Faster We Burn

that made me feel even worse.
    I had all the chances in the world. I had parents who were footing the bill for my college education and I was wasting it. I knew I was wasting it.
    Zan swooped in and changed the subject, saying something about an assignment from the class that he and Lottie shared.
    I didn’t give him enough credit, but he was really a decent guy. Even after everything he’d done, he’d found a way to start over, start fresh. So why was it so hard for me?

 
     
    Chapter Seventeen
     
     
    Stryker
     
    “Long time no see,” Zan said when I walked into class on Wednesday. I kept my face neutral.
    “Wasn’t feeling that great.”
    “Rough weekend?”
    “Something like that.”
    I’d timed it so that I would get to class right before Quan started, and I planned on bolting as soon as I could. I pulled out my notebook and started drawing like I always did in this class. If attendance didn’t count toward my grade, I would skip every class but the test.
    I let my pen take over, drawing random designs on a fresh page instead of adding to another drawing I’d already started.
    It wasn’t until class was over and half the page was filled that I realized I’d done a duplicate of the drawing on Katie’s wrist.
    “That’s nice,” Zan said, shoving his books in his bag while I tried to hide the drawing.
    “Thanks.” I fished in my pocket, but I couldn’t find my lighter. It was a way to try to prevent myself from smoking. I had the cigarettes, but if I couldn’t light them, I couldn’t smoke them. In theory it worked, but not so much in practice. Zan always had that old Zippo on him.
    “Can I borrow your lighter?” He handed it over and followed me to the designated smoking area outside the building. I always offered him one, but he always refused and today was no exception.
    He watched me smoke, silently waiting for me to start talking. There was something so unnerving about a silent person.
    “I had sex with someone else,” I blurted out after about thirty seconds of silence. Zan took the lighter back and flicked it in his hand out of habit. On. Off. On. Off.
    He waited for me to elaborate.
    “It was a mistake and I was drunk, but to be fair, I did break it off with Katie before it happened.”
    “Then why are you hiding it?” He flipped the lighter off and put it back in his pocket.
    I shook my head and tipped my face up, blowing the smoke toward the clouds.
    “I don’t know.” Trish’s words came back with a vengeance.
    “Look, I know I’m not good at talking, or giving advice, but this is my two cents,” he said, leaning next to me against the building. He had to tip his head down to meet my eyes.
    “You and Katie have something together. We all saw it that night at the party. Whether you want to admit it or not, there is something there, and it’s not just attraction or lust. It’s something more. Something deeper. You care about her and she cares about you, despite everything she’s been through. You’re both trying to stop it, but here’s the thing. It’s going to happen anyway. Something that powerful is like a speeding train. You can slow it down, but it’s never going to stop.” That’s how it felt with Katie. Like I was standing on the train tracks, waiting to be demolished by a thousand pounds of metal coming at me.
    “When it’s real like that, you can’t fight it. I know what you’re going through.” He looked up at the sky. “I tried to fight it with Lottie, but we just kept getting pulled together. And then the reasons I was keeping her away dissolved and they didn’t seem like reasons anymore, just roadblocks on our way to finding one another.”
    I thought there would be more to the speech, but he just exhaled and looked back down at me. I stubbed out the rest of my cigarette and shoved my hands in my pockets.
    “For a guy who’s not good with words, you sure sound like a fucking poet. If only you could make that shit rhyme, and you’d be the next Shakespeare.”
    Zan gave me a brief smile and shrugged.
    “I have to get to class. You wanna hang out this weekend? Banjo session?”
    “Yeah, sure thing. I’ll let you know.”
    He nodded again and went to walk to his next class as I pulled out another cigarette and stared at it wishing I’d brought my lighter.
     
    ***
     
    Katie had banged on my door so many times, I figured it was time to return the favor. I had no idea if she’d be there, but it was her face that I saw when she opened