Faster We Burn

back to it. Even that was better than this.
    The house was in chaos, the floor covered in dirt and debris from the paramedics tramping around.
    “Oh, you’re back,” someone said, coming out of the kitchen. It was Katie’s aunt, Carol. There were other people in there as well, most of whom I recognized from Thanksgiving.
    It was like they were having a grief party.
    Everyone tried to come hug Katie after hugging and comforting Mrs. Hallman, who was back to crying again. Kayla went to the kitchen and Adam followed, never leaving her side.
    “Tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”
    “I just want to go to my room,” she said, so I took her. It was changed from the last time I’d been in here. The walls were white and bare, empty of the hundreds of smiling photographs that had once covered every available bit of bare wall.
    “She did it,” she said, going to the wall across from her bed and rubbing her hand on it. “She cleaned it off.”
    “What?” She turned around and went to sit on her bed.
    “I drew all over my wall with marker and she cleaned it off. I took a picture with my phone though.”
    “Can I see it?” I said, sitting down next to her. I thought she would lean into me again, but she didn’t, instead propping her back against the wall. I did the same, our shoulders almost touching.
    “It was so stupid. Just a bunch of designs and words. It doesn’t matter now because my dad is dead.” She turned her head and met my eyes. “My dad is dead.”
    I thought she was going to break down again, but she didn’t, instead closing her eyes and tipping her head all the way back until she was staring at the ceiling.
    “I don’t remember the last thing he said to me. It was probably I love you, but I don’t know. How could I not know? What if I’d said something horrible to him and that was the last thing I said to him, before…” She didn’t finish.
    I had to say something, even if I couldn’t find the exact right words. Maybe there weren’t any right words.
    “He loved you so much, and nothing you could ever say would change that, Katie. Nothing. He thought the world of you. Anyone could see that. You can’t think about that stuff, or regrets, or anything like that. You’ll just end up crazy and angry and he wouldn’t want that for you.” Not that I had any right to say what her dad did or didn’t want for her, but I knew that blaming herself or being miserable wasn’t it.
    “I’m still waiting for it to not be true.”
    “I think that’s part of grief. Don’t they have those five steps?” I tried to grab at what I’d learned in psychology last year. I was much better at crunching numbers than this kind of thing.
    “I know denial is one, and bargaining. I don’t remember the others,” I said.
    “I think I’m definitely in denial.”
    “Well, that’s the first step, so I think you’re supposed to be.” She sighed.
    “Can I get you anything? What have you had to eat?”
    “I don’t want anything. I feel like I never want to eat again.”
    “You have to. Please. I’m sure somebody has made something at this point. I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I do know that when someone dies, people cook. Oh, shit,” I said, realizing I’d said “dies”. “I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry.”
    “He’s dead. You can say it out loud. I did. He’s dead. Oh, I said it again.” She clasped and unclasped her hands. “How can I be in denial if I can say it out loud?”
    “Saying it out loud and believing it are two different things,” I said, which I probably shouldn’t have. I waited for her to slap me, or yell, but she didn’t.
    She just nodded.
    “You’re probably right.”
     
    Katie
     
    The rest of the night was both the longest and the shortest of my life. There were endless hugs and more tears (hardly any from me) and plans for a funeral and lots of food that no one ate.
    At last I was allowed to escape once more to my room. The hospital had prescribed Mom some sleeping pills, so she went to bed, making sure she didn’t touch Dad’s side when she got under the covers.
    Kayla and I went down to the basement with Stryker and Adam, while everyone else upstairs cleaned and tried to do what they could because they couldn’t do anything else.
    “What’s with the furniture?” Stryker said. He hadn’t seen it when he’d been here before.
    “Mom collects it,” I said, noticing a new lamp in the corner that she’d tried to hide. “She