Faster We Burn

chapter Five

Stryker

Katie and I ate cereal and drank our coffee in almost total silence. I should have been pissed at her for not telling me she was coming over so I could have cleaned, but then I realized she wasn’t my girlfriend. I didn’t have to impress her so I stopped caring. Almost.

She looked like shit, if I was being brutally honest. Her face was puffy and patterned with bluish marks and still-red scratches. She also hadn’t washed her hair and her nail polish was chipping. The girl who sat at my table and stared blankly at the wall was not the girl I’d seen in the pink dress that night at the party. This girl had “damaged goods” written all over her.

“Thanks for breakfast,” she said, putting her bowl and cup in the sink. “I have to get back so Lottie and everyone can fuss over me and make sure I’m not going to slit my wrists like in some tragic TV drama.”

“Slitting your wrists really isn’t an effective way to kill yourself. Too many things can go wrong. You’re better off shooting yourself or taking cyanide. Or being hit by a train,” I said, draining my coffee cup. It was going to take more than one cup to get me back in fighting shape again. I massaged my pounding forehead with one hand, wishing I had listened to my intuition last night.

She froze and stared at me for a moment.

“I wasn’t asking for tips, but thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. How the hell do you know that?” she said.

I joined her at the sink with my dishes.

“Morbid curiosity,” I said turning on the water and grabbing a sponge. Ouch, even that hurt.

“Have you ever…”

“Obviously not, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried. When I was seven I found a knife and tried to stab myself. Still have the scar.” I put the sponge down and lifted up my shirt, pointing to the thin white line on my stomach that marked my first, and least-successful, attempt. There had been others, but Trish had always thwarted those.

She looked anywhere but at the scar.

I stepped closer to her and she backed up. “Does it scare you?”

“No.”

“Then why won’t you look at it?”

“Because I don’t want to.” She pushed me away and rushed to the door. “I told you. Sex only. None of that other stuff. I’ll call you.”

With that, she yanked the door open and rushed down the stairs. I really knew how to clear a room.



***



Katie didn’t call me for “just sex” for a week. In that time I didn’t see her at all. I only had secondary information about how she was from Zan and Trish. I also got a lecture of epic proportions from Trish about respecting women. It was one of her more-impassioned speeches. I always thought she would make a good politician or leader of some sort of political group, but she thought all those people were self-righteous losers. I told her to look in the mirror and then we ended up fighting until one of us stormed out. We would meet up later and things would be normal again.

When I did finally see Katie, she looked marginally better. Her hair was clean and pulled back, and her pinks all matched again. We met at my place, which I had since picked up a little.

She attacked my mouth and my body with more ferocity than the first time, if that was possible. The sex was quick and angry and when it was over we were both panting. She’d kept her eyes closed nearly the entire time.

“Why the f*ck do you wear so much pink?” I said as she pulled her pink underwear off the lamp where I’d tossed it.

“Why do you care? I told you, just sex. No chitchat.” She covered my mouth and I licked her palm.

“Ugh!” She pulled her hand away and wiped it on the couch.

“You’ll take my dick inside you and my tongue down your throat, but some of my spit on your hand grosses you out?”

“Stop asking so many f*cking questions!” She fastened her bra and grabbed the rest of her clothes as she headed for the bathroom.

“Crazy girl,” I muttered.

She came back fully-dressed with her hair smoothed.

“Look, I don’t need a boyfriend. I don’t need a friend. I just need someone to f*ck me. That’s you.”

I have her a thumbs up. “I’m your f*ck guy. Got it.”

“Good.” She reached for her purse but in her hurry, it upended and everything went flying. “Shit,” she said, scrambling to get her stuff. “Everything is just so screwed up.”

I got up and tried to help her, but she put her hands out to stop me. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

“Jesus Christ, Katie. I’m doing what a stranger would do if you were in a public place and this happened.”

I crouched next to her and waited patiently until she looked at me. She chucked some makeup into the bag and I saw a tear drop into the bag along with it.

“I’m such a bitch to you. Why are you so nice to me?”

“I could be a douche if you want. I have a pretty good track record of douchery.” I also had a list of witnesses that would swear to it under oath.

She giggled as another tear fell.

“Get your shit together and get the f*ck out of my apartment,” I said, standing up and kicking her wallet out of my way. “I don’t want all that shit on my floor.”

She looked up in shock and then I smiled.

“See? Now get your pink ass out of here.”

She shoved the rest of her stuff away and hurried to get out the door.

“I’ll call you. A*shole,” she added at the end.

I laughed after she shut the door and I swore I heard her laughing as she jogged down the stairs.



Katie



After much begging, Lottie finally agreed to my makeover idea. I was looking forward to it until Trish started grilling me about Stryker.

I didn’t know how much of what we were doing she knew, but from the way Lottie and Audrey talked, they’d put him in my ‘boyfriend’ box already. I didn’t tell them it wasn’t like that because, to be honest, I didn’t want them to think less of me. They were both so sweet and innocent when it came to that. I couldn’t imagine Lottie ever having a strictly physical relationship and Audrey had been engaged for Christ’s sake. Commitment wasn’t one of her problems.

They’d been treating me with delicacy ever since the whole Zack thing. If I thought they talked about me behind my back before, that was nothing compared to after, especially when I was always going over to Stryker’s.

So I settled on the ‘it’s complicated’ box and let them think what they wanted. They always thought the best of me, which was part of the problem. I hated that they saw the best in me, expected the best, because inevitably I would disappoint them. It always happened.

I was having trouble sleeping, and kept waking Lottie up from nightmares about Zack. I had a voicemail from his mother saying how sorry she was for everything. I wanted to delete it, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t really her fault her son was an abusive, psychotic d-bag.

Stryker honored my request that our relationship be ‘just sex.’ I would text him or call him, we’d meet somewhere, f*ck and then one of us would leave. Sometimes we wouldn’t say a word. I liked it better that way. No talking, no music, no soul-sharing. The one thing I wished I could get him to stop doing was look at me. Those damn green eyes had this way of searing into me like a searchlight. I never felt more naked than when he was looking directly at me.

The therapist, Dr. Sandrich, turned out to be a pretty decent guy. He didn’t push me to talk about anything I didn’t want to, so I was free to make things up and pretend I was talking about my feelings. He knew, but he just listened and after my hour was over he shook my hand and let me go. I was always waiting for him to call me on my bullshit, but he never did.

I had to go to court to talk about what Zack did to me. It was humiliating and traumatic and all the worse because my parents were there and they both cried and all I wanted was for the courthouse to catch fire and destroy us all. The only good part was seeing Zack in handcuffs. Of course, his stepfather had bailed him out so he was free from jail for now, but on a tight leash, and he’d been kicked out of school. I took comfort in the hour of driving that separated us now.

One way or another, Zack and I were done, period. I was moving forward, or at least taking one step forward for every two steps back, until I saw that I had a missed call from Lottie after my anthropology class one afternoon. I’d started getting involved in my classes again, and I’d come to find I actually enjoyed most of them. There was something comforting about sitting in a lecture hall, listening to someone else speak, taking notes, letting the information wash over you. I didn’t have to think about anything else. Just listen.

“Hey, what’s up?” It wasn’t like her to call me in the middle of the day for something silly. She usually just texted me for stuff like that.

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know what’s going on. Zack called Zan and he’s drunk and he’s in a park somewhere and Zan called the police so Zack is getting arrested. Again.” I stopped walking, causing a pileup on the sidewalk that got me nasty looks and more than a few curse words thrown at me.

“What?”

“Yeah, I debated about calling you, but I didn’t want you to be out of the loop. We’re going back to the dorm now. Where are you?” I heard Zan and Will talking in the background. Arguing, it sounded like.

“I just left anthro. I’ll be there in five,” I said, picking up my pace. That guy just didn’t know when to say when, the f*cker. Maybe this time they’d put him in jail and he’d stay there, where he belonged. The Zack I knew, the one who pointed out the constellations and made me all knee-watery wasn’t real. I’d probably known that all along, but it took him punching me in the face for me to really see it, once and for all.

No wonder my parents thought I needed therapy.

Lottie hug-attacked me the second I opened the door to our room, nearly knocking the wind out of me.

“Are you okay? I know you’re probably not and that’s a stupid question to ask, but I have to ask because I care about you and I’m your friend.” I patted her back and she let me go.

“I’m fine,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. In reality, I didn’t really care. He could rot in jail for the rest of his natural life. I didn’t know why they’d involved me, honestly. I was trying to move on, and this wasn’t helping. I almost said something to Lottie, but she looked so concerned that I swallowed my bitter words.

She kept rubbing my shoulder and sat down with me on my bed. Will was furiously texting Audrey and Zan was staring at me with eyes that burned almost as intensely as Stryker’s. They were two of a kind. They saw what you tried to hide, but at least they kept their mouths shut about it. Most of the time.

“I think we need to go out,” Lottie announced, standing up. We all looked at her as if she’d lost her damn mind, me included. A second ago, she’d been whispering soothing things like I was going to have a mental breakdown or something.

“Now?” Will said, his fingers still flying. “You really think now is a good time?”

“Well, not right now. Tonight. If we all sit around here thinking about this we’re going to go crazy. Am I right?” Zan put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek. How was it that he and Zack shared so much DNA, but they’d turned out two completely different people? The more I lived, the more I decided life didn’t make any sense.

“I think it’s a good idea. You in, Will?” Zan said, putting his arm around Lottie.

Will nodded, not looking up from his phone. “Just let me ask Aud.”

“And we can bring Simon. He’s been dying to show off his new boyfriend. And we can have Trish and Stryker.” Lottie looked at me when she said his name, and emphasized both syllables. Not this again.

He was the last person I wanted to see right now, but I shut my mouth and let them chatter away. Maybe it could be good. Going out in a group. Normal. I could be normal. Or at least pretend. Just because we were going out in a group and there would be talking, didn’t mean our relationship would change from our current “just sex” arrangement. No, we would put on a show for our friends and then go back to the way it had been.

“Sounds great,” I said with a smile that felt almost real. I waited until after Lottie told me was coming and then escaped to the bathroom to call him.

“Hey. I’m not calling you for sex. I just want to set some ground rules for this group thing,” I said before he could get a word in.

“Hello to you, too. If you’re going to ask me to be a douchebag in front of my friends, the answer is no.”

I took a breath, hoping he didn’t take it the wrong way. “I wasn’t going to ask that, actually. I was going to ask if we could put that on hold for tonight. You can be nice to me in front of everyone. I don’t want them to know that we’re just having sex, even if that’s what we’re doing.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

“Because you don’t want them to think less of you. I get it, Katie. Jesus, you drive a hard bargain. What if I wasn’t so compliant to your wishes? I mean, you say, ‘Jump,’ and I ask how high, and then you say, ‘Stand still,’ and I stand still. Not that I don’t get anything out of it, but damn.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I’m still figuring that out. Can’t the sex be enough of a reason right now?”

“Sure. Fine. Just don’t think this is an invitation to change our current arrangement. I’m fine with it.”

He paused for a long time before he said, “Me too.”

The door to the bathroom opened and I stopped talking.

“Katie?” Lottie’s voice echoed off the tile floor.

“Yeah?” I said, hoping Stryker would get the hint. I could hear him listening intently.

“You okay? Are you talking to someone?”

“My mom just called. I was just filling her in. She’s freaking out.”

He laughed a little and I had to fight the urge to shush him. “Oh, so I’m your mother now, am I? I can handle being a douche, but that’s a stretch, even for me.”

“Shut up,” I hissed at him and he laughed again.

“What?” Lottie said.

“Nothing. Bye, Mom. I’ll call you later.”

“Bye, sweetheart. Make sure to do your homework and eat all your vegetables,” Stryker said in a falsetto that sounded scarily like my mother. I rolled my eyes and hung up on him.



***



Lottie let me do her up for our little evening out, which gave me a distraction from thinking about everything I didn’t want to think about. That didn’t mean that I could completely stop, because everyone else was talking about it.

“I hope they put him in jail for the rest of his life. That’s where he belongs,” Trish said as I braided Lottie’s hair back from her face.

“Trish, maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this,” Audrey said, glancing at me. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” I said with a smile. The guys were all down in Will’s room playing Minecraft and the girls were in ours “getting pretty” as Simon said. He was practically gleeful about inviting his new boyfriend on our ‘group hang’ as he called it. I just hoped Stryker would play his part. I was just pinning one of the braids to Lottie’s head when my phone buzzed with a picture message from Stryker. I hesitated a second before I clicked on it.

He was standing in his kitchen, wearing a frilly apron and holding a spatula, one arm extended out so he could take the picture.

A mother’s work is never done.

I snorted with suppressed laughter. I messaged him back asking where he’d gotten the apron and set my phone back on Lottie’s desk.

“What’s that?” Lottie said as I resumed doing her hair. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I said in what I hoped was a convincing voice.

“I’ll guess it begins with a Stryk and ends with an er,” Trish said, doing the patented Grant eyebrow raise.

“It’s nothing. Just let it go.” All the ladies in the room shared a collective look at my expense.

“Whatever. Just whatever.” I finished another braid and pulled the rest of Lottie’s hair into a low, loose bun and secured it with an elastic band and some pins.

“There. You’re perfect,” I said, tapping Lottie on the shoulder to tell her she could get up. She did and stood right in front of me.

“He’s a good guy. You deserve a good guy who makes you laugh.” She grinned and went to admire her hair in the mirror with Trish and Audrey.

I just nodded. He was a good guy, but I didn’t deserve him at all.



***



“Okay, you two need to stop taking up all the cute. Leave some for the rest of us,” Trish said as Brady and Simon argued about what kind of pasta they were going to share at the restaurant. Brady was shorter than Simon, but just as adorable with blond-tipped hair and a preppy fashion sense. They held hands, swinging them as they walked, and I couldn’t help but smile. I was still laughing to myself about Stryker’s little picture message. Already this ‘group hang’ was turning out much different than I expected.

When Will had suggested the place I hadn’t objected, but being in the same restaurant I’d once been to on a date with Zack turned out to be a not so great idea the minute I walked in, and then my smile about Brady and Simon froze on my face. Shit. I’d been doing so well.

Stryker’s hand rested lightly on my back as we went inside. “I hope I’m supposed to ask you if you’re okay tonight, because I’m going to. Are you okay?”

“Not really. But keep that to yourself. Please.” I looked over my shoulder at him and met his eyes. He toyed with his lip ring and that made me think about kissing him.

“Sure thing.”

We pushed three small tables together to get all of us in. Simon wouldn’t settle for us being in separate booths. The waitress turned out to be a girl from my anthro class, but I couldn’t remember her name until I read “Carrie” on her nametag.

It was complete chaos with everyone talking at once and she looked overwhelmed. Of course they had all engineered it so I had Stryker on one side and Lottie on the other. Trish was right across from me and looking grumpy about the fact that she was the only one who didn’t have “someone”‘ Stryker’s foot kept bumping against mine under the table and I knew it was deliberate, so I banged my foot against his, only harder. I had heels on, so if worse came to worse, I could always stab him with one.

It was completely different from the last time I’d been here with Zack, and I tried to relax and let myself sink into the moment.

“Be nice,” he muttered at me when Carrie brought our drinks. He ordered a beer since he was the only one who was old enough. “Want a sip?”

“No, thanks.”

“So I think we should toast,” Simon said, standing up. Brady tried to get him to sit down since the entire place was staring at us, but he wouldn’t.

“I think we need to toast to friends and good people and love and…anyone?”

“New beginnings,” Will said as he stared at Audrey.

“To Rumi and escapes and Pop Tarts,” Lottie said, winking at Zan.

“Okay, sure. Anyone else?” Simon said, looking around.

“To drugs and sex and rock and roll,” Stryker said, raising his beer mug.

“I second that,” Trish said, raising her glass. Stryker put his other hand on my leg and squeezed.

“To a*sholes getting put back in prison where they belong,” I said. Everyone cheered at that and we drank.

I was pretty sure the restaurant was regretting letting us sit down because we were the loudest group in the place. Volume control wasn’t one of our strong suits as a group.

I hated to admit it, but Lottie had the right idea. It was impossible not to smile and laugh when Simon started doing impressions of Will and then Lottie and when Stryker kept making silly little comments that only I could hear.

“Will is going to touch Audrey’s hair in three, two, one. See?” He was right. Audrey blushed as Will made sure her hair didn’t fall into her pizza.

“And Simon is going to kiss Brady in three, two, one.” There was a collective ‘aw,’ when they did kiss. Even Trish had a wistful look on her face.

“How are you doing?” It was a different question than asking if I was okay.

“I can truthfully say that I’m enjoying myself,” I said.

“I can tell.”

“Don’t.” He’d been walking his hands up and down my leg. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that told me he was aware that I was sitting next to him and he wanted me to be aware of it, too. I’d told him to not be an a*shole, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to treat me like…like we were dating.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, marching his fingers as if they were feet.

“Stryker, stop it.” I made sure I wasn’t looking at him when I said it so no one would get any ideas.

“Fine.” He removed his hand and started drumming it on the table with the rhythm of the song that played over the speakers hidden behind tacky plastic plants that were supposed to look like olive vines. “Then I’ll tell you that it’s not just the sex.”

“What?” Everyone else was distracted by Will and Lottie team-telling a story about how they were when they were growing up and she knew he’d fallen out of a tree. That twindar really freaked me out.

I looked up to meet his eyes. He’d been waiting for that.

“It might not just about the sex, although that is nice.” I stared at him and then my eyes moved down to his lips. The memory of kissing him that first time and feeling his lip ring press into my mouth was fresh and delicious.

I’d been afraid of that. The moment this crossed into boyfriend/girlfriend territory, I was going to bail.

“It has to be this way, Stryker,” I said, touching his lip ring and remembering how nice it felt to talk to him and listen to him sing.

“But we can talk. And I can sing to you. And paint your nails, right?” he said.

I nodded. I’d miss those things too much.

“Good.”