Faster We Burn

chapter Four

Katie

Stryker never asked me for a definition of our relationship status and I didn’t feel the need for one. He was different. I didn’t want to put him in the relationship column with all the other guys I’d dated. Not that I was or was ever going to date Stryker. He wasn’t the boyfriend type. He was type-less. Not a friend, not a boyfriend. He was a guy. A guy I had sex with and who painted my toenails and let me bitch about my problems and took my sarcasm and thought I was funny.

Stryker was right; he wasn’t Zack.

I was still dealing with presents and calls and notes from Zack. Surprisingly, he hadn’t shown up at my door, so maybe he was finally getting the hint. Or maybe I was just being naïve. I hung out with Britt and Karina, but they just told me I should forgive Zack and let it go. Not f*cking likely. But I smiled and told them I had homework to do and just ignored their texts after that. They didn’t understand.

More often than not, I came home to find Lottie and at least one member of our little group deep in conversation that cut off the second I opened the door. I pretended not to notice and they started getting more stealthy about it. As November wore on, the presents piled up, taking up more and more space under my bed. By this time I had at least a couple hundred dollars’ worth of f*ck-up gifts, but I just kicked them further under and blasted Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart” when I thought about them.

I was holding things mostly together, or at least giving the appearance of it, until one Friday afternoon when I came home early from class with an upset stomach–I suspected the shrimp scampi from the cafeteria–and was all set to crawl into bed and die, when I noticed there was someone standing in front of my door, waiting for me. He smiled the second he saw me. Yeah, no more, buddy. That shit doesn’t work on this girl anymore.

“Hey, babe.” He was freshly-showered and wearing the shirt I’d gotten him for our one month anniversary, and standing in front of my door holding a bouquet of yellow roses that still had moisture on the petals from the florist.

“What are you doing here, Zack? I don’t want to talk to you.” I thought he was going to keep blocking my door, but he moved aside so I could swipe my card.

“I know, I know. I brought you these. Yellow roses mean ‘I’m sorry’. I looked it up.” He gave me the knee-weakening smile that had found me across a crowded room at that party last summer. I looked away from it, like looking away from the sun so you didn’t burn your retinas.

“I’m sorry, Zack. I don’t want to talk to you.” I tried to push the door open, but he stopped me.

“Please. I know you don’t want to be with me, but I just miss you. I want to tell you how sorry I am. I need to make this right. Please.” He held the flowers out to me and I reluctantly took them. They were beautiful. His words were soft and sincere and I saw a glimpse of the guy I’d fallen in love with. And if I was honest, a guy I was still a little in love with.

He stroked the side of my face with one finger. “Please, babe. I just want to talk to you.”

I took a deep breath and his familiar smell brought back memories of the summer, of lying in his truck bed and looking at the stars as he pointed out the constellations.

I pushed the memory aside. “Fine. When?” Definitely not until I stopped feeling like I was going to puke any second. Although I wasn’t sure if it was the shrimp anymore, or if it was the thought of being alone with him. Stryker’s warning went through my mind. Screw him! I could handle this. One last time and then he’d leave me alone and I could start selling the crap he’d gotten me and finally burn all the pictures of the two of us. This would be the period at the end of our relationship.

“Tonight? Can we go somewhere? Just for a little drive like we used to. I need to get off campus for a little while. How about it?” He leaned into me, making it hard to think. Why did he have to smell so good?

“Okay, okay.”

“Look, I have this thing I need to do, but I’ll text you?”

I nodded and he let go of my door. “Sure.”

“See you later, babe.” His fingers brushed my shoulder and he disappeared down the hall. I opened my door and shut it, hard, leaning against it to make sure it was closed. I threw the roses on the floor.

Yellow roses my ass.



***



He didn’t text me until late. Zan and Lottie were having a movie night and everyone else had plans of some sort. I was on the phone with Stryker when Zack texted me.

“I have to go,” I said, sighing. He’d been playing me “Imagine”, by John Lennon on his banjo.

“Where to?” I wasn’t going to be able to lie to him. I passed the phone to my other hand so I could put on my jacket. We hadn’t had snow yet, but it was definitely coming.

“I’m having a chat with Zack.”

He paused for so long that I thought the call had dropped. Finally he spoke, and it sounded like he was gritting his teeth on every word.

“I’m not going to call you an idiot, but you will be if you go. Don’t do it, Katie.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Stryker.”

“The only reason I’m telling you what to do right now is because you know that you shouldn’t go. I know you know that you’re going to regret it.” The only thing I’d regret was not getting the last word, but I wasn’t completely immune to the fact that Zack had hurt me in the past, physically, and he could again. It was a risk I’d be willing to take to have this over.

“I can hear you thinking,” he said.

“Shut up.” I grabbed my key card and my purse. “I’m going. I’m going to make a clean break with him, that’s all. The end.” The roses were already history; torn and bruised at the bottom of the trash can. I’d taken great pleasure in tearing off each individual petal. My stomach had gotten over whatever had affected me and my head was clear. I was doing this.

His voice was soft and insistent. “Don’t do it, Katie. Please.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I care about you!” he yelled. “Christ, how can you not know that?” I stopped, my hand on the doorknob. He wasn’t supposed to care. That wasn’t part of our deal, not that we’d sat down and really talked about it, but I assumed that was implied. I shouldn’t have let him sing to me, or talk so much. I should have made a “just sex” line.

I didn’t have time to think about this.

“Then if you care about me, you have to let me make my own decisions. I’ll call you after and you can gloat all you want when you’re right, but I’m going. End of story. Bye.”

I shut my phone off and walked down to meet Zack in the lobby.



***



Stryker was right. I realized it the moment I got into Zack’s truck and he started driving. His energy was different from the afternoon. I didn’t know if he’d been drinking, but I’d seen this side of him before. This was the Zack Parker that scared me. He turned off the main road and into a deserted parking lot.

He hit the automatic locks on the door and his smile dropped.

“So I heard you’re seeing that freak who tried to beat me up at the Kappa party.” All my confidence and bravado deserted me.

The key to dealing with this Zack was to speak calmly and slowly until I could get out of the truck. He wasn’t going to let me go until he’d had his say.

“I’m not seeing him Zack. We’re just friends.” Stryker and I weren’t even friends. I still wasn’t sure if I even liked him or not. But Zack wouldn’t understand that, so I had to simplify it.

He smashed his hands on the steering wheel.

“Don’t f*cking lie to me!”

The parking lot was dark; there was no one around. I just had to let him have his say and then he’d let me go.

I took a breath to steady myself and try to calm down. My enemy right now was panic. “I’m sorry, I’m not lying to you. I’m not seeing him. I’m not with anyone. Look, you said you wanted to clear the air, so let’s do that.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting off that easy.” He turned slowly and the streetlight I saw the gleam in his eyes. The heart-melting smile was gone, replaced by something I’d never seen before.

The next moment my head hit the dashboard and I screamed.

The moments after that were a blur of yelling and pain and desperation followed by quiet as he drove me back to campus. I didn’t even realize he’d shoved me out of the truck and onto the ground until I felt the cold pavement under my fingers.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. Tires squealed and then I was left in silence. My head was too heavy to lift, so I lay there with my cheek mashed against the ground, doing my best to just keep breathing.

“Katie?” A voice called my name and I tried to move, but it hurt too much. “Oh my God, Katie!”

Will crouched down in front of me and touched my shoulder.

“Who did this to you?” I still couldn’t answer. “It’s okay, I’ll get you out of here. Come on.” He took my arm and put it over his shoulder, then lifted me into his arms. I wanted to cry out, but my vocal chords wouldn’t work right.

“It’s okay, we’re almost there. Just hold on.” I bounced in his arms as he walked as fast as he could to the elevator and then to my room. He put me in bed and got on his phone.

“Audrey’s on her way, okay?” He crouched in front of me and touched my head. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, okay? How many fingers am I holding up?” He held up four.

“Four,” I said, my voice rough, as if I was recovering from strep throat. I cleared it and looked down at my shaking hands. I could feel blood on my face.

“Good. I should probably know what to do, but I honestly don’t. I should call 9-1-1, shouldn’t I?” He seemed to be talking to himself more than me.

“Don’t. Please don’t.” I didn’t want to go the hospital. I just wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep.

“I have to. You need to see a doctor.”

“No!” My voice didn’t have much power, but I got my point across. He nodded.

“Okay, okay. Let’s just wait for Audrey, okay?”



***



The next few hours were chaotic. I didn’t get my wish of not going to the hospital, and I didn’t get my wish of not pressing charges on Zack. My parents came and Mom got hysterical all over me.

Everyone from my dad to Lottie to Zan to Stryker blamed themselves. If the blame could be baked into bread, we could have fed the world.

It took every ounce of restraint I had to not scream at all of them and say that it wasn’t their fault. I was the one who had made the decision to see Zack when I knew I shouldn’t have.

My parents fought on the way home from the hospital the next morning. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t have a choice. Coming home used to feel comforting, like I was finally in a safe place, but all I wanted when we pulled into the driveway was to go back to school and watch Law and Order and eat ice cream with the girls.

Mom fussed over me, getting me settled on the couch with a bowl of soup, as if I was five again and had a cold. It took Dad yelling at her before she would move even a few feet away from me. I wished Kayla, my sister, was home, but she was off saving starving orphans in Africa and only had contact with us via an email once a week. She was Mom and Dad’s golden child and I was the baby who couldn’t get anything right.

“Gina, let her be.” Dad always found a way to get Mom to chill out. Eventually. It was going to take a lot of effort on his part this time, though. When it came to Mom, there was only one person who knew how to stop her from pushing the panic button and that was Dad. They were perfectly suited for one another, as weird as that was.

They took their fight to the kitchen and I stole a moment to call Lottie and give her an update, but she wasn’t the only one I needed to talk to. I shifted on the couch, the movement giving me a twinge of pain. The nurses said I was lucky that I didn’t have any internal bleeding. Yeah, lucky was the right word. F*cking stupid was more accurate.

I needed to talk to Stryker, and not just to tell him he was right. I just…I needed to talk to him.

“Hey, are you okay?” Stryker said after Lottie handed him the phone. I heard him walking and then a door closed.

“You’re not supposed to ask me that,” I said.

“Katie.”

“You were right. Is that what you wanted to hear?” I curled my feet up under the blanket.

“I didn’t want to be right like this. I never wanted this to happen to you. If he wasn’t in jail I would have killed him myself. Or at least maimed him so he would have to crawl through the rest of his life. I still could. I’ve beat the shit out of more than one a*shole in my life, although I think Zack deserves his own category.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Be all mad at him for me. Be mad at me for being an idiot.”

He sighed heavily. “I’m not mad at you, Katie.”

I heard Mom’s voice coming back from the kitchen. Probably bringing me a plate of cookies or something.

“Look, I have to go, but I’m coming back on Monday. Bye,” I whispered before I shoved my phone under the blanket.

“Who were you talking to?” Yes, it was a plate of cookies, but store bought. She hadn’t had time to make her traditional crisis oatmeal cookies. She held the plate out to me, but I shook my head.

“Lottie. She wanted to know when I was coming back.”

Mom pursed her lips and sat down on the edge of the couch.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go back for a while.”

“Gina,” Dad snapped from the kitchen. “Let her be.”

Mom glared at him. “Don’t tell me what to do, Glenn.” Didn’t that sound familiar?

I put my hand on my head. Where the hell was that pain medication? “Please, can you just leave me alone? I’m tired.”

Mom started to protest, but when I closed my eyes, she sighed and got up.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay baby?” she said, kissing the un-scratched part of my forehead.

“I will. Thanks, Mom.” I watched as she went back into the kitchen and I scrunched back down on the couch.

“It’s okay,” I heard Dad say.

She sighed. “I know, I’m just so worried.”

“I know, Gina, but she’s strong. Like you.” I could hear him smiling and I could imagine her smiling back. A second later I heard him humming and the shuffling of feet as they danced in the kitchen and mom laughed softly.



***



By Sunday night I was so ready to get back to school I almost stole my mother’s car to drive back myself. She worked the night shift managing the bakery at a grocery store, so Dad drove me back early Monday morning before he had to work.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah, Dad. I’ll be fine.” I barely put any effort into saying it.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right Katiebug?” I cringed at the nickname.

“Yeah, Dad. I know.” Been there, said that. All he and Mom had done was talk at me. Not to me. They’d lectured me, even though they said they weren’t going to do that. They were parents and they had to do their thing. The problem was that everything they said I’d said to myself at least a hundred times. They also got me appointments with a therapist back at school and there was no way I was getting out of that because they were going to call and check after every session.

Mom also couldn’t hide that she was devastated about Zack. He’d charmed her, and that was going to be a hard habit to break. She wouldn’t shut up about how every time he brought me flowers before a date, or chocolates, he’d bring her a little something. She thought it was sweet. I saw it for what it was. Buttering her up so she wouldn’t mind when he brought me home late, or decided to spend the night. At the time I hadn’t cared.

Dad gave me a huge hug when he dropped me off, being careful not to hold me too tight. He had to bend down pretty far.

“Call me tonight, Katiebug. I love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

I glanced up at the dorm and realized I didn’t want to go in. Just moments ago, I’d been so eager to get back, but now that I was here, I wanted to be anywhere else.

A few people walked by me on their way to and from breakfast or class. Some of them were laughing, and all of them looked so free. Careless and young.

I felt old and bitter. God, what had happened to me? Just a few months ago, all I’d been thinking about was how great college would be, how much fun I’d have and how many parties I’d go to. Now it all seemed…pointless. A few of them glanced at my face, which was still splotched with bruises that I hadn’t bothered to use makeup on.

Turning from the building, I got my keys out of my purse and headed for my car. I was still stiff and my face was anything but pretty, but he wouldn’t care. I needed to see him.

I didn’t even know if he would be home, but his current car project was parked in the driveway. I walked up the porch and banged on the downstairs door. He shared the entrance with the tenant on the first floor, but I’d never seen or heard anyone coming or going.

It took two tries before the door opened.

“You’re back.” He was just pulling a shirt over his head, so I must have woken him up. His hair was all over the place and it made me think about sex.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just wanted to see you.”

“Come in.” He waved me in and we walked up the stairs as he wiped his eyes and yawned.

“Late night?”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Something like that.” The way he said it made me uneasy, and I didn’t know why.

“How are you feeling?” he said as he opened his front door. I shrugged as an answer.

“My parents are making me see a therapist,” I said.

“I figured,” he said as he shut the door behind me. I’d been here before, but I hadn’t really been paying attention to the room at the time.

The space was wide and open, almost like a loft. Only furniture separated the living room from the kitchen and dining area. Two doors at the other end of the room were his bedroom and bathroom. Stryker had a sparse style when it came to furniture, except for the fact that there were musical instruments and books and other crap piled everywhere. Drum kit, standing bass, a ukulele on the coffee table. There were also a lot of empty cans and bottles and trash around. Like he’d had a party.

He rubbed his head, messing his hair even further. “I wasn’t expecting you, or I would have cleaned up. I had a little session last night and haven’t had a chance to recover.”

“Session?”

“Music. I had some friends over and we played for a while. I had to get my mind off things.”

He went to the kitchen and started pulling things out of the cabinet.

“Coffee? I think I’ve got some cereal here somewhere, too.” He held a cup up to illustrate.

“You don’t have to do that. Feed me and take care of me and everything. I just came to say that you were right and I don’t think we should see each other anymore. At least not like this. I’ll still have sex with you, but the talking and the soul-sharing and all that? I can’t do it anymore. I’ve got friends and a new therapist for that.”

He paused, the cup in his hand.

“Is that really what you want, Katie?”

I hovered in the doorway. I couldn’t do this if I came all the way in and sat on the couch. I knew I wouldn’t want to get up again. “Why does it matter what I want? I’m only using you.”

“If I really believed that, I wouldn’t be making you coffee right now when I’m horribly hung over.” He took a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch down from a cabinet and grabbed two bowls. I almost laughed at the silliness of this tatted-up, pierced guy eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

“You need to get your head on straight, sweetheart. I get that. You need some time. I get that, too. I’m more than willing to have sex with you, no strings, if that’s what you want.”

“Okay.”

“Fine.” He poured cereal into both bowls and I unstuck my feet from the floor and went to the fridge to get the milk.