Page 37 of A Killing Cold

There’s a thump downstairs. Another. And then a creak. The front door opens.

Someone is here.

16

A sound bubbles up from below. A laugh—a giggle. I stiffen, sitting up.

Footsteps clomp on the porch. I rise, the urge to run suffusing my body, but I freeze. There’s only one way out of here, and that’s down those stairs, in plain view of the front door.

The door wheezes, opening wider. The giggle turns into a voice—

“Give me five minutes.” It’s Trevor.

Olena answers. “I hope it’ll take longer than that,” she says. There’s no sign of the guilt that so tortured her the last time I heard her; she sounds giddy. I stay frozen in place, not daring to move, but the fear in my chest eases. No one knows I’m here—they’re not here for me.

There’s a thump, then noises of movement, of objects being set down. Then the rasp and hiss of a match being lit. I think of the circles of wax on the ground. Not some arcane ritual, of course—a romantic candlelit evening.

“Much better,” Trevor says. “Come here.”

Of course—Trevor is bunking with his mother. There’s no way he could sneak Olena in there, and there’s only so much ducking into rooms in the lodge they could get away with. They need a place to meet up, and what better location than the cabin that no one uses, that none of the family will even talk about?

Their voices drop to murmurs. My legs are starting to cramp up. I ease myself back toward the bed. I sit slowly, stilling when the bed frame creaks. Then Olena lets out a little sound of mute pleasure, and I relax.

It’s almost funny, really. Almost. My heart is still pounding and my hands are shaking, but it’s impossible for the pull of memory to dragme under while I’m trying desperately to block out the sounds below. People carrying on with their lives, completely unconcerned with mine.

“That’s right. Get on your knees for me,” Trevor says huskily. I try not to listen to the metallic sound of a belt buckle, Olena’s soft-voiced assent.

I was so confused the first time a boy asked me to put his dick in my mouth. And then entranced with how quickly it undid him, the way he sat there with his head tipped back and no words, just incoherent sounds of pleasure. I watched him the whole time, and when it was over, he looked at me with something like wonder and said my name, and I would have done anything for him.

Trevor tells Olena what to do. Where to be. Where to touch him, where he’s going to touch her, and she whimpers her obedient pleasure. I bite my lip and try not to pay attention as her moans grow louder. My cheeks are hot. I put my hands over my ears, trying to pretend I don’t hear, feeling like the worst kind of intruder.

Take your shirt off, that boy had whispered to me, his eyes gleaming. His name was Peter Frey. By then I was already sure I was in love with him. I carried a silver dollar his father had given to him with me everywhere, hidden in the heel of my shoe. When Beth visited with his mother and took me along, I crept into his room and ran my hands over the brim of his baseball cap, pulled on his catcher’s mitt, and imagined I could feel his warmth held inside it.

So I did what he asked. I did the next thing, too, and the next, so long as he looked at me like that, and I memorized the books on his shelf and the smell of his clothes. I never loved him, but I thought I did, and so I made all the same mistakes you make when you’re too deeply in love with someone who isn’t.

The muffled quiet I’ve created with my pressed palms turns to true silence, and the only sound is the whoosh of my blood in my ears, so I lower them. The breath and murmuring have a different quality now. There’s the bright tinkle of laughter from Olena.

“We could stay,” she says.Go, I will them, but it doesn’t take wishing. Trevor’s gotten what he wanted out of the encounter, after all.

“I’m afraid my absence will be noted if I stay out too long,” he says with a long-suffering sigh, unconvincing. I can’t see Olena’s pout, but I hear it in Trevor’s next words. “Oh, don’t do that. You know I’d stay all night if I could.”

Leave now, and don’t come back again. This place doesn’t belong to you, I think.

More sounds: rustling, steps. They’re both getting dressed again. I rise, cautious, and make my way to the door, three steps from the top of the stairs. It’s a risk, but it’s dark up here, and what reason do they have to look in the first place? I watch as they exit. Olena first, Trevor holding the door for her. She’s wearing a white wool cap, a bright red coat—the same color as mine, and for a foolish instant I have the conviction that she’s taken that from me, too, like she’s taken my solitude, intruding on this place. Then she disappears outside, Trevor a step behind her. He shuts the door and I listen to footsteps crunch in the snow.

The faint smell of smoke reaches my nose: the extinguished candles. I wait a full five minutes, counting seconds, before I make my way downstairs, wincing at the noise the steps make. Still in pure darkness, I cross quickly to the front door and let myself out onto the porch. I don’t see the bright spot in the darkness to my left until Trevor moves, straightening up from where he has been leaning against the wall.

I go still, like a deer not yet sure if it’s been spotted. The cigarette in his hand is the only light, a dull orange glow.

“Enjoy the show?” he asks, his voice a rasp. I hear his exhale, taste the smoke as it furls around me. I say nothing. “You following me, Theo?”

For a moment I don’t even process the name. It doesn’t feel like mine at all. “I was already here,” I say. “So, no. I wasn’t following you.”

He makes a sound likehm, skeptical, back of the throat. “Whatareyou doing here?” he asks. “Snooping? I doubt there’s much to find. Place has been empty for years.”

“Why?” I ask. My voice is strained, my desperation too plain. Itstartles him; he shifts back, as if to get a better look at me. “Why leave it empty like this? I thought your dad died here, but your mother told me he was at the lodge when he fell.”

“Right,” he says softly. He takes a drag, and then he holds the cigarette out to me. I’m not quite sure why I take it. It’s only that I’ve always liked to touch things someone else has touched, taste what they’ve tasted. It’s a need to know.

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