Faster We Burn

chapter Twenty-seven

Stryker

No matter what, she wouldn’t leave me, just like I wouldn’t leave her. I supposed I should have expected it. What I didn’t expect was that even if I was a complete and total a*shole, she didn’t react. Like I was just a child having a tantrum and she was waiting for me to wear myself out.

“Where are we going?” I said when she shoved me into her Mazda and put my seatbelt on. The irony of the situation was not lost on me.

“I don’t know yet. I’m making this up as I go along.”

She turned some music on that fed from her iPod and Ed Sheeran’s “Kiss Me” seeped through the speakers. It almost made me smile, because I’d put his music on there for her.

“Okay, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but we’re going to. You made me talk about my Dad, so it’s my turn.”

“Katie.”

“Nope, I’m in charge of this grief committee. You had your turn.” She wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so I shut my face and tried not to think about how much I wished I was back in my apartment, drinking alone. I didn’t deserve a grief committee and I sure as hell didn’t deserve Katie.

Katie headed toward downtown. She scanned both sides of the street, looking for something. I had no idea what it was, so I just sat back as the music changed to “Dammit”, by blink-182. An oldie, but a goodie.

“Aha!” she said, nearly hitting a parked car. She put on her blinker and turned into a small parking lot at the end of the street. The building looked like it might have been an old church, with a steeple and a bell on top. The sign out front said something about a children’s art show. A gallery.

“Come on, Picasso,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“Is he the only artist you can name?”

“No. There’s…um…Monet.” She blanked out after that. “Shut up.”

We walked up the steps to the gallery and Katie opened the door. It was quiet inside, but soft generic piano music came from hidden speakers.

“Should we just go in?” Katie whispered.

“The door’s open, so I think yes,” I said at normal volume, stepping around her. I was still a little buzzed from the scotch, so my steps weren’t as steady as they normally would have been. Katie took my arm and led me in.

The building was painted all in white to accentuate the art and had tons of windows and good light fixtures. For a small place, it was set up really well.

“Oh, this is so cute,” Katie said, dragging me to the right. From a quick glance, they had all sorts of things here, from finger paintings, to a table of pottery pieces to some little dioramas. The first piece was done by Olivia, age 6, and resembled a princess fantasy, if that fantasy were done by a strange little girl.

The princess had a pretty pink dress and a sword in her hand and was plunging it into the heart of what I assumed was a dragon. A guy in armor lay on the ground, his eyes wide open in death. At least I thought so. Maybe he was just lying down for a minute. With his eyes open.

“What do they teach girls these days?” I said.

“What? Princesses can’t kill dragons?” she said, smacking my chest in outrage.

I shook my head. “I never said that. It’s just a little creepy, that’s all. Did you dream about slaying dragons when you were six?”

“No.”

“What did you dream about?” I was desperate to know. To think about her instead of…instead of Ric.

She moved on to the next painting which was done by a boy and featured something that looked like a snowmobile.

“When I was six? I don’t know. A ballerina or something.” She wasn’t giving me a straight answer.

“No, really. You can tell me. I wanted to be a police officer, if that helps any.” She looked at me, surprised.

“A singer,” she said, stepping past the snowmobile picture to one that was a zoo panorama.

“Well, that’s obvious. Why didn’t you ever pursue it?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know. My parents were down on it. I was in chorus in school, but I was in a bunch of other things too and they made me give up one, so I gave up chorus.” She looked at the zoo painting, turning her head to the side. “Hey! You’re not supposed to be helping me with my issues. I’m supposed to be helping you.”

“Talking about you is helping me.” It was helping me not think about Ric and what I’d done to her.

She glared at me for a second before she took my hand again.

“I guess. Do you think that’s an elephant?”

“Looks more wooly mammoth-y,” I said.

We looked through the rest of the art, trying to figure out what some of it was and coming up with ridiculous stories to go along with each of the scenes. She held my hand. Some of the older kids’ stuff was pretty good, and you could spot who had natural talent. We were completely alone. I could hear voices downstairs, but they never came up to check on us. Probably figured no one would actually steal a kid’s finger painting that wasn’t worth anything.

I let myself be surrounded by the art, and Katie and the sweet little moment we were sharing. I shouldn’t have. I should have made her leave the second she walked in and drowned my sorrows alone.

I was letting myself have a sweet moment with my girlfriend while Ric was…

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, but there are some things I need to tell you,” I said.

“Shh…” she said, putting her finger to my lips. “Not right now. We can do it later. Right now we’re looking at…um what are we looking at?”

I kissed her finger and slipped it into my mouth, tasting her skin.

“I think it’s a flower.”



***



“I knew looking at art would make you less a*shole-y.” She said as we got back in the car.

“Oh, I could still flip the a*shole switch.”

“I don’t think you will. You sober yet?”

“Getting there.” I was going to have quite a hangover though.

“We should probably get some water into you.” She drove back toward my apartment, but stopped at a fast food place to get us something to eat. I seized the moment to check my phone. I had several messages from Trish, asking where the hell I was and why I wasn’t answering my phone.

“We should go check on Trish,” I said, hating myself for not doing it sooner. After she’d told me about Ric, she’d said she was going back to her apartment, and I’d been in a such a state, I’d let her.

“Aud’s on it. Simon called her.”

“Still, she’s a bit of a wreck.” I’d never seen her like that, and she’d been through a lot.

“Were she and Ric close? I never got the impression that they were.”

I turned on the radio and flipped to the alt rock station. “No, not really. They used to have this weird love-hate friendship.”

“Huh.”

I was also in the dark as to why Trish was so upset over Ric.

“Okay, okay, we’ll go see her. I’ve never been to her place before.”

“She’d probably like to keep it that way, but desperate times.”

Trish’s apartment wasn’t as large as mine, but it was a little bit nicer, with the exception of her insane roommate.

Katie parked the car in the only empty space and I showed her where Trish’s place was. Her building had two apartments on the first floor, two on the second, and hers was on the second.

Katie knocked softly and the door opened a second later.

“Oh hey, where have you been?” Audrey said, her voice a whisper. “She’s in rough shape.”

“Yeah, guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Katie said, elbowing me. “Can we come in?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” She held the door open and we walked in to find Trish wrapped in a blanket on the ugly flowered couch, a pile of used tissues all around her like giant snotty snowflakes.

“Hey, Trish,” I said, going over to her and crouching down. “How you holding up?”

“Where the hell have you been?” It was a little hard for her to glare through puffy eyes, but she managed.

“Katie and I just took a walk.” It would be weird to try to explain the art gallery interlude. “Are you going to be okay?”

“No, I’m not going to be okay. She died, Stryker. She died.”

“I know, I know.” Trish and I weren’t huggers, but I put my arms around her anyway and pulled her head onto my shoulder. Sobs shook her body and she melted into me.

I heard Audrey and Katie whispering behind me, catching each other up.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I said.

“What’s there to talk about? She’s dead. Just like that. Here one minute and gone the next. Just like Katie’s dad. Why do these things happen?”

I rubbed her back. “I don’t know, Trish. I don’t know.”

That was a lie. I knew why Ric had died. She’d died because of me. Because I should have taken her home, or stayed up and watched her, or maybe I shouldn’t have been such a world class a*shole.

But I kept my mouth shut and just held my little sister while she fell apart.

“Are you sure it’s okay to miss class?” Katie said to Audrey.

“Yeah, my professors have been cutting me a lot of slack. It pays to be the teacher’s pet sometimes.”

“I bet. How do I get in on that?”

“I could teach you.” They laughed a little and then went to the kitchen, giving us some privacy.

“Have you talked to anyone else?”

She nodded against my shoulder.

“Baxter is at her place with her mom.” Ric’s backstory was just about as tragic as Trish’s and mine. Dad split, mom married a bunch of jerks and never really cared about her. She dropped out of high school and moved in with whoever would take her, as long as she was out of her mom’s house. She worked whatever jobs she could get and barely scraped by. She and Trish had been a lot closer a few years ago, but they’d drifted apart when Ric had started partying really hard. Trish might look like a girl who’s seen some hard living, but I kept her away from a lot of it, even while I engaged in it myself.

“It could have been anyone, Stryker. She was just driving home and it killed her. It could have been us.”

“But it wasn’t. You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re going to be okay.”

Her voice broke again and she convulsed with sobs.

When it came to losing people, Trish and I were pros, but none of them had ever died. Our parents, as horrible as they might have been, were still alive out there, and so were the rest of our relatives. Trish and I had had our fair share of hardships, but death was something that had, by and large, passed us by.

I held her for a long time as I heard Katie and Audrey in the small kitchen. They tried to be quiet, but there was plenty of banging around until they came out with a tray of soup and some grilled cheese sandwiches.

“You should eat something,” I said, moving Trish’s head. It was strange to see her normal greenish-bluish eyes instead of the violet ones.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well that’s too bad because you’re going to eat anyway if I have to shove it down your throat.” One of the only things that worked with Trish was tough love. Guess I wasn’t the only one.

“Bite me,” she said, so I nipped her shoulder.

“Don’t make me be mean.”

“You’re already mean.”

“Meaner.”

Katie and Audrey watched us as if we were interesting animals in a zoo. Tender moments between Trish and me were just about as rare as they came.

I held half of a sandwich out to her and she took a bite.

“That’s my girl.”

I let her eat the rest of it herself as Audrey and Katie cleaned up some of the tissue mess.

“You guys can go if you want,” I said once she was digging into the soup. “I got this.”

“No way,” Katie said. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you wanted to.”

“Same here. Even though it means I’m missing the review for a test. I don’t care,” Audrey chimed in.

Missing something like that was a huge deal to her, and I knew how much it meant.

I had nothing to say but, “Thanks.”

Even though I didn’t deserve it, Trish did.

We finally convinced Trish to come and stay with me, but first Audrey got her in the shower and said she’d bring her over later. It was a subtle way to give Katie and me some alone time. We went back to my place to clean up and make up the couch for Trish so she would have a place to sleep.

“I’ve never seen Trish like that,” she said. “She’s always so strong.” Appearances could be deceiving.

“Yeah, she’s not good with death.”

“She was great when everything happened with Dad.”

I took a breath and tried to explain. “That’s because she didn’t really know him. It’s weird, but I think it’s because Ric was so young…” I couldn’t finish.

“Are you going to talk about it now?”

I shook my head. I was completely sober now.

She gave me a little smile. “Do you want me to get naked so you can draw out your feelings on my skin?”

As absolutely sexy and tempting as that was, I couldn’t.

“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She slid her finger down my face and circled it on my chest. “Why not? What does Ric have to do with us?”

More than she knew.

I pushed her hand away. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. I just had to deal with Trish and I just don’t want to deal with any more.”

“You’re getting a*shole-y again.”

“If only it would work.” I tried to move away from her, but she wouldn’t let me.

“I don’t scare easily,” she said, straddling me as I sat on the couch.

“Don’t.” I put my hands on her hips to try to lift her off, but that was going to be easier said than done. She wiggled just a little, and my body responded. Her body was a tune my body couldn’t resist.

“I’m not doing anything. I’m just sitting.” She might be just sitting, but everything she did turned me on. She could be just breathing and I’d want her. It was unavoidable.

“Katie, please.”

“Okay, fine.” She got off me and sat on the other end of the couch, grabbing the remote and turning the television on, flicking through the channels.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m watching TV, what does it look like? Oohh, I love this show.” She stopped on what looked like some sort of crime show. A lawyer was screaming in a crowded courtroom about something we’d clearly missed earlier in the episode. She checked the guide and saw that there was another episode after this one finished.

I looked at her, but her eyes were fixed on the TV. This must be some sort of twisted way to get me to cave in and talk, but I had no idea how she thought she was going to accomplish that by ignoring me.

We sat side-by-side as the show finished and the credits rolled. I crossed my arms and tried to think of anything but how much I wanted her and how much I hated myself for thinking about her when I should have been thinking about Ric.

The next episode started and her eyes stayed locked on the television. The minutes dragged by as the body was discovered and the cops were called in. I’d always found it amusing how cops on television were almost always extremely attractive. The cops around campus all had hardcore donut habits, and there wasn’t one lady cop to be found, least of all one that looked like a Russian supermodel.

“I will make you a bet,” she finally said when the cops started interviewing various suspects. “You pick who you think killed her and I pick one and whoever is right has to buy the other one dinner.”

“I already owe you a dinner from the pie-eating contest at Thanksgiving.”

She looked away from the TV for a second, her facade dropping for a second. “Well, then I guess you’ll just owe me two. Pick your perp.”

“Okay…Um, that crazy guy who lurked in the alley was definitely suspicious.”

She scoffed.

“Please, it’s obviously the teenage daughter.”

“What? After she cried like that? You’re crazy.”

She turned to face me.

“Wait and see.” She smirked and went back to the television.



Katie



Of course I was right. The teenage girl turned out to have some weird attraction to her dad and when she saw him with his mistress, she snapped. It was sick and twisted, but it was clear from the very beginning that it was her.

“There’s another one on,” I said, getting up and stretching my arms over my head. “Want to lose another bet?” I’d been right in telling Stryker that I was making this up as I went along, but Law and Order marathons had always worked for me, so why not him?

There really needed to be a manual for this sort of thing. Sure, there were plenty of self-help books, but I didn’t think they mentioned anything like this.

“What are you doing?” Damn, he was onto me. Not that I was being very subtle.

“Watching you lose a bet, best friend.” I sat back down and looked at him.

“No, you’re trying to distract me, but you can’t do that forever. I have to deal with what I’ve done some time.” He clenched his mouth shut and looked away from me.

“What do you mean, what you’ve done? How is this your fault?”

He started laughing and got up from the couch, going to his bedroom. I followed him. What the hell?

“What are you talking about?” I leaned in the doorway as he pulled out a cigarette and lighter. I guessed quitting was out of the question at the moment, not that I blamed him. He tried to light it, but his hands were too shaky.

“Let me do it.” I hated myself for furthering his addiction to the cancer stick, but he was in such rough shape I figured one more smoke wasn’t going to do him in.

I lit it and he inhaled, closing his eyes.

“What have you done, Stryker?” I slipped the lighter into my pocket. If he couldn’t light them, he couldn’t smoke them.

He shook his head and blew out a cloud of smoke over his shoulder so it didn’t go in my face.

“I tried to tell you so many times, and then I couldn’t…and then you told me you loved me, and I still tried, because you deserved the truth, and then I didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to wreck everything. F*ck, I just wrecked everything.” He sat down on his bed and tore the hand not holding the cigarette through his hair.

“Stryker, you’re scaring me,” I said, because it was true. “Just tell me what happened and I can help you.” I crossed the room and sat next to him, touching his shoulder.

“No!” He said diving away from me and getting to his feet. “You can’t do that. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve your compassion. I never did and I never will.” I followed him as he stormed back into the living room.

“Talk to me, Stryker. Just talk to me,” I said in my calmest voice. I refused to think anything, or make any conclusions until I heard them come from him.

He sucked in another puff from the cigarette.

“And tell you what? That I had sex with Ric? That she showed up drunk last night and I told her that I’d hurt her if she told you about us, and now today she’s dead?” I couldn’t move. He crossed the room and stood right in front of me. “Is that what you wanted to f*cking hear?!” he yelled.

The air was too thick to breathe; it wouldn’t go into my lungs.

“Oh, God,” he said, putting his face in his hands and dropping the cigarette. I was able to snap out of my momentary shock to stomp it out before it set the apartment on fire.

“Stryker,” I said, taking his hands and trying to pull them away from his face, and also trying not to freak out about what he’d just told me. He raised his head, his eyes tear-streaked and hopeless.

“It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“How can you say that? She’s dead and it’s my fault. And I hurt you. How can you say that it doesn’t matter? It matters more than anything.”

I held his hands and tried to find the right words.

“Because I love you.”

“How can you say that?”

It was easy. Simple. As clear and beautiful as a cloudless summer sky.

“Because it’s true. It’s true whether you slept with Ric, or whether you got drunk and said something you didn’t mean, or if you smoke too much, or never pick up your socks, or don’t have any money. Love doesn’t come and go. It’s for always.”

He tried to shake his head, but I wouldn’t stop looking at him. I leaned and put my forehead to his.

“You and me. No space. Always,” I whispered to his lips. He opened his eyes and finally saw me. Saw that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“I love you so much, sweetheart. So much that sometimes I can’t breathe. I can’t think. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, even before I knew I wanted it. I don’t deserve you, Katherine.”

No, it was really the other way around, but I decided that I’d kiss him instead of arguing. Kissing was always better than arguing.

It was a slow kiss, a burning kiss. The kind of kiss that promised of forever. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed the first and last boy with a lip ring I was ever going to love.