No. Get in the truck.”
“Take Jake to our place. I’ll meet you two there.” My voice is bullying, as if I’m out of time, unable to get from here to there fast enough.
“Don’t go.” Jake hooks his legs around mine. “The fight … that guy at the party and the crowbar, Dylan. I didn’t mean it. All that blood. And Ed. And the river. The river killed you!”
“Shh.” Jake is as confused as me. “I’m right here. It didn’t. It didn’t get either of us. We’re alive, Jake. Everything’s over now, Ed’s dead.”
“Please,” he begs. “Stay with me.”
“You’re not driving,” Sean says, snagging the keys out of my hand. “I said get in the truck, or I’m calling Pete and telling him his dim-witted son was playing on the ice like a little kid and fell through. He’ll come get you and take you home.”
He fights me like a demon, pushing both Jake and me inside the truck. I take the front, and Jake drops into the back, the heat blasting out of the vents when Sean starts the engine.
“Being in the river even for a few minutes can kill you. You should be in shock,” he says.
“I might be. God, my head was in a fog forever.”
“Yeah? Did your life flash before your eyes?” he asks, driving out of the lot.
“No, I saw the future.”
He laughs. “Tell me who wins the Super Bowl next year.”
“I’m dead serious, Sean. It was like a year had passed.”
“A year? You were out for minutes, not a year. Maybe you had a psychogenic blackout. Remember when my cousin had those after he saw a guy get run over by a truck? He blacked out for weeks after that. Trauma, man. Clubbed with Ed’s baton and lack of oxygen could’ve—”
“It was real! A living hell!” I bend over and retch on the floor mat.
“See. See how sick you are. I’m not sayin’ the stuff you conjured up didn’t seem real, but look around you. Jake’s alive, and you’re an ice cube from sinking in the water.”
“Sean, just shut up and get me to Heather’s house.”
“This ain’t right.” He shakes his head. “Let’s go home. You can change and warm up before you go to her place. The last thing you want to do is vomit on Lona’s furniture.”
“Jake.” I spin around, wild eyed. “Did you fuck Lona?”
“What?” He scrunches his nose and sinks back in the seat. “Gross. She’s like, a hundred.”
“You didn’t get her pregnant?” I ask.
“Are you nuts? What are you talking about? Sean, take him to the hospital.”
Sean sets his cell between us. “Call Heather to meet us at the house. There’s no reason to go to her. Make her come to you.”
My head hurts so much I see double. “A year passed. Jake died.”
“No, you almost died. Jake’s behind you in the back seat.”
“A year passed,” I insist.
“A night.”
I find Heather’s number on his cell and tap CALL. The ring reverberates from my ear to somewhere inside the truck.
“The passenger-side floor is ringing,” Sean says.
“No shit.” I slam his phone against the dash.
Heather left her cell in my truck, not my room. I remember that now. She sent me texts from her Apple Watch.
Sean stares at me in utter bewilderment. “Bust my phone and I’ll put you back in the river.”
“This sucks. I have to talk to her!” I send her a text. No response. I call the Andersons’ home phone, but it goes to voicemail. “Heather … pick up if you’re there. Please, pick up.” The line clicks and then falls silent. I try again and the same thing happens. “Someone keeps cutting me off.”
“At the party, you said you guys fought.”
“That doesn’t mean she should hang up on me.” I swing my legs back and forth over the agony of not knowing if she’s okay. “I’m worried. She’s never snubbed me before.”
Vague memories of our argument dribble in. The tears on her cheeks were unsettling. I remember feeling ashamed. But then when she left my truck and looked back at me like I was a cold-hearted bastard, that, THAT was far worse.
“Drive faster!”
Sean sighs. “No. I’m not speeding and getting pulled over heading into that rich neighborhood. Not with that gash on your head and a kid crying convulsively in the back with blood next to him on the seat. Forget it. No way.”
“This is nerve-racking.” I grip my hair with both hands, gasping for air as if I’ve just reached the surface of the water.
We drive under a streetlight, and the faded remnant of a heart appears on the passenger-side window. I touch it, recalling Heather drew it earlier on the fogged glass before she got out of my truck. It was when she was talking about Autumn.
“What the hell happened?” I lean forward and drop my head between my legs. “What happened to the night? How long has it been? Minutes? Hours? It’s been a year. Right? Is she dead?”
“Who?” Sean asks.
“Heather.” I turn around to make sure Jake is still behind me. He’s alive. It’s not too late. She has to be alive, too.
Sean puts his hand on my shoulder. “Heather’s fine. Ed’s the one who died. The river knocked you around and turned you upside down and inside out. Bet you won’t be able to move in the morning. You’ll feel like you’ve been in fifty fights.”
“Autumn,” I whisper.
“Autumn? It’s winter, dummy. Look at the blinking Christmas lights all around the city. It’s dreadful. I’m tired of the holidays. Totally burned-out.”
I gaze out the window at red and white flickering lights on trees and houses, green wreaths on doors, decorations in every window—an excess of bright colors—colors I couldn’t distinguish under the ice with insufficient light.
“But it’s February,” I say, bleary-eyed.
“What?” He gives me a strange look. “Jake’s right, I should get you to the hospital. It’s the end of December. Christmas was four days ago.”
“Dylan, it’s been a long December,” Heather said.
“A long December.” I groan and lean forward, closing my eyes. “Dear God, what have I done?”
“The mayor’s gonna ask about this.”
“The mayor?” I sit up. “What?”
“Yeah, Rick Farren. He’ll wonder what happened to his right-hand man. But as far as I’m concerned, we know nothing about Ed. If one of his cronies ever asks if we’ve seen him—”
“We know nothing,” I repeat, looking back at Jake. I want him to say it with us, but he doesn’t.
Sean taps the wheel, evoking the sound of Jake’s stick on the ice moments before Ed arrived. I tell him to stop the repetitive noise, then reach back and rub Jake’s leg, asking him if he’s okay.
“You’re not dead,” he responds. His eyes are swollen from emotional exhaustion. He watches me watching him for I don’t know how long, and I’m confused by a déjà vu feeling.
“Jake?”
He lifts a gloved hand to tuck his hair under the sides of his hat, the ends hidden by a burgundy scarf. “You’re not dead,” he repeats, staring at the blood on the seat.
I pull off one of his gloves and hold his hand, remembering a dream of a girl in the alley next to the bar. Like a ghost, she replaced the body of a man who had collapsed at my feet. Her burgundy coat caught my eye first, spread out like a picnic blanket, black gloves on either side suggestive of monstrous ants. A harsh wind snaked through the alley and flapped her hair over blood spots in the snow. I fell into the wall when she turned over, surprised she was alive, my eyes so easily fooled.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re not dead.”
She told me then.
And I didn’t listen.
29
Heather
For a year, rain and snow were a burden. Wind hounded me like a ghost. I would wake up screaming, unwilling to let go of Heather and Jake, spending days in a life as black as coal, the taste of death on my breath thicker than whiskey. Alone, stuck between reality and illusion, each second was a day that spun into a year of depression, failures, and gloom. I experienced the opposite of life flashing before my eyes. I saw my future. And it sounded an alarm.
Jake can’t go down the same road I’ve been on, and Heather … well.
The hallucinations started after the trauma of Ed’s assault, heightened by the river slugging me down. Tormented like Ebenezer Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, and misplaced like Dorothy and Toto on their quest to return home to Kansas, my goal was to reach Heather—to change course by begging her for a second chance.
On the way to her house, I remember more of the lost night and why she was so upset.
~
“When was it?” I ask, looking straight ahead at snowflakes melting down the windshield of my truck.
“Autumn,” Heather whispers, drawing a heart on the passenger-side window. “The day we raked the leaves for my mom. It was then. I checked my calendar. That day. In autumn.”
I raise a hand for her to stop before killing the engine of my truck.
“Dylan, it’s been a long December. Autumn feels like ages ago. Like a year has pass—”
“I heard you the first time, Heather.” I rest my hand on the steering wheel, focused on the smoke trailing off my cigarette. “I heard you and I’m pissed. What took you so long to tell me?” I turn to her. “And how could you tell Lona before me? What the fuck?” I smack the dash. “What were you thinking?”
“Don’t yell.” A tear rolls down her cheek. She wipes it away then splays her fingers. The heart ring that I got her for Christmas flashes in the streetlight. “We have until the second week in February.” She twists it as if she’s trying to take it off. “Around Valentine’s Day.”
“Get out.”
“What?” She gives me the saddest look.
“I’m late. I gotta go.” I puff on the cigarette, keeping it pressed between my lips so she can’t kiss me.
“Since when are you such an ass?” She gets out and slams the door with all her might like our relationship is over for good.
~
Autumn was an event. An experience inspired by emotions. If the season had a gender, she’d be a woman—beauty contained in a blink of sunlight, fading over time into vehement darkness. She was love and danger rolled into one. A fear meant to keep me alive, the feeling unlikely to thaw before spring.
It was an autumn night when Heather mentioned the maple tree, diseased after a dry and hot summer. She picked up a wilted leaf spotted brown, twirling it by its stalk between two fingers, upset the tree would have to be cut down. A tang of smoke that arrived with the season shadowed her through the yard while she raked the dead away. Oranges, gold, and reds stippled the lawn like the freckles of the girl between life and d
eath, and in a moment of sensory overload, I told Heather that I loved her, something I hadn’t said enough.
“I know you do,” she replied.
I sent her a wink, and she knew I wanted more. She dropped the rake, and I immediately gave Jake the keys to my truck to haul the bags of leaves away, getting rid of him so we could go inside and fuck.
The memories flood back, and I get it. It all makes sense. With a mix of mystery, radiance, and slumbering moods, Autumn was a representation of Heather. Autumn Black—she gave a face to that one significant evening. Powerful. Beautiful. Sobering. I might even say Autumn was an escape from the truth while I was out cold. But she’s gone. It’s December. And we’re here.
I tell Sean and Jake to stay in the truck when we pull up to the Andersons’ home. Heather is sitting on the front steps, her face hidden behind puffs of clouds from her breath. The Lexus Lona bought for Joel this Christmas is in the driveway, outshining my gift a hundred times over.
I know her parents hate me because I don’t have much to offer—not wealth. I have no financial stability. I can’t buy Heather a Lexus or a fancy house like theirs. I’m not cultured either. Even Lona’s dogs, Nick and Trevor, are clearly of well-bred stock compared to me. Obedient and loyal, I swear they’d maul my neck if given the go-ahead by Lona.
I have nothing. And in their eyes, I’ll never be good enough for their daughter.
When I get out of the truck and head up the driveway, I start to fall apart. I want to take Heather in my arms and apologize, but after scrolling through our texts, I realize that I can’t. I did this. I left her behind, broken in autumn’s wake.
The suicide note I couldn’t get my hands on was Heather’s text messages, haunting my thoughts while my brain froze in the river.
She’s either gonna hang us or shoot us!
Heather never hanged herself, she wouldn’t, and I wasn’t shot, Ed was. My mind was scrambled.
The Lost Night Page 26
