Faster We Burn

this life, into this place where I was surrounded by people who cared about me and missed me and wanted to share things with me.
    Not that my family wasn’t like that, but this group was different. They didn’t have to like me. They chose to spend time with me. They showed up at the hospital and sat and waited for me. I still wanted to cry every time I thought about that.
    “So what did you do to my brother?” Trish said, scraping the last bits out of one of the pie pans. “Because he’s like, so emo right now, I’m afraid he’s going to start painting his nails black and only listening to really crappy music.”
    Every set of eyes swiveled in my direction and every voice went quiet. Fantastic.
    “I didn’t do anything to him.” I readjusted the pillows behind my back so I wouldn’t have to focus on them all.
    “Well, something happened because he drunk-texted me late last night telling me that he loved me. Actually, he said he “lobed” me, but that’s beside the point. Stryker never uses that word unless he’s wasted. So. What happened?”
    “Trish,” Lottie said, making her name two syllables. “This probably isn’t the right venue.”
    “Oh, whatever,” Trish said, tossing the fork in the pie pan and setting it on the floor. Will cleared his throat and Simon looked around, as if the room was really interesting. Zan just kept rubbing Lottie’s back. Audrey gave me a sympathetic look and I wanted to melt into the floor and sink into the linoleum.
    “Just let me say one more thing. I know he’s my brother and all and I give him shit a lot, but he’s actually a decent guy, and I think you two are great together. Okay, I’m done.”
    Will coughed again and the topic changed to bitching about how much we didn’t want to start classes the next day.
     
    ***
     
    “What happened with Stryker? I know you didn’t want to say in front of everyone, but you can talk about it. You know, if you want. No pressure.” Sure there was pressure. There was so much pressure I could feel its hands around my neck, and its insistent voice in my ear.
    “Okay, but this falls under the roommate umbrella of secrecy. No twindar, or any of that.”
    “If there’s one thing that Will doesn’t want to know about, it’s other people’s relationship drama, so no worries. He’ll probably beg me not to tell him anyway. So, your secret is safe.”
    “So I didn’t want to tell you this, but Stryker and I weren’t dating, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t having sex.” I paused, waiting for her reaction. I expected surprise, not for her to snort and say, “And?”
    “You knew?”
    “First, I’m not blind, and second,” she said, holding up one, then two fingers, “I’m not an idiot. We all knew.”
    Now I was the one surprised.
    “Everyone?”
    She nodded. Well, shit. I guess we weren’t as covert as I thought.
    “Great. They must all think I’m a slut.”
    Lottie scoffed, making this little snorting noise.
    “No one would think that.”
    I gave her a look. “Not even after everything I did with Zack?”
    She shook her head again.
    “We just want you to be happy, and it seems like Stryker makes you happy. So what happened?”
    I took a deep breath and went into the whole story, giving her every detail from the Thanksgiving dinner I cooked, to our kiss to when he told me he wanted to wait to have sex. She was uncharacteristically silent the entire time, and her silence reeled the story out of me, including tearing up the pictures with Kayla and writing on my wall and the fight I’d had with my mom. I kept talking and talking, the words spilling out of me and into the air, filling the room up with my voice and my insecurity and my confusion and my hurt.
    “And I have no idea what to do. None,” I said, finally done.
    “You, my dear,” she said, raising her hands above her head to stretch, “are in a pickle.”
    “I guess that’s one way of thinking about it. ‘I’m fucked’ seems more appropriate.”
    “Well, if you want my two cents, I’d say you give him his space. He’ll come to his senses.”
    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