I Like You Like This

by Heather Cumiskey

  Hannah knew her home was utterly ugly and beyond dirty. She could light some candles later to hide its numerous embarrassments and make the living room appear cooler, though, she thought—perhaps play some music. Then again, the basement would be better. That way the neighbors wouldn’t be able to see what they were doing and somehow alert her parents. Not like anyone on the block ever talked to them, but just in case.

  As she meandered around, inspecting her work, she realized how quiet everything was with the house empty. Every rumble from the refrigerator and baseboard heaters seemed magnified. She turned on the TV to fill the eerie stillness and walked back into the kitchen. Her parents hadn’t left her a note, but that wasn’t surprising. Good riddance, Hannah thought. Her Gamma Mimi’s house always smelled like urine anyway.

  She showered quickly, scrubbing her face with one of her mother’s hard facecloths. Her frugal parents often kept the bath towels well past the sandpaper stage. She shaved her legs, then finished with freezing cold water hammering her face to get rid of the red spots she’d just picked into existence across her forehead and chin. Her nervous adrenaline made her feel incredibly alive despite her exploding face.

  Finally, the girls were coming to her house. Only Leeza and Gillian had been inside before, and that was ages ago, when they were still in elementary school. That early friendship hadn’t lasted long. Gillian and Leeza had been nasty little girls back then, often making Hannah the object of one of their secret games. Like the time they were in Hannah’s basement and Gillian made them play the “boyfriend” game, where Hannah had to pretend to be a boy who liked to kiss them and do things to them, sometimes under their shirt. Usually Gillian was the mastermind behind what Hannah had to do, and Leeza just went along with it. Hannah would cry when they made her be the boy, but they’d tell her she had to or they wouldn’t play with her anymore. Eventually, Hannah would cave and agree to play their game.

  One time, while playing the “boyfriend” game, Gillian had Hannah and Leeza sit opposite one another on the plastic-covered couch in the back of Hannah’s basement. Hannah took a deep breath and—closing her eyes tightly, praying for it to be over quickly—leaned in and kissed Leeza on the lips.

  Gillian watched closely, enraptured. Hysterical screams soon followed, with Leeza and Gillian falling to the ground laughing and rolling around, holding their sides. Then they began taunting Hannah, pushing her down and calling her horrible names like “dyke” and “rug muncher.” Hannah had no idea what these words meant, but she knew more cootie shots were coming.

  Eventually, Hannah pretended to be sick when the girls came to play. Soon they stopped coming over altogether.

  Hannah could barely get herself to eat; her body felt electric, anticipating the night ahead. She decided on a bowl of strawberry Haagen Dazs ice cream as her reward for approaching Deacon at school and for getting the girls to come over. She didn’t know which had taken more courage, so she celebrated both victories with spoonfuls of ice cream as she danced in front of her bedroom mirror to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown, blaring from her cassette player at top volume.

  When she was done with her ice cream, Hannah executed her careful face cover-up operation; then she fixed her hair to the point that it started to look greasy from all of the teasing and hair spray, a failed attempt to make it look like Leeza’s. The industrial-strength Aqua Net sailed everywhere, coating her mirror and furniture and choking her into a coughing fit while she blinked back its sting.

  She scanned her closet in search of one of the new outfits she’d recently gotten at the mall with her babysitting money. She chose a pair of slouchy brown suede boots that would be perfect against her light stonewashed jeans. She felt hip, cool, and very sexy. Just like one of the popular girls.

  Hannah checked the clock for the millionth time; the girls would be arriving any minute. She squealed with happiness, still riding high from the ice cream. She flopped across her bed, leaving the door ajar so she could hear the doorbell, her oversized hippo cast to the side. I don’t need you now, she thought, smiling. Then, suddenly, she laughed, anticipating the fun they were going to have. Maybe, just maybe, the four of them would become best friends.

  CHAPTER 6

  7:00 P.M.

  8:00 p.m.

  9:00 p.m.

  No girls.

  Hannah checked outside more than once, even looking down the street to see if they were coming down the block. Nothing. Not even a phone call. Hannah wanted to lose it but stopped herself. She wasn’t going to let them ruin this night. She’d show them. Every. Single. One.

  “Screw them!” she yelled into her bedroom mirror, liking the way her anger looked on her face and immediately thinking of Deacon and all his hotness.

  She helped herself to more ice cream, letting each spoonful roll around on her tongue, fantasizing about Deacon and the way he made her feel when he looked at her. Hannah imagined what it would be like to get lost in those delicious lips of his, to be wrapped in his arms for longer than a few seconds. Forget those two-faced girls. She was finally going to do something about her sad, pathetic life. Starting now.

  It was the size of a postage stamp, stuck on slick paper inside a cardboard cover featuring that notoriously snarky cartoon squirrel in the yellow cape. It reminded Hannah of a scaled-down version of her kid sister’s coloring book, like the ones given on airplanes in attempt to entertain the little rug rats. But because it came from the mysterious, handsome boy in black who dealt “the good stuff,” Hannah knew this stuff was going to get her higher than any airplane could ever take her.

  She sat on the basement floor and peeled the entire sticker off the blotter, then placed it on her tongue and waited. Her so-called friends had told her on the bus not to swallow (like they really knew what they were talking about), so Hannah didn’t—but it was hard for a girl who bit into every lollipop and hard candy almost immediately. She sucked the stamp as patiently as she could until it dissolved. Still, nothing happened. She hung out, watching the clock until nearly forty minutes had passed. Still nothing.

  Bored, she lay down on the floor, sprawling her body into an X with her right cheek pressed against the cold cement, her stomach feeling sick from the ice cream. She zeroed in on her old hopscotch board a few feet away, once carefully constructed with masking tape, now ripped and curling up from the floor. Dirty childhood remnants, she thought. Now look at me, doing something bad for once.

  Then all at once, she felt hot and feverishly sweaty. She flipped onto her back and caught a black streak out the corner of her eye as a car’s headlights bounced across the basement’s window wells. The streak danced off the walls like a Ping-Pong ball when she tilted her head to either side. Slowly, it turned blue along its crisp edges. Hannah smiled and kept the match going, wondering how many colors she’d see as she spun like a sundial.

  Dizzy, Hannah began to question how great Deacon’s “choice, trippy” drug really was, and to regret the hard-earned babysitting money she’d wasted, until she heard voices. She bolted straight up at the sound of her parents arguing upstairs—impossible, she knew, for they were at Gamma Mimi’s, but still she strained to hear a door slam, followed by her little sister asking for a glass of juice.

  Suddenly, the sound of someone humming rather merrily commenced. Hannah looked over at the source—and her head jerked back at the sight of a younger version of her mother on the mothball-laden couch in the back corner of the room. Hannah blinked rapidly and tried to coax some saliva back into her mouth. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked little daggers into her skin. Her mouth fell open as everything around her came alive. The imposter sat there like in a dream, her hair wrapped loosely in a bun, wearing the ruffled pinafore Hannah remembered as a little girl. The doppelganger was reading one of her mother’s worn paperback romances and balancing a bowl of cereal between her bare legs, humming to herself.

  “Mom . . . Mom! What are you doing?” Hannah called out.

  Her usually elegant mother an
swered by shoveling a large spoonful of Fruity Pebbles into her mouth, followed by a backhanded swipe at the milk dribbling down her chin.

  “Mom? Mom, is that . . . you? I don’t u-understand . . .”

  Without warning, someone came at her from the other direction, knocking her shoulders back and banging her head against the floor. She was underneath her father. Sweat beaded on his upper lip as he pinned her wrists together over her head, his right hand roughly covering her mouth. She kicked and fought, unable to breathe, but he was too heavy and hard on her, his legs spreading hers, his self-righteous anger confusing her. Hannah’s mind raced back to that icy Sunday before church.

  “I buried that skirt, Daddy, I swear I did!” Hannah screamed, her eyes clenched, but no sound came out.

  Abruptly, she found herself upstairs in the kitchen, crying uncontrollably to her mother, begging to be held. She’d just fallen off her bike and the deep cuts on her knees bled, trickling down her white Bonnie Doon knee socks. Her mother stood proud and unwavering with her back to Hannah, staring out the kitchen window, her manicured fingers spread across the counter like it was a piano.

  A door slammed. Hannah saw herself running downstairs dressed in a white communion dress with bloodied white knee socks, her little legs struggling to keep up with the shag carpeted steps. Her father appeared again in the back corner of the basement on his knees straddling her little sister, tickling her as she pleaded, “Stop Daddy! Stop!”

  Then Hannah knew it wasn’t Kerry, but her as a little girl.

  “Why Daddy, why?” Hannah screamed more, but her lips weren’t moving. The back of her head throbbed; her body was still pressed to the cement floor. Hannah opened her eyes and looked up into his—the man who had given her all those presents. Tears flowed down her face and into her ears. Her mother’s Shalimar perfume filled her nostrils with its heady fragrance as her mom tenderly knelt beside her.

  “Help me!” Hannah cried. But only a shadow came into view, growing bigger and closing in over her face before her mother poured the last bit of her cereal down Hannah’s throat, cementing her compliance. Drowning in the sticky liquid, Hannah’s eyes rolled back into her head.

  CHAPTER 7

  IT WAS A MURKY, COLD-TO-THE-BONE KIND OF NIGHT. THE sky swirled in dark greens and navy waves against a waning full moon. The street’s canopy of swooning trees plucked at passing cars. A pair of headlights ventured through tentatively, then shut off, its wheels coming to a stop.

  Deacon darted around the side of the front door, avoiding the porch light. He rang the bell then knocked. Not a sound or person stirred. He paced and contemplated breaking a window. He ran to the back of the house, peering into the empty kitchen. He spotted a light in the basement coming around the side, and lay on his stomach, searching for signs of life. Finally, he jumped into the well for a better view.

  That’s when he saw her, lying on the floor. He pressed his forehead against the window and scanned the rest of the basement. The girl was alone. She freakin’ took it alone? Who does that? Damn it.

  He spat, knowing what he needed to do.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE BASEMENT WINDOW FRAMED THE OMINOUS DARKNESS occurring outside. Sometime during the evening, the sound of the oil burner entered Hannah’s jumbled unconsciousness and roused her. Her eyelids fluttered in the grips of an unrelenting vice holding on to either side of her head. She was wet and shivering, and her damp clothes felt like they were freeze-dried to her body. The sour smell of puke hit her, adding to her confusion. How did I get here?

  She rolled gingerly onto her side, grimacing at the pain that seemed to travel over every part of her. Instinctively, she curled into a ball and squinted at the space around her. Her cottony tongue felt thick and swollen, and there was a soreness in her throat like she’d been screaming for hours, making her afraid to swallow.

  Nothing made sense until she spied the open matchbook on the floor. Then it all came back in buckets. Her panic began to stack as dark thoughts launched their assault anew. Soon, an onslaught of stomach pains joined in with the white thumping behind her eyes. She wished that whatever she’d taken would just put her out of her misery, yet at the same time she feared that it actually would.

  “‘Zero aftereffect,’ yeah right. Bite me,” she growled. She felt broken—wishing the cold basement floor would swallow her. She wanted to die and not feel any of it. She wanted to be sober and to be herself again—and she wanted it now. Never ever again, she thought, swearing the obvious, if I somehow survive this.

  Afraid and alone, she cried herself raw until she had nothing left, and then she slept.

  A car door slammed outside, bringing Hannah around again. She blinked at the wall clock. It was after 2:00 a.m. What the hell? she thought, wanting to sleep it off some more, but her stomach and head wouldn’t let her. She needed something— water or an aspirin, maybe several, anything to take it all away. She took a deep breath, steeling herself against her body’s unwillingness to move, and attempted to push herself off the floor, but her lightheadedness and the sticky pink vomit on the floor underneath her kept her prone. She began to cry again, holding her sides, but even that hurt.

  The sound of branches snapping outside the basement window sobered her. Don’t trust anything, she told herself, praying more hallucinations weren’t on the way. They had been so real and utterly terrifying—her whole warped childhood, but more mangled and menacing. She kept blinking, trying to clear her contact lenses, which were filmed in makeup. More noise. Hannah wondered if she was still imagining things. But her ears weren’t lying, she was sure of it; there was someone in the window well. Her stomach plummeted. What in the world do they want?

  She took a deep breath and raised herself off the ground to get to the wall switch, reasoning that, whoever it was, they wouldn’t be able to see her in the dark. Her head spun from the sudden movement, and she held on to one of the basement’s vertical poles. The room continued to rock even after her eyes adjusted to the dark. A crack of light from the kitchen showed her the way out.

  Her hands felt their way up the stairs and grasped for the wall phone, her body still shaking from the drugs.

  “911 operator. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “Ahh, I . . . I think it’s an intruder, outside. Someone’s outside. I . . . I’m home alone!” Hannah cried, her voice sounding hoarse and tight. She tasted something metallic. She must have bitten her tongue—or worse, she had had a seizure. Oh my god, oh my god. The line cut off. What the hell is going on?

  “Never ever again . . . ” she swore repeatedly, hitting redial.

  “911 operator. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “Hello! Can you hear me? There’s someone outside my house. I . . . I’m by myself. My parents are away. Hello! Please . . .” she cried. The numbing dial tone filled the empty kitchen, climbing its walls like strangling vines.

  Someone was tapping at the door now. Her mind raced. Where was it coming from? Her ears pulsed. Her feet grew heavy and frozen to the floor; a weight pushed down on her chest without mercy. She turned and saw someone outside the sliding glass door, but the glare from the kitchen’s fluorescent lighting shielded the person’s face. The shadowy figure jiggled the glass sliding door and tapped again, more insistently now.

  Again, Hannah flicked off the lights, hoping to turn invisible so whoever was outside couldn’t get to her. She started to run toward a closet with the phone still in her hand. Then she heard her name.

  “Zandana!”

  Her brain searched for any sort of recognition of the voice. It was definitely male, which scared her more. Unclear what to do next, Hannah couldn’t move for what felt like an eternity—finally she crouched down and started crawling to her room, cradling the phone between her neck and shoulder.

  Her room was just off the kitchen, and for once she felt grateful for that. She would call 911 again and wait for the police. It’s going to be okay, going to be okay, she repeated to herself.

/>   “Zan-dan-aaa!”

  Then she heard a crash outside. Whoever it was had just tripped over something on the patio and was cursing loudly. Hannah listened for the voice again, still trying to place it. Maybe she did know him—was it a neighbor, perhaps? But in middle of the night, who would be calling her name?

  “Dammit, open the door,” the voice ordered. “I think I’m bleeding!”

  Fear rose up in Hannah’s throat. She quickly got to her feet and hauled herself down the hallway into the bathroom. The blue porcelain sink was the last thing she saw before she hit the floor.

  Hannah’s bedside clock blasted like an annoying car alarm. She immediately slammed it down and fell back onto her pillow, her head throbbing. Her nose ached as well.

  Her wonderful mother must have set her alarm so she didn’t miss church . . . which meant . . . Oh my god, it’s Sunday morning. What the hell happened?

  Hannah cracked opened her eyes and assessed the situation. Still dressed in her clothes from Friday night, including the boots, she was on top of her bed. A glass of water rested on her bedside table. She definitely didn’t recall getting herself water, but she was grateful for it now. She reached for the glass, wanting to rinse out the foul taste in her mouth, but she sat up too quickly for her head to follow, and pain exploded between her ears. She swayed where she sat, the room clouding along the edges.

  Then she heard a noise coming from the living room. Someone is in the house.