Faster We Burn

chapter Sixteen

Stryker

I knew I was going to see Zan the next day and I knew he would be able to see what I’d done written on my face, so I skipped class and stayed at my apartment. Not that I would have been able to go, even if I’d wanted to. “Hung over” was an understatement. I was still hanging. I was also still hating myself for the night before. I checked my phone, but there were no messages from Ric, which was good, and there were a lot of messages from Trish, Zan and the rest of the crew, which was bad.

I wasn’t going to be able to avoid them forever, but maybe I could get one more day.

That one day lasted until two in the afternoon when my sister burst through my door and slammed it shut behind her.

“You have got to be out of your f*cking mind,” she said storming over the couch where I’d been tuning my violin. Hurricane Trish had arrived and she was pissed. Nostril-flaringly, violet eye-buggingly pissed.

“You slept with Ric?” That didn’t take long to get out. Trish came over and smacked me on the chest.

“Ouch,” I said, putting my violin back in the case. I didn’t want it to get damaged.

“That’s all you have to say, a*shole?” She smacked me again and crashed down next to me on the couch.

“Who told you?”

“Well Ric couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and she told Zo and Zo told me. I wanted to believe it wasn’t true, but even Ric couldn’t make that up. Please tell me you’ve been to the doctor and that you have multiple personalities, or brain damage, or something to explain this excessively stupid thing you’ve done.”

“Nope.” I flinched back before she could hit me again. “Just doing what I do best.”

Trish glared at me so hard her eyes were just slits. I stared right back at her, not breaking eye contact. Her eyes widened suddenly, snapping open like shades being yanked upward.

“You have got to be kidding me.” She got a hit in this time. Her jaw dropped as I tried to figure out what had gotten her so shocked. It couldn’t have been what I just said. There was something else she’d seen that had shocked her.

“What?” I said, not sure if I wanted to know what revelation had made her look like that.

And then she opened her mouth and said the last thing I ever thought she would say. “Oh. My. GOD. You love her. You f*cking love her.”

I nearly fell off the couch. It was a good thing I’d put the violin away because I might have crushed it in my hand.

“W-what?” I stuttered. Trish leaned over and grabbed my face between her hands and stared into my eyes, searching for something. I was too out of it to stop her.

“You. Love. Her.” Each word was like a punch she delivered to my brain with brass knuckles.

Those three words made me come to my senses. I shoved Trish away and got off the couch. I didn’t know where I was going, but I had to get away from her and what she was saying. I stumbled backward, nearly crashing into my standing bass.

“Aha!” Trish said, pointing my finger as if she was accusing me of a crime. “You love Katie. That’s why you slept with Ric. Oh, Stryk. You are in so much trouble.” She shook her head sadly and then grinned at me.

“I do not love her,” I said, nearly choking on the words.

“Yeah, you do, brother. We may not have twindar, but I I know you pretty well and I know what I see and I know how your mind works.”

“It’s not like that, Trish. I just f*cked her a bunch of times and got tired of it. That’s all.”

She smirked at me and ran her fingers through her hair, which was fading and needed to be re-colored.

“Wow. You are so gone. I knew it. I knew it.”

“You can think whatever you want to think, Trishella, but you’re way off.” I knew using her full name would piss her off and might change the subject.

“You said you would never call me that again.” Her eyes had gone back to dangerous and narrow. “You swore.”

“Yeah, well, I lied. Look, I have somewhere to be, so if you don’t mind.” I didn’t, but even if I had to get in my car and drive somewhere random to get rid of her, I’d do it.

“Okay, okay. Don’t worry, bro, your secret is safe with me.” She got to her feet, and I could hear her laughing to herself as she walked out the door. “By the way, we’re doing a welcome back dinner this weekend, and your attendance is required. See yah.” She wiggled her fingers and vanished down the stairs.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

Her laugher echoed until I heard the front door close.

I wasn’t in love with Katie. Okay, I liked having sex with her and laughing with her and that apology dinner had been so sweet. No one had ever done something like that for me. And I still couldn’t get the image of her wearing my shirt and boxers out of my head. But none of that meant I was in love with her.

I stared around my apartment, and I knew I had to get out of it. I didn’t know where I was going, but I had to get out. To a place that didn’t make me think of Katie.



***



I ended up at a park downtown. Mostly so I could smoke and walk around without people staring at me. A homeless man shivered on a bench, a woman walked her dog, and a mom played with her kids on the swing set. I huddled in my jacket, pulling the collar up and lit another cigarette.

My mind ran in circles, and more often than not, those circles led back to one thing.

Katie.

What Trish had said pissed me off. What I had done with Ric pissed me off. What Katie had written on my chest pissed me off.

Everything was pissing me off. One of the kids screamed as his mom gave him a big push. He threw his head back and his arms out, like he was flying. I remembered doing the same thing, only I didn’t have anyone to push me. I’d pushed Trish more times than I could count. Just like the little boy on the swing, she always screamed for me to push her higher. I always did and she’d laugh and pretend she was scared.

“Don’t worry,” I always told her, “I’ll catch you.”

The mother caught me watching and her eyebrows knit together in concern. I blew out a smoke ring and walked away from them so she wouldn’t think I was some sort of threat. I paced the park in circles. It seemed like everything was going in circles.

I’d think I was moving toward something new, something different and I always ended up at the same place, back at the beginning.

Damn motherf*cking circles.



Katie



It was a relief to get back to classes and homework and things that didn’t involve Stryker or feelings or fighting with my mother. My study habits left a lot to be desired, and I knew I had to change. Again.

“Library?” Lottie said after dinner as we were walking back to the dorm. “Aud’s going to meet us.” She gave Will a look, but he just kept walking, whistling a tune.

“Yeah, I’m in.” If there was anyone who could push me to stop being a slacker, it was Audrey.

“You in, Zan?” She tugged on his hand, as if she was trying to get his attention. As if it wasn’t already on her.

“Sure thing, L.” He tucked her under his arm, and she let herself sink into him, as if he was protecting her from something.

Maybe he was.

“You talked to Stryker yet?” she said innocently. I knew she’d been itching to ask me all day.

“Nope. The point of giving him space is to put space between us, which means not contacting him. So that’s what I’m doing.”

“Have you talked to him?” She turned her attention to Zan and I breathed a little sigh of relief.

“No, he skipped class today.” Zan’s eyes were on me, and I pretended to be really interested in a sign on the door advertising a band named Peach Pit Apocalypse that was playing the next weekend on campus.

She kept prodding. “You text him?”

“Yeah, he never got back to me.”

“You think he’s okay?” We headed for the stairs because we couldn’t all fit on the elevator.

“Yeah, I asked Trish and she said she’d stop over to see if he was still alive and she messaged me that he was still breathing.”

“Such a way with words, that girl,” Lottie said, shaking her head.

I wasn’t interested in Stryker skipping class. It made no difference to me if he went to class or not. It made no difference to me that I hadn’t heard a single peep from him in days. It made no difference that sleeping alone sucked worse than sleeping on the ground at summer camp, with part of a stump up my butt and a rock under my head.

Nope. Made no difference to me what he did or didn’t do.



***



“You know what I think you need?” Lottie said as we walked back later that night from the library. For the first time since everything happened with Zack, I was back on track with my homework and assignments. It actually felt good, like something I could control.

“What do I need?” I said, thinking that I probably wouldn’t like the answer.

“A makeover.” Her eyes sparkled under the orange glow of the streetlight.

“A makeover?” Usually I was the one suggesting that, but I had the feeling that Lottie wasn’t suggesting the kind of makeover I usually did.

“Not like, with clothes or anything. More like…a life makeover? Wow, that sounds bad. Like there’s something wrong with you. I mean…”

I decided to stop her there because even though I couldn’t see her blushing, I could hear the embarrassment in her voice.

“No, I knew what you meant. My life could use some…making over.” More like a complete overhaul. A do over. Like that was actually possible.

Stryker’s words came back to me: So now you have to figure out who you are, Katherine Ann Hallman. When you do, let me know.

Screw him.

“What did you have in mind?” I said, shoving Stryker out of my mind and turning to Lottie.

“I was thinking,” she said, preparing as if she was about to insult me, “that you could pick a major. We’re going to be signing up for classes soon, so now would be the best time.”

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but that didn’t mean it was something I thought I could do.

“Do you have anything in mind?” Zan walked beside Lottie, his arm linked with hers as if they were a couple out of an old movie and he was escorting her to a ball.

I shook my head. The truth, the thing I didn’t want them to know was that I had no idea what I wanted to do. Not a clue. Sure, Lottie was only majoring in marine bio to make her dad happy, but at least she had that, and she could always be a writer, or a librarian or a teacher or…anything. She could do anything.

I couldn’t do anything. When other little girls wanted to be ballerinas or astronauts or presidents I never knew what to say. I always just said an actress or something so at least I’d have something to say. I’d thought about singing once, but that dream was long gone.

“What about fashion?” Lottie and I had had this conversation more times than I could count. Yes, I enjoyed giving makeovers, but that didn’t mean I wanted to do it for a living, or even attempt it. The world of fashion was cutthroat and you had to want it more than you wanted anything else. You had to devote your life to it, and I didn’t know if I was ready to do that.

What did I want to devote my life to?

I came up completely blank. When I grow up, I want to be…I had nothing to fill the rest of that sentence.

“I don’t know,” I said, wishing I could change the subject.

“You should make a list or something. You know, all the things you like to do and then careers you could do with that.” I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d done the same thing in high school and I never came up with any answers.

“Look, you can do whatever you want. You’re smart and strong. Not everyone gets the chances you do,” Lottie said, the smile fading from her face. I knew that she was thinking about her friend Lexie and that made me feel even worse.

I had all the chances in the world. I had parents who were footing the bill for my college education and I was wasting it. I knew I was wasting it.

Zan swooped in and changed the subject, saying something about an assignment from the class that he and Lottie shared.

I didn’t give him enough credit, but he was really a decent guy. Even after everything he’d done, he’d found a way to start over, start fresh. So why was it so hard for me?