Faster We Burn

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. Fucking 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