Faster We Burn (Fall and Rise #2)(25)
Author: Chelsea M. Cameron

I inhaled and said the one thing that scared me the most. “What if he doesn’t want to be with me anymore and he’s trying to let me down easy?”

Lottie laughed, throwing her head back.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head as if I’d said something absurd.

“Maybe he realized that he just wants to be friends.”

“Listen,” she said, coming over to sit next to me on my bed and putting her arm around my shoulder. “No guy who looks at you the way Stryker does wants to be just friends. He looks at you like no one else is around and he wants to throw you down on the table, right there, right then. Like you’re the only girl in the entire world and he’s ready to worship you.”

If it wasn’t Lottie saying it, I would have thought she was mocking me, but she said it with such sincerity that I believed her.

“Well Zan looks at you like he’s dying and you’re standing there holding the cure to whatever’s killing him.”

She blushed and giggled.

“Listen, we can trade these back and forth all night, but we should probably go to bed.” Giving me a quick shoulder squeeze, she got up and went to her dresser to get her PJs.

“Speaking of Zan, why aren’t you staying the night with him?”

“Because I figured he could deal with one more night without me. I don’t want to be one of those girls who can’t breathe without a man around all the time. Even if I do find it hard to breathe without him.” She traced the edge of a picture Zan had taken of the two of them. One of those where he had to hold the camera at arm’s length and they had to squish their faces together to get them both in the shot.

Yeah, I wasn’t buying it. She was staying for me. She knew I knew, but I wasn’t going to say anything. So we got into bed and said goodnight and I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything but how much I wanted to call Stryker and talk to him. Even if he wouldn’t talk back.

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**king 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**hole?” 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**king 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**ked 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 hav**g s*x 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**king 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.