What happened to you?
Did she see us that night? It might’ve been her car pulling into the alley when we were leaving. The headlights Jake saw when we were sitting in my truck next to the river also could’ve been from her car. I don’t know. It’s all speculation. But my gut tells me the attack at the party wasn’t part of this, as I initially believed.
No more leaves. No Twig. No more sticks!
They’re insignificant nature words to people outside of our group. To me, they complete the story.
The maple has been destroyed, replaced with a stone angel holding a dove. It makes sense now. I thought Lona cut it down because of Heather. But Heather’s still here. She’s the angel. Jake was the one who was removed.
“You don’t live here anymore. Get the hell out of my house!” Joel shouts.
They’re arguing in the front room. Lona drove in some time ago, but I don’t think Joel was awake when she arrived.
“I have a right to pick up more of my things!” she screams.
I crumple the note in my hand. Heather mentioning Jake’s stick isn’t about him tapping the ice, but how he bought it. She wrote that I knew about the pregnancy, and there’s only one reason why she would think that I did.
I look at the sky, the looming gray clouds releasing a curtain of rain. “Jake?” I listen for a response, hearing squawking crows in nearby trees. “Is this all because of you? Did you screw Lona Anderson?” My brother was a notorious lady-killer. I couldn’t keep track of the number of women he was with, far too many to count. “Did you do this to Heather and her family?”
Caw, caw. The shadows in the trees mock. Caw, caw.
The front door flies open, and Joel rushes out in his gray satin pajamas, holding Lona’s coat and purse. He flings them into the front yard and yells at her to get out.
“What are you doing here?” He waves his hands in the air. “Get away from that statue. Everyone, get the fuck out of my house and my life!”
I take the open door as an invite, nearly knocking him over as I hammer past and inside, not giving him a chance to shut me out.
Lona points to the door with a look of pure hatred, her gold rings flashing in the bright overhead light. “Leave!”
“Both of you need to go,” Joel insists.
I hold up the note, waving it in her face. “Is this what you didn’t want me to read?”
“Where’d you get that?” She tries to rip it out of my hand, but I hold it high out of her reach.
“Who got you pregnant?” I ask.
“That’s none of your goddamn business.” She stomps her foot.
I turn to Joel. “Did you ever ask her who she fucked? Did she tell you?”
“Like I care, it was probably another real estate agent in her office.”
“Get out!” She steps forward and catches hold of my arm, moving me toward the door. I wrench away and walk backward, farther into the room.
“Did you screw my brother, Lona? Was it when he came here to pick up the leaves? Did you give him a load of cash for sex?”
“We gave Jake fifty dollars,” Joel says. “What are you talking about?”
“No way.” I shake my head. “His stick was an easy two hundred. Lona paid him a hell of a lot more than that. He got a large tip for some reason.”
Lona points her finger at me. “Don’t you come in here and accuse me of such a thing. Get out of my house.”
“My house,” Joel says.
“And you told Heather about it, right?” I step closer, her face growing pale. “You told Heather that you slept with her boyfriend’s brother. How could you?”
“What?” Joel storms up to me and grabs the note. “Where do you see that?”
“You did this, Dylan, not me,” Lona fumes. “I didn’t know she’d get so upset. She found you and told you about it. And you took care of it, didn’t you? You got rid of Jake, and it traumatized Heather.”
I grip my hair and spin around, needing a wall to put my fist through. I kick Heather’s grandfather’s gun cabinet and shatter one of the tempered doors, sending a hailstorm of tiny pieces of glass onto the floor. “I didn’t kill Jake because of you, or because Heather was upset over you two screwing.” I kick the glass pellets, imagining my hands around her neck. “You’re insane!”
“See. See his temper. I told you, Joel. He’s violent. He killed his brother, and Heather saw him do it.”
“You had sex with an eighteen-year-old kid?” Joel’s downright mortified.
She puts her hand on her hip and throws her short frame to one side. “I have needs. And I didn’t know Dylan would kill him over it.”
“You’re guessing, and you’re wrong.” I punch the air. “I never knew about any of this. You know that’s the truth, or you wouldn’t have kept the note from me!”
“You screwed an eighteen-year-old kid?” Joel repeats. “And you told our daughter?” His voice is low, cold, and dead. He circles her, his eyes on the ground. “What kind of monster are you? You had sex with a kid, and then you told the one person who would be hurt by it the most!”
“I know. I KNOW!” She pushes him away. “Every day I want to die!”
“No, you don’t. You were happy Jake was gone.” Joel walks back up to her. “It was only fair he should die since we lost Heather. Isn’t that what you said last year? It was only fair he was dead.”
“No!” Lona stomps again. “Heather talked to Dylan that night. I know it. He did this.” She points at me. “He’s violent, and she saw him drown Jake. She took her life because of him.”
“Because of you!” I shout.
She waves a finger at me. “She blamed herself for telling you about Jake and me. She broke down after the way you handled it.”
“Whore,” Joel says. Small droplets of sweat form on his forehead. “You ruined our daughter.” He pushes her to the floor.
“It was an accident!” For the first time, I mean what I say. “It was a horrible accident. I wouldn’t kill Jake for this. I’m not crazy like you!”
She gets up and takes a shotgun from the cabinet. Joel grabs the barrel and pushes it toward the ceiling before she has a chance to shoot.
“All of these have rounds in them. I made sure to load them after you broke in,” she says.
“Put it down!” Joel shouts.
They elbow each other as they fight over the gun. I hold out the note, enraged that they don’t notice Heather’s words in front of them. I hold it higher, but Heather fades from sight. All they care about is killing one another.
“Both of you need to get out!” Joel struggles for control over the gun. He strikes Lona’s jaw, and she tumbles to the floor, but the gun is still in her hand. He panics and grabs a shotgun from the cabinet.
Without hesitation, Lona sits up and aims the gun at my head.
“Don’t,” I whisper, holding the weight of the note between us.
Tears stream down her cheeks. The gun shakes in her hands. “Why did you have to come here?”
“Please, don’t.”
Lona’s lips move, but I can’t hear her words.
A blast rattles the house. She pitches back, and the gun drops at her side. Her head smacks the hardwood floor, sending a tremor to my feet. I fall to my knees, staring at the silence in her eyes. Her mouth opens, yet not the slightest breath leaves her lips.
Joel moves in slow motion. He walks past me to the front door and comes back. He goes to the kitchen and returns. My heart stops when he presses the shotgun’s cold muzzle to my head.
“Jake drowned,” I whisper, steadily raising my hands, pleading for my life.
“I know he did, Dylan.”
He uses the muzzle to trace the scar over my eyebrow, sliding it down my cheek and under my chin to lift my head. I have no choice but to look him directly in the eye.
“I loved her,” I tell him.
He slowly squeezes the trigger.
“I loved them both,
Joel!”
My memories collapse inside one another. I teeter back and forward before dropping to the floor, blinking at the growing pool of blood before my eyes.
“Fight it, Dylan. Fight it!”
“Jake,” I whisper, reaching out for him.
Sharp pains twist through my narrowing veins. I know the fight is over, my mind retracing its steps to the river, seeing the coffined body of a man inside a solid block of ice.
Return
I look up for Jake but see only the moon shrinking to a small white dot in my central vision. This is how it begins before everything turns dark. Before the strong pull of the river’s current consumes me faster than my terror, and I accept death.
“Dylan!”
The rough stretch of ice overhead deadens Jake’s frantic voice.
“Fight it, Dylan. Fight it!”
My lungs burn for air. My muscles constrict and shake. A vacant stare before a silent swallow of gelid water closes my throat.
Then.
• • •
Everything hurts. My skin prickles from head to toe, and my lungs burn for air. I’m in a mental battle to keep my heart beating. I want the pain to go away. I try hard to shake my head, roll over, or reposition my legs, but I can’t move.
A faint voice tells me to wake up.
I scream inside my head. My eyes dart under closed eyelids. I’m overwhelmed with feelings that I’m alone and the world around me is dead, or I’m dead. I smell the blood of a kill and have a metallic taste in my mouth as if I’m the victim. I’ve fallen prey.
Everything hurts, and there’s nothing I can do to stop the pain. Sadness haunts me. I envision my body stuck under the ice, my lips blue, limbs no longer twitching. I’m so cold, taking shallow breaths and swallowing thickly.
Cold. So cold.
“Wake up!”
My ears pop and crackle. I can hear again.
“Damn you, Dylan. I’m not giving up on you. Breathe!”
The pit of my stomach churns painfully from the distress. End-of-life dreams and future visions recoil back into a far-off corner of my mind. The deceased aren’t here to greet me. No Heather, or Jake, just fragmented hallucinations of an abysmal life without them.
Did I get blackout drunk at the party?
“Come on!” Sean shakes me. “Get up!”
Cold water in my belly and lungs and the taste of the river on my tongue cause me to retch. Sean positions me on my side and sticks his fingers in the back of my throat. I heave viciously until my face burns as if vomit is coming out of my eyes and nose.
“That’s it, puke all over me. I don’t give a shit, as long as you’re okay.” He pats my back. “Breathe. Breathe for me.” He covers my head with his hat then wraps his coat around my body. “Breathe.” He massages my arms and legs to increase my circulation. I ingest quick breaths through chattering teeth, recovering little by little from the near-death experience. “Chrissakes, your head is practically busted open,” he says. “You’re a goddamn mess, Dylan.”
I remember the party. My lips won’t move to ask what happened after we left, but I remember the party. We got attacked behind the house. I had my knife out. The yard was dark, but I saw Jake standing off to the side by the garage. He was under the light in the alley, but he shouldn’t have been anywhere near that house.
“Oh, man oh man. I swear, Dylan. I swear, I thought you were dead.” Sean grips my chin and yanks my mouth open. “Talk to me. Would ya?” He slaps my cheek. “Fish got your tongue, or are you brain dead from the cold?”
My eyes flicker open, and I see a figure sitting on the riverbank behind Sean. He’s faceless. His head is lowered between his knees.
What day is it?
What year?
“Are you with me?” Sean asks. “The two bodies are dumped, so we gotta book outta here.”
“Y-yeah.” I clear my throat, my voice a faint whisper. “What about … wait.” I rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “Where are we?”
“At the river. After the house party for Ed. Boy, he clocked you good.”
“Who did? No, that was last year—”
“Eddie did. He nearly killed you. Then he fell on top of you after he got shot.”
“What?” I start to sit up, but my vision spins, and I have to lean back to calm my stomach before I hurl again. “Who shot Ed?”
“Don’t you remember? Eddie fell hard and squashed you like a bug. His weight coupled with yours broke the ice. It was crazy how fast it happened. Two seconds.”
I shiver. “I was at death’s door.”
“I know. The current sucked you guys under and away from the hole. You know how lucky you are that the river’s not frozen from bank to bank? We found you farther down in open water.”
We?
A sharp sting above my left eyebrow causes me to close one eye. The pain burrows inside my head, dulling Sean’s words.
“We got hold of you in a whirlpool before you went under the big ice sheet that’s past the free-flowing water. We haven’t seen Ed. He bit the dust. The river didn’t spit him out like it did you.”
Blood drips down my temple, landing in the snow next to my ear. 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.
Jake didn’t fall through the ice.
It was me.
And I’m not dead.
I push Sean out of the way and crawl over to Jake, crushing him in my arms.
Ed was the one who followed us to the river; the lights Jake saw were from his 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, a liability, Dylan. 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.”
With a shaky hand, 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 it, 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.”
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” he whispers.
Sean laughs, and I can’t help but chuckle myself. “Don’t worry about that. This night stays between the three of us. You hear me?” I hug him firmly and stroke his back, never wanting to let him go.
“Let’s get outta here,” Sean says. “Someone may’ve heard the shot, and you need to get 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, wobbly on my feet. Jake stands up 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 move 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,” Jake 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?” His howls echo through the lot. “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 that 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.
Blood trickles down the side of my face. “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. 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.
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