Faster We Burn

flowered couch, a pile of used tissues all around her like giant snotty snowflakes.
    “Hey, Trish,” I said, going over to her and crouching down. “How you holding up?”
    “Where the hell have you been?” It was a little hard for her to glare through puffy eyes, but she managed.
    “Katie and I just took a walk.” It would be weird to try to explain the art gallery interlude. “Are you going to be okay?”
    “No, I’m not going to be okay. She died, Stryker. She died .”
    “I know, I know.” Trish and I weren’t huggers, but I put my arms around her anyway and pulled her head onto my shoulder. Sobs shook her body and she melted into me.
    I heard Audrey and Katie whispering behind me, catching each other up.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” I said.
    “What’s there to talk about? She’s dead. Just like that. Here one minute and gone the next. Just like Katie’s dad. Why do these things happen?”
    I rubbed her back. “I don’t know, Trish. I don’t know.”
    That was a lie. I knew why Ric had died. She’d died because of me. Because I should have taken her home, or stayed up and watched her, or maybe I shouldn’t have been such a world class asshole.
    But I kept my mouth shut and just held my little sister while she fell apart.
    “Are you sure it’s okay to miss class?” Katie said to Audrey.
    “Yeah, my professors have been cutting me a lot of slack. It pays to be the teacher’s pet sometimes.”
    “I bet. How do I get in on that?”
    “I could teach you.” They laughed a little and then went to the kitchen, giving us some privacy.
    “Have you talked to anyone else?”
    She nodded against my shoulder.
    “Baxter is at her place with her mom.” Ric’s backstory was just about as tragic as Trish’s and mine. Dad split, mom married a bunch of jerks and never really cared about her. She dropped out of high school and moved in with whoever would take her, as long as she was out of her mom’s house. She worked whatever jobs she could get and barely scraped by. She and Trish had been a lot closer a few years ago, but they’d drifted apart when Ric had started partying really hard. Trish might look like a girl who’s seen some hard living, but I kept her away from a lot of it, even while I engaged in it myself.
    “It could have been anyone, Stryker. She was just driving home and it killed her. It could have been us.”
    “But it wasn’t. You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re going to be okay.”
    Her voice broke again and she convulsed with sobs.
    When it came to losing people, Trish and I were pros, but none of them had ever died. Our parents, as horrible as they might have been, were still alive out there, and so were the rest of our relatives. Trish and I had had our fair share of hardships, but death was something that had, by and large, passed us by.
    I held her for a long time as I heard Katie and Audrey in the small kitchen. They tried to be quiet, but there was plenty of banging around until they came out with a tray of soup and some grilled cheese sandwiches.
    “You should eat something,” I said, moving Trish’s head. It was strange to see her normal greenish-bluish eyes instead of the violet ones.
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “Well that’s too bad because you’re going to eat anyway if I have to shove it down your throat.” One of the only things that worked with Trish was tough love. Guess I wasn’t the only one.
    “Bite me,” she said, so I nipped her shoulder.
    “Don’t make me be mean.”
    “You’re already mean.”
    “Meaner.”
    Katie and Audrey watched us as if we were interesting animals in a zoo. Tender moments between Trish and me were just about as rare as they came.
    I held half of a sandwich out to her and she took a bite.
    “That’s my girl.”
    I let her eat the rest of it herself as Audrey and Katie cleaned up some of the tissue mess.
    “You guys can go if you want,” I said once she was digging into the soup. “I got this.”
    “No way,” Katie said. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you wanted to.”
    “Same here. Even though it means I’m missing the review for a test. I don’t care,” Audrey chimed in.
    Missing something like that was a huge deal to her, and I knew how much it meant.
    I had nothing to say but, “Thanks.”
    Even though I didn’t deserve it, Trish did.
    We finally convinced Trish to come and stay with me, but first Audrey got her in the shower and said she’d bring her over later. It was a subtle way to give