Faster We Burn

chapter Twenty-six

Stryker

I really wanted to tell Trish to put her angry face away, because she was making everyone uncomfortable, but I couldn’t really do that without making Katie suspicious, so I had to put up with her glare for the entire time we were at Caroline’s. While we sat at the fancy tables that had long tapered candles and pure white tablecloths, while soft violin music played in the background. As soon as we all saw the entree prices, and put our eyes back in after they’d fallen out because of how expensive they were, we ordered two of every appetizer, hoping that would be enough.

I tried to kick Trish under the table, but missed and hit Brady. Confusion ensued and I was afraid Simon was going to join Trish and beat me up.

“Hey you, glaring at my boyfriend. What’s up?” Katie said as we all fished in our pockets and purses for a tip for our disgruntled waiter. He deserved it after dealing with us.

“Nothing,” Trish said, turning off the glare when she looked at Katie. It was like she wasn’t aware she’d been doing it. “I’m just pissed at him about something.”

“Yeah, I got that. You wanna share with the class?” Everyone was pretending not to eavesdrop but failing miserably.

“He knows. Ask him.”

“Oh no, I’m not playing that game, Trish. You two have got some deal and I have the feeling it has to do with me, so spill so you can get over it and we can go back to normal where you guys just fight instead of laying on the silent treatment. It’s freaking me out.”

“You’re not the only one,” Lottie said. “What gives, Trish?”

Trish looked around and I thought I was going to have to pull the fire alarm so she wouldn’t say what I thought she was going to say, but then she surprised me.

“He told someone my real name,” she said, staring down at the tablecloth, which was significantly less-white now, despite all our best efforts.

I breathed a sigh of relief and made a mental note to text Trish and thank her later. I was definitely going to owe her for this one.

“I thought your real name was Patricia,” Simon said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Audrey said.

“No, it’s not Patricia…” she said. Damn, she was really taking one in the back for me. I could never call her a shitty sister again.

“Then what is it? We’re all on the edge of our seats here,” Brady said.

“It’s Trishella.”

Her announcement was met with a moment of stunned silence and then everyone tried not to laugh and failed.

She crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling. “Go ahead, you can all laugh. Our parents were drug addicts, so they were probably high when they thought of it.”

With that, everyone lost it and we all laughed, earning death glares that rivaled Trish’s from everyone else in the restaurant.

It broke up the moment as we all walked out, much to the relief of the staff of Caroline’s. You could almost hear the audible sigh of relief.

“Was that what she was so pissed about?” Katie asked me as I opened the car door for her.

“Trish really, really hates her name,” I said, hoping that would be enough to convince her, but knowing it probably wasn’t. Katie was a smart girl, and I’d been a moron to think I could fool her for long. Sooner rather than later, this thing was going to come out.

“She looked like she was going to kill you.”

I tried to laugh a little as I got in the driver’s seat. “Wouldn’t you if Trishella was your name?”

She smiled and turned on the radio. “Yeah, I probably would.”

“There you go.”



***



Katie and I decided that we needed some time apart, mostly for her to try to catch up with her classwork and to have some girl time to talk about me when I wasn’t there. I headed back to my apartment to take another shower and try to figure out the best time to tell Katie about Ric. Once again, there she was, leaning against her car and waiting for me.

Think of the devil and she shall appear.

“Did you have fun with your little pink slut?” This time she wasn’t here to apologize. This time she was also drunk. Great. Drunk Ric wasn’t anyone I was fond of, not that I was fond of sober Ric either. The more time I spent with Katie, the more I realized how much I really didn’t like a lot of the girls I’d hung out with for so long. Compared to Katie they were almost unbearable. And Ric was at the top of that list.

“Don’t start Ric. Did you drive here?” I put my key in the door and she followed me, stumbling up the steps.

“Why the f*ck do you care?” Drunk Ric had a mouth like a trucker.

“Because as much as I don’t like you right now, I don’t want you to die.”

I picked her up and helped her up the stairs. While it wasn’t completely my fault she was in this condition and also pissed at me, I wasn’t going to just leave her outside. I’d get her inside, hopefully a little sober and then take her home. She’d have to leave her goddamn car here and come back to get it, but at least she’d get home safe.

After a little work, with her resisting the whole time, I got her to the couch and she flopped down.

“F*ck you,” she said into the pillow. I moved her head so she wouldn’t suffocate. This could go one of two ways. I could get angry drunk Ric, or emotional drunk Ric. I wasn’t sure which one was worse at this point. Angry Ric liked to break things, but Emotional Ric liked to tell me really personal things about her past that I definitely didn’t want to know. She also had a habit of throwing herself at people, not that I hadn’t dealt with that already.

“You already did, babe,” I said, going to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. She also had makeup smeared all over her face, like she’d been having some heavy make-out sessions.

“Where’ve you been, Ric?”

“None of your business, a*shole.” I also wet a paper towel so she could clean up a little. “I loved you and you f*cked me over.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m regretting it more than you know.” I sat down next to her and held the glass out. “Drink.”

She pushed the glass away. Oh, this was going to be so much fun.

“Come on, Ric. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

She squinted her eyes at me, but took the glass, slopping it all over herself.

“Look, I know you’re pissed at me, and feel free to take it out on me, but leave Katie out of it. She didn’t do anything to you, so just lay off.”

“Nice try, Stryk,” she said, nearly dropping the glass again. “But that bitch has it coming.” Ric pushed me and I snapped. I grabbed both of her arms, hard enough to bruise.

“I swear to God, Ric, if you hurt her, I will make you wish you were never born. You remember what I used to be like, right? Well if you mess with Katie, I’ll make that guy look like a f*cking boy scout. Got it?” She struggled, trying to get away, but I wanted to make sure she had the message.

She growled and tried to lunge and bite me, but I was ready for her. She knew my patterns, but I knew hers, too.

“Don’t even try it, bitch.”

I shoved her away from me and stormed out. I needed a smoke.



***



When I came back, Ric was passed out. Well, at least she wasn’t talking. Bad news was that I’d have to let her sleep it off. She lived in a seriously sleazy part of town, and I wasn’t going to dump her back at her place in this bad of shape. It was a wonder nothing had happened to her yet.

I covered her up and made sure she wouldn’t suffocate on the pillows. I also left a bucket, just in case, and went to my room, taking my banjo. I had different instruments for different moods and this felt like a banjo time.

I warmed up with a few chords and then played some bluegrass. When it came to music, I tended to like things that were a little offbeat, or at least had some interesting and complicated instrumentation. Trish used to say that bluegrass was for losers, but that was because she couldn’t play an instrument if her life depended on it. I’d tried to teach her a ton of times, but she just didn’t grasp the concept. She had a great voice, though, but she wouldn’t sing if anyone ever asked her. She’d only do it if she felt like it, which was usually only when she was alone. My theory was that she was afraid she sucked and she enjoyed singing so much that it would ruin it for her forever. And of course, me telling her she didn’t suck had no impact.

I missed Katie.

Pulling out my phone, I scrolled through the pictures I’d taken of her. Now, if I could only get those blown up, I could wallpaper my room with them.

She’d kill me, but at least I’d get to have her around me.

I thought about calling just to check in on her, but I couldn’t be that guy. Reading between the lines, Zack had been a possessive and controlling, always calling and checking on her and wanting to know where she was at all times. Anything I could do to show her I wasn’t him was a good thing, so I settled for playing my banjo and thinking about her and hoping Ric would remember what I said tomorrow and leave us the hell alone.



***



Ric was gone when I got up the next morning, and from a quick look outside, so was her car. Damn. I just hoped she’d been sober enough to get home without having a fender bender. She didn’t leave a note or anything, and her calls went straight to voicemail when I tried to check up on her. I was just putting on a new shirt so I could go to her place and make sure she was ok when someone banged on my door.

“Stryker! I swear to God, you never answer your f*cking phone!” Trish.

I yanked the door open.

“What? You came to yell at me some more?” Then I saw that she’d been crying. Trish never cried. It was a bit like seeing the moon rise in the morning instead of the sun.

“Ric was in an accident early this morning. She…um, she didn’t survive.”



Katie



It was going to take more than a week to catch up on just the reading that I’d missed while I was gone, but my brain wouldn’t focus. Things like school seemed so pointless. I mean, what was it for? I didn’t even have a major, didn’t have any idea what I wanted to study or do with my life. I thought that once I got to college, I’d have some sort of epiphany, like in a movie, and it would all be clear what my true calling was. Yeah, I was still waiting for that call. It had me on hold and the music sucked.

Once my eyes started to swim, Lottie and I called it a night.

“Can you believe Trish’s real name?” Lottie said as we both lay in our beds with the lights off. I didn’t think either of us felt like sleeping.

“I can’t believe that was what she was so pissed about. I mean, really? Trish doesn’t seem like the type to get that royally ticked over something like that.”

“I don’t know, did you see how she got when Nicholas Sparks was brought up? I thought she was going to strangle us all.”

“True.” Still, there was something nagging me about the way Trish had been treating Stryker.

“Crazy, she gets,” Lottie said.

“Amen.”

We said goodnight, but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. Most nights I spent in thinking about anything I could to get myself to be tired. I’d started reading when I was home to try to bore myself to sleep, but I’d ended up staying up all night and kind of liking the books. My parents didn’t have many in the house, but my dad had a small collection of classics. I’d had to read them in high school and I’d been bored to tears, but maybe it was because I didn’t have to read them now that I liked them.

Once I heard Lottie’s deep breathing, I snuck out of my bed and went to her overstuffed shelves. She had pretty much anything, and I knew from living with her which books were where.

I went for a historical fiction. Lots of ballgowns and gentlemen kissing women on the hand and declaring their undying love with beautiful poetry. That was exactly what I needed. I had a flashlight in my desk for emergencies, and I tucked myself under my covers so the light wouldn’t bother Lottie and started reading.

I turned the pages, the hours passed and my eyes stayed open. In the part of my mind that wasn’t focused on the book, I thought about Stryker. Would I have slept better if Stryker was here? Probably.

When the daylight started creeping under my covers, I put the book back and settled back on my bed so I could at least get a few hours of sleep. My eyes had barely closed when Lottie’s alarm went off and her groan followed a few seconds later.

So much for sleep.



***



“You sure you’re ready to be back?” Lottie said as we got dressed. We were all going to breakfast, and I’d texted Stryker to ask him to come, but he hadn’t messaged me back, which wasn’t unusual. He also wasn’t a morning person.

I shoved my foot into one of my calf-high boots and zipped them up. “I don’t really have a choice. I need something to fill up my time, and my parents paid for me to be here.”

“Good point,” she said, tying her sneakers. “When everything happened with Lexie, I made sure I paid extra attention in school and got all her homework ready for her so when she came back, she wouldn’t miss a beat. I was going to tutor her, but then…it didn’t happen. But I got really good grades.”

I gave her a little smile and put my other boot on, swearing a little when the zipper got stuck.

Lottie’s phone buzzed as she was putting her coat on.

“Oh, crap.” She put her hand to her mouth and dropped her backpack. “Oh no.”

“What?” I started shoving books into my messenger bag. I was going to have to get a new one soon, because the strap was about to go.

“I texted Trish to invite her to breakfast, but she just messaged me back saying that her friend Ric was in an accident last night.” The name made me snap my head up and look at her.

“Ric? What happened?”

“Hold on, I’m calling her.” She held the phone up to her ear and bit her thumbnail.

“Trish, what happened?” Pause. “Oh my God. I am so sorry. Do you need anything? No. No. Okay. Call me later, okay?” She hung up and I waited for the verdict, knowing all the while what it was and hoping that it wasn’t. Lottie took a long deep breath before she spoke in a small voice that I’d never heard her use.

“She was killed. I guess she was driving home early this morning and she went off the road and hit a tree.” She sat down on her bed. I had to sit down too. Yes, I’d only met the girl a couple times, and she had been a bitch, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to die. I didn’t want anyone to die, not even Zack, although I’d thought I’d wanted that, before everything with Dad. Seeing death up close made me realize it wasn’t a thing you wished on anyone.

Lottie stared straight ahead. “I feel like I should do something, but I don’t know what. Trish was an absolute wreck. I’ve never heard her cry before.” I didn’t know Trish and Ric were close; Stryker had never mentioned anything.

Stryker.

“Did she say anything about Stryker? Is he with her?” I said. Lottie shook her head, still in a daze.

“I’m going to call him.” I went outside so I could have some privacy and ran into Will, Simon and Zan coming to get us.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Will said. In another lifetime I would have totally gone for him. In fact, when I first met him, I’d totally pegged him as a potential rebound boyfriend. Now I couldn’t imagine it.

“Um, one of Trish’s friends was in an accident this morning and she was killed. Lottie’s a bit out of it, um, understandably. You might want to go check on her. I’m going to call Stryker.”

The boys all went in to take care of Lottie and I called Stryker, going to the very end of the hall where there was a little alcove. The phone rang a bunch of times before he picked up.

“Hey, I just heard about Ric. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Oh, there was that word again. I’d never heard him use it, though.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that. She was your friend too. Where are you?”

“Home.” His voice was tight, like he was holding back. Leave it to Stryker to be one of those guys that turned into a freaking clam when they were suffering from grief. He’d been so open and supportive when I’d been going through it, always trying to get me to talk about it. I was going to do the same for him.

I started walking back toward my room to get my car keys. “I’m coming over.”

“No, no. You have to get back to class. I said, I’m fine.” He dropped something on the other end and swore.

“F*ck you, you’re not fine. Don’t you even dare use that word with me, Stryker Grant. I know exactly what it means.”

“Katherine, I said I’m fine. Just go to class. I just need you to go to class, okay? Please.” His voice cracked, and my heart cracked a little at the same time hearing it.

“Stryker.”

“I love you. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“I love you, but—”

He hung up before I could say anything else. Dick Stryker had returned, only this time he had a side of Damaged. Simon came out of our room just as I was about to open the door.

“Stryker wouldn’t tell me anything. I think he’s moping at his apartment, so that’s where I’m headed,” I said.

“Do you want some company?” In another lifetime I would have gone for him, too. If he liked girls in that other lifetime.

“No, I think I got it. I’m good at dealing with dead people,” I said, giving him a smile. “Could you get my purse for me? It’s on my bed.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Sure.” It took him a second to return the smile before he ducked back into the room. My sense of humor had never been particularly dark, but it had taken a turn since everything had happened with Dad.

“Tell Lottie I’ll keep her updated,” I said when he handed my purse to me a second later.

“Will do.” He nodded and closed the door, and I heard Will and Zan talking softly. The crisis response team had assembled and was ready to go. Again.



***



I knew if I just banged on his door, he wouldn’t answer, so I used the spare key I knew he hid over the door. He was going to be pissed at himself for showing me where it was, but I was glad he did. It was there for emergencies and this qualified, in my book.

“Stryker?” I opened the door cautiously.

“Goddammit!” he said, slamming something down. I opened the door and he stormed over from the kitchen where I could see a shot glass and a half-full bottle of scotch sitting on the counter.

“I told you to go to class,” he said, glaring at me. No, this wasn’t Dick Stryker. This was a guy I’d never met. This was angry-damaged Stryker, and he’d also been drinking. Not a good combination.

“Yeah, well, I don’t take orders from you, a*shole.” He stood in the doorway and wouldn’t let me come in. “You may not like it, but you were there for me when I needed you, and now I’m gonna be there for you whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t need you,” he said, practically spitting out the words.

“Well, buddy, it kinda seems like you do.”

Even six months ago, the way Stryker was talking to me might have sent me running back to my car, but I wasn’t that scared girl anymore.

I shoved past him and walked into the apartment to find it in chaos. His instruments were all over the place, as if he’d picked them up to play and then tossed them aside, like an angry toddler with his toys.

“You’re going to regret that,” I said, picking up a violin bow that was broken in half.

“Jesus, Katie. I really don’t need this right now, and not from you.”

I turned around to find him going back to the bottle of scotch. Oh no, I was not letting him drown his sorrows. I dived in front of him, getting to the bottle before he could and throwing it in the sink where it shattered.

“What the f*ck!” He lunged at me, grabbing my shoulders. His green eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He’d been crying.

“What did you do that for?” He shook my shoulders, but I held my ground. It wasn’t like Zack. When I was in the car with him, I’d known to be afraid. I wasn’t afraid of Stryker. I knew, with every cell in my body, that he wouldn’t hurt me. Ever.

“I’m doing it because someone needed to. Hey, hey, look at me.” I touched his face, holding it gently. This boy who seemed so strong was even more fragile than anyone could comprehend.

“You don’t have to do this alone. You didn’t let me do it alone, and I’m not going to let you. I love you, and we can get through this together. Got it? You and me. No space.”

I gripped his face and forced him to look at me before I pulled his face down and kissed him. His lips tasted of scotch and cigarettes and salty tears. He resisted, but I opened my mouth and joined my tongue with his, not letting him pull away. I poured all my love into that kiss, hoping it would break through to him.

His arms went around my back and he pulled me close. Tight, like when he’d been holding me together right after Dad died. I kissed him harder.

I pulled back and kissed his chin, which had a little bit of stubble on it.

“We don’t have to talk about it now. How about we go somewhere?” I said, not letting go of his face.

“Where?” he said, his voice raspy.

“I don’t know. Anywhere.” I searched my brain for somewhere we could go that was close to campus, but that would give me a little time to try to get him back together.

“I’ll go anywhere with you.”

“Same here,” I said, moving my hands down his arms until I was holding both of his. “Come on, let’s go somewhere.”

He nodded and let me lead him out of the apartment.