Faster We Burn

because of Dad. All the reasons I’d used for having sex before didn’t seem like good reasons anymore. They weren’t even reasons. I just decided I wanted to do it and grabbed whoever was available. It was a miracle I hadn’t ended up pregnant. Or worse.
    Dad would be so ashamed of me. Would have been so ashamed of me. Now he’d never know. Somehow, that made me even more determined not to do it. Ever again.
    “Maybe we did. A little.” Such a liar.
    “As long as it’s not in my bed, you can do whatever you want, girl.” I melted back into my pillows and it was such a relief having my pink things around me again. My safe little pink world.
    “How are you doing?” I’d gotten used to this question and all its variations. Pasting on a smile and saying I was doing fine was as easy as blinking now. It was complete bullshit, but no one ever seemed to care.
    “Fine.”
    Lottie grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer, as if she’d been waiting to do it since I walked in. She handed me a spoon and sat down next to me on my bed. I twisted the lid off and sunk my spoon in the cold, creamy goodness.
    “You’re getting good at that. Saying you’re fine when you’re not. You forget, I too am a Master of Fine.”
    I had forgotten.
    She took a deep breath. “After the accident, when Lexie was in the hospital, people would always ask me how she was doing. They didn’t want to know that she couldn’t remember who her parents were, or how old she was, or that she had to pee in a bed pan. So I got pretty damn good at saying she was doing fine. No one wanted to know those other things. They just want to be reassured. It’s like when you ask how someone is; you don’t really want to know, you just want them to say they’re fine and then you can move on. It’s a social courtesy. Like opening a door for someone or saying “bless you” when someone sneezes.”
    Sticking a giant spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, she shrugged.
    “So, how about you tell me how you’re actually doing and cut the crap?”
    “What do you want me to say? My dad is dead and I can’t accept it, and I’ve got a Ziploc bag with some of his ashes, which I stole, and sometimes I just wish I could fall asleep and not wake up. Is that what you wanted me to say?”
    I had to give her credit, she didn’t miss a beat.
    “You can say whatever you want as long as it’s the truth. You stole of some of his ashes?”
    “Yeah. I have no idea why. I thought maybe having them with me would help reality sink in, but no luck. I still have this huge part of me that expects him to walk in the door, or call me up, or something. How crazy is that?”
    “Not crazy at all. You’re talking to a girl who couldn’t accept that her best friend was never coming back.”
    “How is Lexie?” I took another huge bite of the ice cream, enough to give me a brain freeze.
    “She’s settled, I guess, and her mom’s been calling me with updates. I want to go down and see her, but Zan says it isn’t a good idea. I know it isn’t, but I miss her.”
    Yet another reminder that Lottie was a much better person than I was.
    “I mean, at least she’s alive. Wow, that sounded way better in my head than it did out loud. I am so sorry.”
    “It’s okay.” Our spoons collided and she moved hers so I could dip in again. “I just keep expecting myself to break, to have this great moment of realization, but I’m still waiting for it to hit me.”
    “Are you sure you want it to?”
    “No, I really don’t want it to, because then I’ll probably end up worse than Mom.”
    I gave Lottie a brief rundown of my Mom’s insanity.
    “Is she seeing someone? Like a counselor?”
    “I think Kayla is taking her to some sort of widow’s support group.”
    She paused for a second, digging in the ice cream for the best bite.
    “And you? Are you going to see someone?”
    The social worker at the hospital had sent us home with brochures and phone numbers of various places where we could get grief counseling. I could always go see Dr. Sandrich.
    There was one group especially for children who had lost one or both parents and Kayla wanted us to go together, but I was trying to talk her out of it. I couldn’t imagine talking to a roomful of strangers about my dad. And what would I say? That I couldn’t cry? I could just imagine their horrified faces.
    “Not right now. I just want to get back to things and go from there.”
    “It might help.”
    “Did it help