I Like You Like This

by Heather Cumiskey

  Wait, his chest is still rising, isn’t it? Her first two fingers flew to the side of his neck, then to the inside of his wrist, and back again. Nothing.

  “He’s still alive, I know he is,” she cried as strong hands lifted her to her feet. “See his breath . . . I still see it . . . please believe me . . . he’s not—”

  “Come on, Hannah, it’s time to go home.” Hannah crumbled into his arms. He caught her before she fell.

  Hannah didn’t remember her dad bringing her to her feet or driving her home. She woke up several times screaming that night, once as she was yelling at Toby not to shoot, watching the blood pool from Deacon’s body, and then as the tribe of cops yelled at her about the gun. “Where’s the frigging gun?” they shouted again and again. “Peter threw it into the lake,” she told them. “He saved us.”

  That was what had happened, wasn’t it?

  That same night, she dreamt of being at Deacon’s funeral. She was standing in the back among the curious crowd, none of them friends or acquaintances of the boy she’d lost. But she wasn’t surprised by that. Like her, he didn’t have many friends.

  The uneven staccato of Mrs. Giroux’s heels against the marble floor hushed the onlookers when Kingsley and Babette strode through the side door behind the officiating priest, avoiding the church’s lengthy center aisle and throng of rubberneckers. Kingsley’s hands hung in tight fists, his face was reddened, his chapped lips were the color of chalk. Babette’s powdered complexion and red-painted mouth wobbled atop a self-conscious stride, like she’d forgotten how to walk. Both followed the man in the robe closely, two ghostlike bodies drained of color and ravaged by grief. Or so it appeared. Hannah could almost feel sorry for them, but didn’t.

  The pair teetered oddly near the altar by Deacon’s coffin, leaving an uncomfortable gap between them. The priest was a couple of minutes into his delivery when Babette collapsed. The sound of her head crashing into the marble floor reverberated through the cathedral like a tuning fork. Whispers escalated, and Hannah could sense the congregation turning on Kingsley. All around her, angry eyes ripped through the back of Deacon’s father’s head, demanding that he do something. But he just stood there until the priest tapped the side of his arm. Only then did Kingsley react—first pulling back in shock then shaking like he was a lost boy in a supermarket. His long legs folded underneath him at the same time his manicured fingers reached for his wife’s body. She lay still on the ground, her winter-white houndstooth suit soaking up the blood from the floor.

  Hannah woke with a start. Her cheeks were wet and her chest hurt like hell. She blinked a few times as she looked around her bedroom, putting a hand to her heart to regain her breath. In her stillness, the dream slowly dissolved, but the nightmare remained. He’s not dead; he’s not dead. Please . . .

  CHAPTER 41

  THERE WASN’T GOING TO BE A PUBLIC FUNERAL, ACCORDING to the five o’clock Action 7 News lady, a spunky, doe-eyed reporter who stood under Hannah and Deacon’s towering oaks in the park wearing a full-length down coat with a matching knit hat and mittens, gripping her microphone like a beauty contestant.

  Hannah glared at the TV. Bitch, you don’t know a thing about it. For a moment, she pretended that Toby was the one who had died and not Deacon. The thought of it gave her a dizzy, floating feeling; loosening the grip of numbness she’d felt since she heard the gun go off that night. But Miss Reporter Girl set her straight too quickly for it to last.

  “As Deacon Giroux’s classmates mourn his tragic death just days before Christmas, sadly one local prominent family is reeling over the loss of its precious son . . . and at the hand of his own brother. This is Shawna James from Action 7 News. Back to you, Bob.”

  Hannah moped around the house the next few days, blowing off showering and meals and spending her time wandering in and out of rooms or sitting and staring at some soap opera or game show on TV with the volume turned off.

  She slept very little, and dreaded the evenings the most—that was when the loneliness and pain of losing Deacon would bubble to the surface and send her screaming into her pillow until she’d cried so much she could do nothing else but finally surrender to sleep.

  One night, the sound of Deacon tapping urgently on her window stirred her from a deep slumber. Her body snapped straight up in bed. She knew he’d come back for her because he loved her. She didn’t care who heard them; she’d go anywhere with him. She’d leave tonight and get away from the pain of living in this house. The lump in her chest filled with air and buoyed her up; she could breathe again, every cell was resuscitated and ushered back to life. She sprang to her feet and craned her neck to look down over the windowsill and catch him standing below her. But no one was there.

  Her father arrived home after work on Christmas Eve with a bag of drugstore gifts from the Pathmark near their house for her to wrap: perfume and a quilted toiletry bag for her mother, a couple of knock-off Care Bears for Kerry, a curling iron and makeup from the bargain bin for her, and a new ice scraper for the car. Merry Fucking Christmas, she could hear Deacon saying. God, she missed him.

  Hannah and her father rode in silence Christmas morning to spend some time with her mother and sister at the rehabilitation facility. They hadn’t spoken much since that awful night in the park, outside of discussing what groceries were needed for the house and where the wrapping paper was located. Neither of them had the energy to pull the Christmas decorations from the attic. Hannah didn’t feel like talking and wasn’t about to share with her father what she was going through—not like he asked her anyway. Keeping the pain of losing Deacon inside somehow kept him alive for her. And that was all she had left.

  “Hannah?” Her father looked at her impatiently.

  “What? Sorry.”

  “I said . . . regarding that kid who got shot, maybe next time you’ll select better friends.”

  Hannah’s jaw clenched, and every expletive she knew ran through her head. She couldn’t look at him. He didn’t deserve it. “I don’t have any friends,” she croaked, glaring out her window.

  “The boy . . . the one who died?”

  “He’s . . .” Hannah closed her eyes. “He . . . was nobody,” she whispered into her shoulder.

  The rehab facility, unlike their bleak, dirty house, was decorated for practically every December holiday, from Christmas and Chanukah, to New Year’s. The cheesy ornaments, tinsel, and plastic poinsettias around the nurses’ station and along the usually stark walls made the place especially depressing when set against its somber crew of patients, whose eyes told her that they’d rather be anywhere but there. Hannah passed a cardboard cutout of a Yule log at the entrance to her mother’s room. Kerry was in a chair beside her mother, who was sitting up in bed, and they were playing Candy Land on the overbed table. Both of them glanced up when she and her father entered.

  Her mom looked small compared to her hospital bed. Her face was different, too—puffier, Hannah thought. The two of them had been there a little over two weeks, with Kerry being treated upstairs in the children’s ward. With the drugs drained from her system, her mother’s face appeared smoother and less creased around the eyes and mouth. Hannah kept staring at this new, softer version before her. Kerry, too, had gained some weight and no longer resembled a mini skeleton.

  “Kerry, let’s go see if we can find Santa himself wandering the hallways,” her dad said, lifting his daughter into his arms. Kerry smiled up at him and nestled her head into his neck like she was a baby as he carried her out the door.

  A little panic rose in Hannah’s chest with the two of them gone. Should she sit or stand, or go over and hug her mother? What does one do when visiting half the family in rehab?

  A couple of nurses rushed by the doorway and a man down the hall began yelling to one of them. Hannah closed the door and leaned against the wall with her hands behind her back. She watched her mother, who gathered the game pieces in her hand, then collected the cards, carefully facing them in the same direction before pl
acing the stack on top of the game board and closing the box. When she finished, she folded her hands in her lap and looked up at Hannah expectantly.

  What immediately struck Hannah was how still she was. Gone was the restlessness and jittery energy, not to mention the flat, empty eyes. The woman in front of her was poised and alert.

  “It’s okay . . . I won’t break,” her mom said carefully with a faint smile that quickly fell into a frown. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “This isn’t easy, is it?”

  Hannah shook her head and her throat tightened.

  “I’ve been dishonest with you . . . with everyone. As we’re told to say at the start of every therapy session, ‘My name is Donna and I’m an addict.’” She wiped her eyes like she was crying, but she wasn’t. “A low-life, middle-aged addict . . . how pathetic is that,” she said softly, her lips twisting along with the bedsheet that was threaded through her fingers. “Do you know what the worst part is? I’m a horrid mother. Look at what I did to Kerry.”

  And me, Hannah thought.

  “I was so afraid I’d be found out. It took over my life. I know I don’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness . . .”

  Hannah kept staring at her mother. Who is this woman? Valium, Vicodin, wine, and whatever else she’d been taking to numb herself had altered her personality so much that Hannah was now in the presence of a stranger—one who could turn on her in a heartbeat, the voice in her head warned.

  “Your dad told you about the baby . . . Michael.”

  Hannah nodded slowly, stunned to hear her say his name.

  “The doctors say his death stirred up some past issues for me,” she said, knotting her fingers together, twisting them like roots gnarled in the ground. Her neck was getting blotchy and her words raspy, like she couldn’t get enough air.

  “You okay, Mom? Do you need some water?”

  She shook her head. “I used to wake up with these panic attacks, thinking I was smothering your brother in the bed. Your father would find me digging through the sheets, looking for the baby. My anxiety got so bad, he took me to the doctor. That’s when it all started.”

  A round, plump nurse in a royal blue uniform blouse with a Christmas tree pin at the collar suddenly moved through the door, whistling a Christmas tune through her teeth. She crossed the room to the bathroom as they both waited. Hannah heard the woman dumping something in the toilet and flushing it. She then reappeared at her mother’s bedside and lifted the water pitcher to check its contents. Holding the carafe on her hip, the nurse glanced over at Hannah leaning against the wall but didn’t say anything. Her mother gave the woman a knowing smile that reached her eyes like they were old friends. Hannah felt like she was witnessing a private joke.

  “I’m her daughter,” Hannah said, clearing her throat and stepping forward just in case she wanted to shake her hand.

  “I didn’t know you had another daughter, Miss Donna. She live with you?”

  Hannah’s mother closed her eyes and nodded.

  Gee, thanks Mom.

  “Well, you’re looking better today. Need anything?”

  Her mother shook her head slowly, producing an angelic doe-eyed expression that made Hannah want to laugh out loud. Who is she kidding?

  The nurse patted Hannah’s mother’s hand before she left. Hannah remained invisible, holding up the wall.

  Her mother waited then cleared her throat again. “Hannah, listen—the way your dad is hard on you . . . my father was the same way.” Her voice trailed off, and she turned toward the lone window in the room. Hannah followed her eyes, feeling like they were on the verge of a breakthrough; finally her mother would share her secrets and Hannah could tell her all about Deacon. “He just wants you to grow into a nice young lady—”

  “And the names he calls me . . . ‘harlot’ . . . ‘whore’ . . . those are supposed to help?”

  “Oh, Hannah . . . you bring that on yourself.”

  CHAPTER 42

  “THERE’S A GIRL OUTSIDE, PROBABLY LOITERING AND UP to no good. I don’t like it. It’s like she’s casing the place to rob us or something,” her father announced from his favorite recliner, hitting his hand with a section of the newspaper that he’d rolled into a tight tube. Hannah followed her father’s gaze out the front window. A girl was smoking out there, her ripped jean bottom perched prettily on the curb. Jade. She flicked her cigarette to the street when she saw Hannah.

  “Never mind. She’s here for me.” She took a deep breath before opening the front door.

  “He was my friend, too,” Jade said with an edge in her voice when she reached the porch.

  Hannah didn’t answer and wasn’t sure if she should let her inside.

  “Um, can we talk?”

  Hannah shrugged and led her into the kitchen. She could hear her dad ascending the stairs to his room. She motioned to one of the chairs, but Jade stood. They both did, sharing the uncomfortable proximity. Hannah notice that she looked struck by the burnt orange starburst clock in the kitchen, like she’d never known anything so ugly could ever exist.

  “So . . .”

  “I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t think . . . it all went way too far . . . so fast. I should have stopped her, stopped Toby . . .”

  Hannah’s brows knitted together at the girl’s chattering confession, she felt dizzy and disoriented. Deacon had been gone a little over two weeks and this was the first time she’d been forced to talk about him. She slid into one of the chairs. Jade plopped down in the one next to her. Then she suddenly bolted up and began pacing, her jumpy expression fluctuating between Hannah’s face and the linoleum while she nervously picked at the seared skin on one of her fingers. Gone were her once-glowing green eyes and honey-colored skin; they’d been replaced by a haunting, gaunt face with a greenish pallor. She had nasty burn marks on her upper lip, too. She looked run over.

  Jade stopped and leaned her face uncomfortably close to Hannah’s. “I know what I do with Gillian disgusts you—”

  Hannah’s head jerked back. “You don’t disgust me, Jade. I don’t think about it. You have every right to be with her. I would never have exposed you and Gillian. No matter how much I loathe her, I would not have done that.”

  Jade stilled. A look of surprise combined with relief transpired on her face. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she said, collapsing back into the chair, her hands running through her hair. “He’s really dead isn’t he? I can’t fucking deal with this . . .”

  “Your girlfriend did this and I have no way to prove it. You’re all protecting her.”

  “I know, I know . . .”

  “Why . . . what the hell?”

  “Gill is terrified of anyone discovering . . . you know . . . us. She’s also pissed at me, at Deacon, for getting involved in dealing . . . using, too. You know, just sometimes,” she said, checking Hannah’s face. “I don’t know . . . she just wigged out. Then Toby came along and she realized they shared a common enemy—”

  “But I heard them talking just before it happened. Toby wanted Deacon in his life . . . wanted to be a Giroux,” Hannah said.

  “He still does, I’m sure.”

  “What did you say?”

  Jade nervously coughed. “He didn’t go to the park to kill Deacon.”

  Hannah blinked several times. “You told me to go to Gossamer for Deacon, when all along, you know it was me they were after.” Hannah slammed her hand down on the table and pushed herself up from her chair.

  Jade grabbed Hannah’s hand. “No one was supposed to die that night . . . I swear.”

  “Toby—”

  “Fucked up . . . The cops believe it to be accidental . . . an argument between two brothers . . . I’m so sorry . . . God, I wish I could take it all back.”

  Jade’s tears made Hannah realize that she, herself, didn’t have any left to shed. Hannah knew she’d been duped, lied to, and played for a fool—and for what? Power. Love. Acceptance? All to fix her sad, pathetic life? Yep, it was what
you wanted, the voice inside her head bellowed.

  “Deacon really loved you, Hannah.”

  Hannah took a long, deep breath, and the truth revealed itself to her in that moment. “He loved the power—and the drugs—more.”

  CHAPTER 43

  THAT NIGHT, HANNAH SPOTTED HER FATHER’S ROLLED newspaper from earlier in the day stuck inside the kitchen trash. She pulled it out slowly, flicking off a slimy piece of onion. Her mouth grew dry even before she unrolled it, but still she needed to see it.

  Just the headline made Hannah crumple it up, her head falling back into her shoulders. She closed her eyes, released a silent cry, and pulled her cardigan around herself. Then she sank down into one of the kitchen chairs and smoothed the pages out again.

  GOSSAMER PARK SHOOTING

  Hannah’s and Peter’s names didn’t appear in the story, just Deacon’s and Toby’s, along with those of their parents. It was like Hannah had never existed. The murder weapon retrieved from the lake had come from Kingsley’s private gun collection. Thinking of his father, Hannah thought, God, that has to hurt. There was no mention of the charges filed against Toby. Her eyes skimmed the rest until she saw them side-by-side, their senior yearbook pictures taken over the summer just five months earlier, both suntanned and seemingly happy: two brothers born months apart, one a jock, the other a drug dealer, both abandoned, both lost.

  You could see the family resemblance in their eyes, the same brown hue translated differently on each of their faces. Definitely brothers. How did I miss that? Hannah wondered. She traced Deacon’s picture with her finger, stopping on his lips. For a minute she was right back there, gazing into that extraordinary face, reliving all of their sensual kisses and the way electricity would fire through her body, down to her toes. But he’d become so much more to her during their short time together; they’d shared a connection no one could possibly understand. Two outsiders from crappy homes with parents who didn’t understand or bother to know them.