Faster We Burn

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  He was still muttering to himself, and every other word was a curse. I took my coat off and rolled down the window.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s hot in here.” I fanned my hands, trying to get some cool air into the car. I couldn’t breathe. My skin was on fire. I was on fire. “Why is it so hot in here?”

  “Katie!” he said, his voice cracking like a whip in the confines of his car.

  “What?”

  He blinked a bunch of times and slammed his foot on the gas to pass a car he perceived to be going too slow.

  “You have to calm down, because I’m freaking out, and I should be the calm one in this situation. Because I don’t know if I can handle this.” His voice was controlled; too controlled.

  “Pull over,” I said, feeling my stomach heave once.

  “We have to get there, we can’t stop,” he said, pushing the accelerator to the max.

  “Pull over!” I screamed, and he pulled into the breakdown lane. Even before the car stopped, I had the door open and was crashing to my knees, my body deciding it was going to be sick.

  I choked and coughed, but nothing came out. The sound of the highway was muted in my ears, as if they were stuffed with something. A hand touched my shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  No, I wasn’t fucking okay. How could I be okay?

  “You’re not supposed to ask me that question. Ever.”

  “Shit,” he said, rubbing my shoulder as he crouched down beside me. “Listen, we need to go. You need to get there. I need to get you to your family. I’m not the person you should be with right now. I suck at this. Anyone would be better than me.”

  His hands were finally steady, and he put them on my shoulders. They were strong, and his grip was firm.

  “I can’t believe this is happening. How come I’m not crying?”

  “I’m not a doctor, but I think you’re in shock.”

  “Oh.”

  That made sense, except shock wasn’t the right word. I didn’t feel shock. I didn’t feel anything, except for Stryker’s hands on my shoulders. They were the only things that felt real in this moment.

  “Let’s get you in the car, sweetheart. Come on.” His arms went under my armpits, sort of getting me partially to my feet before he swept one arm under my legs and another behind my shoulders.

  He tucked me in the passenger seat, rolling it down so I could lie back instead of sit up. He buckled me in again, this time more gently. I looked up to meet his eyes, which, I decided were exactly the color of a stone I’d seen in a ring once in a little shop Kayla had dragged me into. A color midway between green and yellow, if there was such a thing.

  My dad.

  I shouldn’t be thinking about Stryker’s eyes. He blinked and closed the door softly before getting in himself.

  “Thank you,” I said as he put on his blinker and waited for someone to let him get back onto the highway.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Stryker

  I didn’t freak out often. After everything I’d seen and been through, I’d learned freaking out was a waste of time and didn’t get anything done.

  I was freaking out.

  It was a struggle just to focus on the road and which exit I was supposed to take, and trying not to crash into the car in front of me.

  One word just kept repeating in my head. Fffffffuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkk.

  This was not my territory. I didn’t do grief. Yes, if I found out that my mother had died, I probably would feel a moment of sadness. My dad, not so much.

  I tried to find some words to say to break up the overwhelming silence in the car, but every single one I chose sounded stupid in my head, so it would sound even worse out loud.

  Even Trish, as tactless as she was, would have been better at this. Lottie would have been amazing. So would Zan.

  Not me.

  She was in shock, and I knew that could be dangerous, but I had no idea what to do about it.

  I didn’t know what to do except keep driving and try to get her to her family. Then they could take over and give her what she needed.

  She still had the window open, but now she was shivering. I couldn’t close it, and I wasn’t going to ask her to, so I reached in the back and found the blanket she wrapped around herself when she hung out with me while I messed around with the cars.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said. No, it wasn’t. “You’re going to be fine.” No, she wasn’t.

  “Everything’s going to be fine.” No, no, no. Lies, lies, lies.

  She shivered under the blanket and I figured bad words were better than silence. Maybe they would distract her mind, or bring her back. Any emotion could be better than this. I searched for something, anything to say.

  “Sometimes when I’m alone I listen to Taylor Swift.” I looked to see her reaction, but there wasn’t any. “I mean, I know that knocks me down two points on the manly scale, but she’s actually got some good stuff. I mean, there’s a reason she’s so popular and you can’t get her songs out of your head, even if you want to. I blame it on Allan, but I’ve definitely put her songs on when I was alone and sang along. And sometimes in the car. That one about the guy who cheated on her is good.” I knew the name of it, but I was trying to get her to talk.

  “They’re all about guys who cheated on her,” she finally said. Guess my little Taylor Swift confession had worked.

  “Not all of them. There’s a few that are about love.”

  I listed them off and she agreed about which ones she liked.

  That took us a few more miles, and then I started talking about other music, other songs. Music. I could always talk about music.

  Katie’s musical palette was mostly pop, but she had a good ear, and with a voice like that I knew we could refine it a bit. I named off some bands and talked about their sound and what instruments they used and played her some songs. Yes, I could do this.

  The miles clicked by and the closer we got, the more I felt like I could keep this going. She didn’t smile or laugh, but she was talking and that was something. She still hadn’t cried, but I knew that would come.

  When I saw the sign for the exit to the hospital I almost let out a sigh of relief. She looked at the building with her wide eyes and I saw her lower lip tremble. She bit down on it as I zoomed around, trying to find a parking spot. After a few loops, I found one and stopped the car.

  “Do you…do you want me to come with you?” She pulled the blanket off and let it fall to the floor.

  “I don’t think I can do it alone.” That was all I needed to hear. I jumped out of the car and went to get her door for her. I had to help her undo her seatbelt and she clung to me as we walked toward the entrance.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered to me as the automatic door swooshed open.

  “Yes you can. I’m right here, sweetheart.” I squeezed her arm and took a step forward so she had to follow me.

  “I’m here…” she said when we got to the main desk and the receptionist asked where we needed to go, “I’m here to see my dad. Glenn Hallman.” The woman typed something into the computer and gave us a smile. She had no idea. She probably thought we were just visiting.

  “Room 301,” she said, giving us directions. I listened carefully, because I knew Katie wasn’t hearing her.

  “Thank you,” I said to the woman as I steered Katie toward the elevator. No way was she going to be able to do the stairs.

  A couple people joined us in the elevator, talking and laughing as if everything was normal. Their lives were normal, I supposed. Katie huddled into me and I put both arms around her. God, I wished my arms could do more than hold her.

  It took a while to walk her down the long hallway to the room. We both stopped outside the door, and Katie stared at it for a long time.

  The door was closed, but I knocked. I hadn’t planned on coming this far with her, but with her latched onto me, I wasn’t really going anywhere.

  The door o
pened and Mrs. Hallman, her face red and blotched, looked out. It was dark and there was a hush that came from inside that sent a chill up and down my spine.

  “Mommy,” Katie said, reaching one hand out and falling into her mother’s arms. I let her make the transfer and stepped aside. I didn’t belong here anymore.

  Katie

  He just looked like he was sleeping. The room was filled with monitors and IVs and other sorts of medical paraphernalia, but they were all silent.

  Mom and Kayla and Adam and I all stood around him, as if we were waiting for him to wake up.

  I reached out to touch his face and it was cool.

  “What happened?” I said in a whisper. My voice was still too loud. Mom’s hand gripped mine so hard I knew I would have bruises.

  “He was just coming home from work and I was asking him about paying a bill and then he said his chest hurt. I…” her voice broke for a moment, but she took a breath and continued, “I called the ambulance and he was still alive when they got him in and the doctors thought he was going to make it, but then…” she didn’t need to say the rest. Then he didn’t.

  There was another knock at the door and I turned my head, expecting to see Stryker standing behind me. He was gone. Where did he go?

  A nurse came in and spoke in a hushed voice. There was another woman behind her in a smart suit.

  “I’m sorry, but we’re going to need to make a decision about what we’re going to do with him. This is Becky, our grief counselor.” What did she mean, what they were going to do with him?

  Becky stepped forward and started talking in equally hushed tones with Mom.

  I looked back at Dad. He didn’t even have one of those stupid gowns on. He still had his work clothes. Flannel shirt and khakis. He had a whole closet filled with them. I brushed my fingers on the soft material which had been washed so many times it was thin and had threads hanging here and there. Mom hated that.

  “C-can we have some more time?” Mom started to cry again, and I didn’t know what to do except keep holding onto her.

  The nurse looked genuinely sad. I wondered how many times she’d had this conversation.

  Becky stepped forward.

  “I am so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Hallman. Why don’t you and I sit down and have a little talk?”

  “We’ll get you some coffee,” Kayla said, getting up from her chair and giving Adam a look. He nodded and left the room. She was about to try and take me too, but Mom stopped both of us.

  “I’m not leaving him!” she shrieked and the sound shattered the eerie calm. “I’m not leaving him!” She fell next to the bed, letting go of me and reaching for Dad’s hand. “I can’t leave him,” she said, holding his hand in both of hers.

  “You can’t leave me,” she whispered, and I knew she was speaking to him. “How dare you leave me?”

  “Why don’t we give her a minute,” the nurse said, putting one hand on my shoulder and another on Kayla’s. I didn’t want to leave him, either, but I couldn’t be in the room anymore with Mom that way.

  I still couldn’t cry. Everyone else had done a lot of it; even Adam had red eyes. With an iron grip, the nurse steered us out of the room as Mom sobbed and whispered to Dad and Becky rubbed her shoulder and tried to get her into a chair.

  “Does this happen? A lot?” The words were sticky and hard to get out of my mouth.

  “Yes,” she said, letting go of me. Kayla crushed me in a hug and started to cry.

  “I’m so sorry you weren’t here,” she sobbed.

  I didn’t have anything to say in response, so I just kept hugging her as she cried on my shoulder. Finally she let go and wiped her eyes.

  “Did you drive up?”

  “No, Stryker brought me.” I looked around and found him leaning against the wall about ten feet away. He was staring off into space and I watched him for a moment before his gaze slid to meet mine.

  “Thank you,” Kayla said, letting me go and walking toward Stryker before putting her arms around him and hugging him tight. “Thank you so much.”

  His arms hung limp for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to do. Then, hesitantly, he wrapped them around her waist and returned the hug.

  When she let him go, he cleared his throat and looked at the floor.

  I walked over to him and he looked up.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.” His voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. Adam came around the corner then, balancing several cups of steaming coffee.

  “Here,” Kayla said, handing me one. Adam handed her a napkin and she blew her nose on it.

  I should want to cry. When your dad suddenly died of a heart attack, you should want to cry. You should sob until you don’t have any tears left. I should be like Mom, or at least like Kayla. I shouldn’t feel like this was some sort of elaborate joke, and that any second someone was going to tell me this wasn’t real, and then I could go back to normal. I was still waiting.

  Stryker watched me as if he was waiting, too.

  I held out my hand and he looked down at it as if it was the first time he’d ever seen one. He looked back to my eyes and then took my hand, twisting and locking our fingers together.

  “I’m so sorry, Katie.”

  “Thanks,” I said, because that seemed like the thing to say. I sipped the coffee because that seemed like the thing to do and talked to Kayla about the ugly watercolor that hung in the hallway and pretended I couldn’t hear Mom sobbing and talking to Becky behind the door.

  Kayla and Adam huddled together, talking quietly.

  Stryker and I stood silent.

  “I don’t know what to say. To make you feel better, or to make this somehow less of a shitty situation,” he finally said as I finished the last of my terrible coffee.

  “You don’t have to say anything. I can’t even cry, so clearly you’re not the only one who doesn’t know what to do.”

  “You can cry or not cry. You can do whatever you want to.”

  I set the empty cup on the floor. I couldn’t be bothered to find a trash can at the moment. “I should cry. I’ve been trying to, but I can’t. How fucked up is that?”

  “Like I said, you can do whatever you want.” He pulled our linked hands to his lips and kissed the back of mine. It was a simple gesture, but it made me want to smile. If only I could figure out how to make my face do that.

  “Can I do anything? Get you anything?” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “Unless you know how to travel back in time, no.” Was I joking? How could I be joking? To his credit, Stryker didn’t look shocked.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so desperately sorry for you. I wish there was something…fuck.” He took the hand that wasn’t linked with mine and banged it against the wall.

  “My dad died. There’s nothing you could do.” I said it again, in my head.

  My dad died. My dad died.

  Three words. A bunch of letters strung together in such an order that they meant my dad was dead. He was dead. As in gone, lost, far away, never coming back.

  My dad died.

  “Oh my God. My dad died.”

  I said it a few more times and Stryker looked like he wanted to put my hand over my mouth so I’d stop saying it.

  “He’s dead,” I said, looking at Stryker. “He’s dead.”

  There they were. Tears.

  Like I’d somehow tapped into a hidden well, they started pouring out of me. A sound tore from my mouth, and I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. I started to fall, but Stryker caught me again, yanking me into his arms, whether to comfort me or stifle the noise, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter because my dad was dead.

  Kayla’s arms came around my back and I was in a hug sandwich, but it didn’t matter because my dad was dead.

  And then I didn’t remember anything because my dad was dead.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Stryker

  I’d been waiting for her to break, or d
o something, and finally, she did. That was almost worse than the shock, because at least with that, I could still sort of reach her. When the grief and reality finally consumed her, there was no reaching her.

  I tried to hand her off to Kayla, but she wouldn’t let go of me, so we both sort of held her while she cried and made that sound I’d heard earlier.

  Someone must have called another grief counselor, because a second woman in a crisp black jacket and skirt showed up and tried to usher us down the hall to a room where Katie’s crying wouldn’t disturb the rest of the hospital.

  She wouldn’t walk, despite our coaxing, so I just picked her up like I had before and carried her into a room that looked like some sort of playroom with lots of plastic toys in a bin and ducks on the wall and plush couches for sinking into. I tried to set her down, but I had to sit with her, so she ended up on my lap, like a child.

  I stroked her hair and whispered things in her ear and the grief counselor tried to get her to talk, and finally made the decision that they had to give Katie a sedative.

  They took her to an empty room down the hall from Mr. Hallman’s and she fought a little before they gave it to her.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.” I said it over and over, even though neither of us believed it.

  Soon, her eyes were drooping closed and her grip on me loosened. When the artificial sleep finally claimed her I sat back on the bed she was in and looked at Kayla.

  “She didn’t cry at all on the way down. She kept saying that she couldn’t and she wanted to.” I pushed Katie’s hair back so it wasn’t in her face.

  “I should go check on mom,” Kayla said, looking out the door. We hadn’t heard anything from the room down the hall in a while.

  “Go, it’s okay. I’ll stay with her. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Thank you,” Kayla said again before leaving the room. I went back to watching Katie, making sure her breathing was deep and even.

  Adam sat down in one of the chairs and stretched his arms over his head.

  “I feel like I should know what to do by now, having lost my mom and all my grandparents, but every time I think of something to do or say, it seems wrong,” he said.