Kiss Me Like you Did -IGHS Sequel-

I trudged slowly back towards Cherrytree Hall, the hot September sun beating down on the back of my neck as I gazed at the ground, lost in my thoughts. What had just happened? That had been a lot of information to process in a half hour. And we hadn’t spent the whole day together like he’d promised... Instead he’d told me we should stay apart.

Well that wasn’t going to be fucking easy, was it? I kicked a stone angrily, watching it bounce down the footpath and roll to a stop a few feet away. He was going out with my roommate. Could the situation be any more fucked up?

I reached where the stone had landed and kicked it again, shoving my hands deep into my hoodie pockets, despite the warmth of the sun. That’s one of the side-effects of starvation; you’re cold pretty much all of the time.

I kicked the stone all the way back to the dorms, still staring at the ground as I trudged across the front yard towards the door.

‘Jake!’ I heard someone shout, and turned my head instinctively, even though I didn’t think I could be the Jake they were calling. Nobody knew me here.

When I looked up though, I saw Jacob, Johnny, and Noah sitting under an oak tree – go figure – and waving in my direction. I looked behind me nervously to see if there was someone behind me waving back, and then pointed at myself dubiously when I looked back. Even Johnny laughed at me, and they nodded, beckoning me over.

‘Hey,’ Noah said softly when I sat down between he and Johnny. He was almost as quiet as the deaf twin. ‘What’s up?’

I shrugged. Now there was a question I could ramble on forever answering. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’re almost as quiet as Johnny,’ Jacob declared, and I grinned ironically.

‘I think words are overrated,’ I said quietly, shrugging. ‘Sometimes they can-’ I cut myself off, not wanting to get caught up in everything Taylor had just told me. I’d promised not to tell anyone other than Kelly anyway, and she was obviously still off with Ethan, if all the others were here without him.

Johnny nudged his brother and signed something at him rapidly. I’d taken Sign Language as an elective a couple years ago in school, but he was moving way too quickly for me to figure any of it out. And anyway, ISL and ASL were bound to have some differences.

Jacob turned to me, ‘Johnny says words can break your heart.’

I bit my lip, and sloppily tried to sign back, You’re right. ‘Did I do that right?’ I asked Jacob, who nodded.

‘You know he can lip read anyway,’ Jacob shrugged.

‘Yeah, but pictures don’t hurt as much as words,’ I said lightly, and thankfully they all laughed.

‘So...’ Noah said, looking at me seriously. ‘How are you?’

‘Um. Fine?’ What was going on?

‘You spoke with Taylor today?’ he pressed, concerned and a little awkward.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes tiredly. ‘How much do you know and who’s your source?’ I demanded.

‘Ethan told us.’

‘I’m gonna kill Kelly,’ I muttered. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Bullshit,’ Jacob declared, tilting his head to the side, but seemed to gauge from my expression that I didn’t want to talk about it. ‘So what’s the deal with your sister?’ he asked, changing the subject.

I raised an eyebrow, verging on laughter. ‘Seriously? In the whole spectrum of more appropriate topics that’s the one you land on?’

‘Dude, I would treat that girl like a princess,’ he said sincerely. ‘If she ditches Ethan for me.’

I laughed. ‘She’s not looking for anything serious this year,’ I said, shrugging.

‘Does she have a shitty ex story as well?’ he asked, then turned to Johnny and signed but spoke at the same time, ‘Is it a twin thing or something?’

‘Why, what’s your shitty ex story?’ I asked, not feeling nosy given that their whole reason for calling me over was to poke into my life.

‘Not me,’ he said, then jerked his head at Johnny. ‘This poor bastard has been fucked over more times than Laura Bell,’ he snickered, signing as he spoke for Johnny’s benefit.

Johnny elbowed him, looking embarrassed.

‘Laura Bell?’ I asked, trying to subtly change the subject for his sake.

‘ “The Queen of London Whoredom”,’ Jacob said grandly, then added, ‘Noah and I are studying history.’

‘Dude, I don’t think you’ll be learning about prostitutes in class,’ I said, pretending to break it to him gently.

‘Don’t go breakin’ my heart,’ he said absently, patting his pockets and pulling out his phone. ‘Shit man,’ he said, looking at Noah. ‘We’d better go register, it started a half hour ago.’

Noah groaned. ‘Are you serious?’

Jacob nodded, standing up and gathering his things; seconds later Johnny and I were left sitting in a slightly awkward silence. Then again, it wasn’t likely to be noisy.

Do you know much sign language? Johnny signed at me slowly and carefully, grinning a little at how I had to concentrate to catch what he was saying.

A little, I replied. Did it for a term in school. I paused. What are you studying?

I’m pre-med, he replied. You?

Engineering, I answered, with vague wonderment that I could remember learning how to tell people what college course I wanted to do in ISL. I paused, then added tentatively, I think Ryan is pre-med as well...

Johnny nodded, his face becoming sympathetic. No, empathetic. He knew what I was going through.

Can I ask what happened? I signed cautiously, not wanting to push it.

Johnny shrugged. Used and abused, he signed quickly. Guys are dickheads. I didn’t know there was a sign for “dickheads”, but when he motioned jerking off from his forehead, I got the picture.

You’re gay? I asked, surprised. I don’t know why I had assumed he and Jacob would be the same in every way when Kelly and I weren’t the same sexuality – she was bi and I’m gay – but for some reason I was surprised.

Johnny nodded, not bothering to reply properly. What happened with you and Taylor?

I hesitated; I hadn’t even thought about it for myself for fourteen months, how could I come out and tell a complete stranger all about it? But there was something so comforting about Johnny’s silence. I had barely spoken myself for so long that my voice was gravelly and scratchy; speaking felt a little unnatural after all that time. Perverse as it sounded, I could already identify with Johnny. I knew what it was like to be surrounded by people talking and not join in because of some personal affliction. His was physical and mine was mental, but I got the feeling that Johnny would have been pretty quiet even if he could talk.

It’s a long story, I warned him tentatively, half hoping he’d shrug and change the subject, but he just nodded expectantly, his large brown eyes blinking innocently. Taylor and I... We were in love, I started awkwardly, cringing at how dumb that sounded. Then he had to move to California with his parents, and he got- I cut myself off. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what had happened to him in Cali. He wasn’t allowed to speak to me anymore, I amended.

Homophobic parents? Johnny asked.

Cost of communication, I lied uneasily. Anyway, I was... I was too dependent on him.

You were heartbroken, Johnny corrected me.

Yeah. And I got sick. I couldn’t eat or get out of bed and I stopped talking. I had panic attacks. My parents sent me to all these different doctors, but I refused meds and they couldn’t really help me. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to talk about anything, so I just stopped going.

What do you have, exactly? Johnny asked curiously. I laughed a little; typical pre-med.

Severe clinical depression, systematic anorexia, mild panic disorder... I let my hands drop onto my lap uselessly, then added, The usual, trying to lighten the mood.

Johnny bit his lip. Pre-med me wants to tell you to stop being so stupid and go on meds, he started. But normal me knows that won’t work.

There’s no cure for my weirdness, I joked.

Yeah there is, Johnny replied seriously, staring into my eyes, and neither of us had to say his name to know what that cure was.

--------------------------------------------

I knocked on Kelly’s dorm room door lightly later, having talked some more with Johnny and leaving him at the stairs as he went back to his room and I climbed up to the next floor.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ I blinked in the face of pocket-sized emo-looking chick, who was glaring up at me angrily from the doorway.

I’m here to see- I started, then dropped my hands; signing becomes second nature pretty quickly. ‘My sister...’ I said, gesturing to the room weakly. The girl’s face changed; her angry expression dissolved and she grinned broadly at me.

‘Jake!’ she exclaimed, and stood back to let me in. ‘I should have known. You guys look alike.’

‘Thanks,’ I muttered, stepping inside to see Kel lounging on her bed broodily, staring at her phone, which she was holding up in front of her face as though willing it to ring.

‘She’s waiting for Ethan to text her,’ the angry girl whispered conspiratorially. Then, ‘I’m Halley, by the way.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, trying to be polite. ‘Fringo kakk loley,’ I added to Kelly, who looked up.

‘I will not put it down,’ she said desperately. She always gets like this after a date. ‘What if he calls?’

‘Then you’ll hear it going off,’ I said, walking across the room and snatching it from her. I put it in my pocket so she couldn’t grab it back. ‘How’d it go?’

‘Pretty good,’ she sighed, looking a little forlorn, but then perked up and stared at me incredulously. ‘What the hell? Why are we talking about me? How did it go with Taylor?!’

‘Who’s Taylor?’ Halley asked excitedly. ‘Is she hot?’

‘Halley’s a lez,’ Kelly told me, her eyes sparkling. There was only one thing going through my sister’s mind in regard to her roommate, and helping each other with assignments wasn’t it. ‘And Taylor’s a guy,’ she added to Halley, who made a face, disappointed.

‘Juju poro oog,’ I said lightly to Kel. It’s a secret. My head was starting to spin with keeping English, sign language, and this dumb twin language separate in my head. I thought Spanish was gonna be the worst I’d have to navigate coming to America; apparently not.

‘Can you tell me?’ Kelly asked bluntly, not bothering to hide anything from Halley.

I shrugged. ‘He said I could.’

‘I get it, I get it,’ Halley said, sighing with feigned annoyance. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘I’ll lick you out later,’ Kelly offered as compensation, and Halley stuck her tongue out before closing the door behind her.

‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘You had to say that in front of me?’

‘I did it with your girlfriend too,’ Kel said bluntly, and I rolled my eyes.

‘As if I don’t have enough trouble keeping food down,’ I muttered.

‘So? What happened?’

I settled myself against the pillows beside her, and tipped my head back, closing my eyes, as I told her the whole story.

‘He tried to what?!’ Kelly demanded, when I told her about Taylor’s attempted overdose.

‘That was pretty much my reaction too,’ I admitted, biting my lip. It killed me to think about Taylor in so much pain.

‘And Ryan saved his life?’

I bristled. ‘Taylor wouldn’t have tried if he’d been allowed to talk to me,’ I snapped defensively.

Kelly put her hand on my arm, biting her lip. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘But if Ryan didn’t exist, then Taylor would be... He’d be...’

‘Yeah and if I didn’t exist he wouldn’t be so depressed in the first place, right?’ I asked angrily. I wasn’t really annoyed with Kelly; this was all my thoughts and anxieties since he’d told me what had happened emerging from my head. It was my fault.

‘Bullshit,’ Kelly hissed. ‘Taylor owes the happiest part of his life to you. I knew he was in love with you long before you did, and even back then he was ecstatically happy just being around you. There’s only one person to blame here and it’s that stupid pseudo-psychiatrist.’

I looked down, trying to convince myself that she was right.

‘He said we should stay away from each other,’ I said meekly, staring at my hands.

‘Taylor did? Why on earth would he say something like that?’

‘He said he couldn’t trust himself with me. He... He kissed me,’ I almost whispered.

‘He what?!’ Kelly shrieked, sitting forward on the bed and staring at me. ‘Oh my god! What does that mean?’

‘It means he wants us to stay away from each other,’ I mumbled, shrugging. ‘I guess... I guess he’s choosing Ryan, or something. If there was ever a choice to make.’

‘Well of course there was a choice to make!’ Kelly exploded. ‘He’s obviously not over you. Why is he staying with Ryan? Why is Ryan staying with him, when he obviously knows he’s not over you?’

I shrugged. I was starting to feel very tired.

‘What have you eaten today?’ Kelly asked suddenly, glaring at me.

‘I had some cereal,’ I lied easily.

‘Liar. Come on, we’re getting something to eat.’ She started to get up, looking for her purse.

‘Didn’t you just have lunch with Ethan?’

‘Nothing on the company of my baby brother,’ Kelly murmured distractedly, shoving her feet into her Pineapple hightops. There are only a few minutes between Kel and I, but ever since I’d gotten fragile and depressed she’d started referring to me as her baby brother. I didn’t bother to argue.

‘Hey Kel,’ I said, grinning.

‘Yeah?’

‘You got a message,’ I said, handing her her phone, which was still buzzing. She leapt on it, shrieking. It was nice to know that even though my soul is dying, things are going on normally for other people.