Faster We Burn

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “You fucking idiot!” I said, banging my hand on the hood of my car. That earned me a nasty look from a mother walking by with her two young children. She hurried to get them into the car as if I was going to come over and try to kidnap them, or sell them drugs.

  “Yup, that’s right. I was totally going to steal your obnoxious kids and do really bad things to them,” I said to myself.

  The pump clicked off and I screwed the cap back on my gas tank. I knew what awaited me back at my apartment. Nothing. No one. Trish was with Lottie, Zan had gone home to his parents and everyone else was with their families.

  I was fine with being alone.

  I threw my phone in the backseat, but something caught my attention, so I picked it up. It was one of Katie’s pink pearl drop earrings. Her dad had gotten them for her birthday, and I knew how much she loved them.

  The earring glinted under the fluorescent light of the gas station. The pearl was perfectly round and unblemished. I shoved it in my pocket and got back in my car.

  Katie

  I sat on the porch after Stryker left me, wondering what to do. Half of me wanted to get in my car and go after him and beg him to come back, and the other half wanted to find him and beat him senseless.

  As the two different instincts wrestled, I called his phone. It went straight to voicemail.

  “Look, I’m super pissed at you right now, and that was a dick move leaving like that so would you please come back so I can yell at you and then we can be friends again?” I paused, unsure of what to say that would make him reconsider. “It would suck if we weren’t friends anymore. It’s not just about the sex. I’d miss you.”

  I hung up before I said anything else. I also texted him a few times for good measure. I was freezing my ass off, but I didn’t want to go inside because I knew they were all talking about me and Stryker. The front door opened and I turned my head to make sure it wasn’t Mom. I couldn’t talk to her right now without saying something I would regret later.

  “Hey, Katiebug,” Kayla said, throwing a blanket over my shoulders. “You wanna talk?”

  “Nope,” I said popping my lips on the ‘p.’

  “I figured. I know everyone’s been giving you advice and I know how much that pisses you off, so I’m not going to give you advice.”

  “Good.”

  She sat down next to me and I held out the blanket so we could share it.

  “You know, the first time I met Adam, I was trying to hook up with his friend?”

  “Really?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah. It was the night before we were leaving on our plane and we all decided to go out. I was totally crushing on his friend Robbie, but he didn’t seem to be into me. Then I just started talking to Adam because he was standing right next to him. He seemed so cocky that I was totally turned off at first, but then a few hours later I couldn’t get him into bed fast enough.”

  I really didn’t need that part of the story. “Ugh, too much information.”

  She continued. “So anyway, I thought I didn’t like him. I kept telling myself that I didn’t like him, that I just liked how I felt when we hooked up. It took me an entire week to realize that the feeling I had when we hooked up was no different than the feeling I had when he made me laugh, or said my name, or even when he was in the same room. It was love. Yes, it started out as lust, but that changed pretty fast.”

  “You said you weren’t going to give me any advice,” I said, moving closer to her. My fingers were numb and any moment, my teeth were going to start chattering.

  Her eyes went wide an innocent. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was just telling you about the first time I met Adam.”

  I rolled my eyes and wrapped the blanket tighter.

  “We should go inside. My ass is officially frozen,” Kayla said, getting up. “Come on. You can hide downstairs with me and Adam. We could play Hot Lava.”

  Mom’s furniture obsession had started before she had us, so when we were kids we assumed everyone else had a basement full of furniture they couldn’t use. We often spent rainy afternoons hopping from chairs to dressers to get from one side of the room to the other, pretending the floor was lava.

  “I think we’re both a little too big for that. I’m not sure Mom’s new table, oh excuse me, sideboard, could take us standing on it.”

  “I think she has a problem,” Kayla said as we walked slowly back into the house. The blast of warm air was so shocking compared to the air outside that it almost hurt. I flexed my red fingers to try to get some feeling back into them.

  The living room was quiet except for Adam humming to himself while reading a book that I knew didn’t come from my house.

  “Where’s Mom and Dad?” Kayla said, rubbing her arms.

  “They went to their room. A little chilly out there?” He closed the book and took Kayla into his arms.

  “I’m going to my room,” I said. I wanted to try Stryker again, but I didn’t want an audience.

  “I’ll bring you some tea or something,” Kayla said.

  “Thanks.”

  I heard Mom and Dad talking softly in their room as I went upstairs. I shut the door and called Stryker again, sitting back on my now-bare bed. Nearly all of my pillows were on my bed at school.

  “Hey, it’s me again. I just wish you would come back. Or I could come to you. Did you go back to school? I really wish you’d answer your phone. I really wish you were here. I really wish things could have been different. I wish we could back to when you dared me to eat the pie. You still owe me a date, by the way. So just…call me back. Even if it’s to tell me to leave you the fuck alone. I just don’t want it to end like this. It can’t end like this.”

  I ended the call and looked around my room. Stryker was always asking me why I was obsessed with pink.

  Yeah, I had to stop thinking about him. I grabbed my phone again and called Lottie.

  “Hey, roomie! Are you in a turkey coma yet?” Her Thanksgiving had obviously been better than mine.

  “Well, it kind of blew up in my face and Stryker stormed out.”

  “He did what? What happened?” I heard Trish talking behind her, asking if she was talking to me because Stryker hadn’t called her back.

  “Trish, seriously. I can’t hear her when you’re yelling in my ear,” Lottie said, and moved away from the noise.

  “Okay, I’m alone now. So what happened?”

  “It was so stupid. My mom was completely unprepared for him, and I knew she was going to freak out, but I hoped she wouldn’t and then she did, and then I tried to fix it and we ended up fighting and he got pissed and left. I’ve called him a million times, but he’s gone. I’m such an idiot.”

  “What did your mom say?”

  “Oh, she didn’t really say anything specific. She just treated him like he’d just gotten out of prison, and wouldn’t stop glaring at him. Honestly, I don’t blame him for leaving. He wanted this perfect Thanksgiving and it got ruined.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  “Yeah, it kind of is. I shouldn’t have let him come in the first place. I knew Mom would react like that. I should have told her, but what then? She wouldn’t have let him come, so then I would have told him he couldn’t come, and I couldn’t do that. Lottie, what am I going to do?”

  “I’ll get Trish to call him and see where he is. He’ll probably answer for her. Let me tell her the situation and I’ll call you back, okay? Don’t worry, this is fixable.”

  I said goodbye to Lottie and stared at the pictures of my high school friends and me that were plastered all over my wall. I took a shit ton of pictures, I realized. I got up and looked at them. God, there were a bunch with Zack in them. I pulled one after the other off the walls, scattering them on the floor like leaves ripped from the branches of a tree.

  I looked at my face in picture form, grinning back at me. I didn’t know that girl. The girl who smiled at Zack like he’d found the world and handed it to her. Fuck. H
im.

  I tore down the rest of the pictures until my walls were mostly bare.

  My phone rang, interrupting my redecorating.

  “Hey, so Trish can’t get a hold of him either. He’s gone off the grid,” Lottie said, a little out of breath.

  “Shit,” I said, letting my back slide down my bare wall until I was sitting on the floor. “He’s probably on his way back to his place. I should go apologize.”

  Someone knocked on my door.

  “Yeah?” I said, putting my hand over the phone. Kayla poked her head in the door, only glancing at the pictures that littered the floor.

  “Brought you some tea.” She held a mug out and I took it, setting it next to me.

  “Thanks.”

  “You should come talk to Mom. She’s really upset.”

  Yeah, I bet she was.

  “I’ll be there in a second.” Kayla nodded and waited in the doorway.

  Lottie had been waiting patiently, but I could hear her talking to Trish as well. I banged the back of my head against the wall.

  “I don’t know what to do, Lot.”

  “Just fix things with your mom and deal with him tomorrow. He just needs some time to cool off. Okay, Trish, you can talk to her. Here’s Trish.”

  The phone was passed as Kayla gave me a look that said she was waiting for me to come with her.

  “Look, he does this. He runs and then he feels bad about it and comes back the next day. Trust me, he’ll be back. This is his thing. The best way to deal with it is to let him have his time. You don’t want to chase after him, because he’ll just run away again. But he always comes back if you let him. Like a boomerang.”

  “If you say so,” I said.

  “I do say so.”

  “Trish, I’m sorry.”

  She scoffed. “Why are you apologizing to me? Save it for him. Not that he’ll let you. He hates apologies.”

  “Great.”

  “I’m telling you, this is not a big deal. He’s done worse. Many times. Be glad he’s not still going through his binge drinking phase. That was a great time.”

  “You don’t think he would do anything stupid?” I said softly.

  “Over this? No way. This is nothing. Relax, girl. He just needs a breather.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okie dokie, here’s Lottie. Don’t worry, bye.”

  Lottie came back on and I told her that I had to deal with my mom so she agreed to give me updates if Stryker contacted Trish back.

  I grabbed my tea and walked into the kitchen where Mom was sitting at the dining table, her eyes blotched from crying.

  “I’m sorry, Katie.”

  That made two of us.

  Chapter Eleven

  Stryker

  I got back to my apartment and it was just as I’d left it. Cold and quiet. I turned on some music, but it turned out to be the playlist I’d come to think of as “Katie songs” so I switched it out for something harsher.

  I tore through my cupboards and found the bottle of whiskey Allan had stashed for his own personal use. There was still plenty left so I grabbed a shot glass and downed one. It wasn’t the cheap stuff, either. Allan was a total alcohol snob, especially when it came to whiskey.

  I paced the apartment, searching for something to get me out of my own head. I picked up each and every one of my instruments, but I couldn’t play them. I downed another shot.

  It was way too cold and dark to work on my car. I poured another shot, but didn’t drink it. I put my chin on the counter and squinted at the clear brown liquid. It used to solve all my problems. At least until I woke up with a raging hangover and realized my problems were still right where I left them when I started drinking.

  Back and forth I pushed the shot glass across the counter. Pulling out the pearl earring from my pocket, I set it next to the glass.

  I should call her and tell her I had it. I should call her and apologize for bailing and for saying “fuck” in her parents’ house.

  Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” came on and I tapped my hand on the counter with the beat of the song.

  Before I could second guess myself, I took out my phone and downed the third shot.

  “Hey, you,” she said, the sweetness dripping from her voice. “What are you up to?” I heard voices in the background and soft music, so she was probably out somewhere. Big surprise.

  I tossed the shot glass up in the air and caught it. “Nothing, just hanging out at home. You want to come over?”

  “I’d love to. Be there in ten.”

  She hung up and I set my phone down, got a second shot glass from my cupboard and filled it up, pouring another one for myself. If I didn’t want to end up in the hospital, I was going to have to pace myself. Trish wasn’t here to save my sorry ass this time.

  I put the earring back in my pocket and waited.

  There was a knock at my door less than seven minutes later. I got up and answered it. She was dressed in a miniskirt with fishnets and a ripped tank top, as per usual.

  She put one hand up and leaned in the doorway seductively. Yep, I was drunk. “Hey, Stryk.”

  “Hey, Ric.”

  She gave me a kiss on the cheek that lingered. Her breath already smelled like alcohol, and I could tell she’d just put out a cigarette. God, I hadn’t smoked in a long time.

  “Ooohh, are we taking shots?” she said, seeing the drinks on the counter.

  “Yeah, I just need a smoke first. Come with me?”

  She smiled slow and stepped toward me, walking her fingers up and down my shirt.

  “Absolutely.”

  That was what Katie had said when I’d asked her if she wanted to fuck me the first time. The word hit me in the chest. I paused for a second, and Ric put her arm around me.

  “Something wrong, babe?”

  I looked down at her face, and picked it apart. Her eyes were too close together, her smile was too wide, her cheekbones too sharp. She was also too tall.

  She wasn’t Katie.

  I shut my eyes for a second and then opened them.

  “Nope.”

  Katie

  The ‘little chat’ with Mom turned into one of our yelling matches, as it always did. Kayla and Dad tried to stop it, but there was only so much they could do before we were both screaming at each other. Like a hurricane, they knew they just had to sit back, board up the doors and windows and wait for it to be over.

  “Say it, just come out and say it. You judged him the moment he walked in. You made up some image of what he would look like in your head and when he didn’t match that you freaked out, proving you are just as judgmental as I knew you were.”

  We were standing in the spotless kitchen now, having already taken the fight around the rest of the house. Dad and Kayla watched from the safety of the dining room table, ready to come in and referee if things got really bad.

  “That isn’t fair, Katie. You gave me no warning. What was I supposed to think?”

  I threw up my hands. “You weren’t supposed to think anything! You were supposed to wait and see what kind of guy he is.”

  She smashed her hands down on the counter with a slap. “How was I supposed to do that? You didn’t tell me anything about him.”

  “Would you have let him come if you knew?”

  She started to protest, but it was a second too late.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. God, Mom.” I stalked toward the living room. I couldn’t fight with her anymore. “Congratulations, you win. He’s gone and I’m going, too.” More often than not, our fights only ended when one of us stormed out.

  “Katiebug, don’t leave like this,” Dad said. “Don’t leave angry.”

  “I’m sorry I brought him here and ruined Thanksgiving. I’m sorry that I ruin everything. It seems to be my thing.” I ran to my room so I wouldn’t break down in front of them. I slipped on the photographs that were still all over the floor and landed hard on my side.

  “Shit!” I rolled o
ver on my back, massaging my hip.

  “You’re being a brat, you know,” Kayla said, pushing my door open.

  “Yes, I am, but that’s what I do. I’m the screw-up little sister.” Kayla crouched down next to me where I still lay on the floor. I turned onto my back and glanced at her, wiping tears away.

  “That’s not true and you know it. Mom and Dad worship the ground you walk on. I used to hate you,” she said, lying on her back next to me.

  What in the what was she talking about? “Are you serious? You’re their golden child.”

  Kayla laughed as if that were genuinely funny.

  “It’s all about perspective.”

  “Whatever,” I said. She was nuts.

  Kayla picked up one of the pictures and it happened to be of Zack and me at a party. He had his arm around me, a bottle of beer just out of view. He was looking at the camera and I was looking at him.

  “I never understood what you saw in this douchebag.” She studied the picture for another moment, then ripped it in half. Before I could say anything, she picked up another picture of Zack and me and ripped that too.

  “Here,” she said, handing me another one, where Zack was giving me a sloppy kiss and not even trying to hide his beer bottle anymore.

  I stared at my giggling face for a second and then tore it apart and threw it back on my floor. Kayla found another one, and then another, and another. We got up and played a twisted version of ‘Where’s Waldo’, trying to find any picture that had Zack in it. There were quite a few.

  When we’d ripped up all of those, I started on the other pictures. Kayla sat back and let me go at those ones. She pulled the trash can over and we piled the torn pictures of my former self up and then dumped them in.

  When the floor was bare and the trash can was full, I stopped and sat back, bracing myself against the wall.