“Okay, I’m going to stop that crazy thought train right now. You’re not a sociopath.” That was the word for it. Stryker made a noise in his sleep and turned over, but didn’t wake up. Adam was softly snoring.
“You’re just dealing with it in your own way, and that’s okay.”
“That’s the thing, Kayla. I’m not dealing with it. I still feel like this is one big sick joke, or that this is somehow not true. Because it can’t be true. It just can’t. Other people lose their fathers when they’re my age. Things like this don’t happen to us. They happen to other people.”
Kayla was quiet for a long time.
“It feels that way for me too.”
Oh.
Stryker rolled again and his green eyes popped open, frantically searching for something until he found my face.
“Are you okay?”
“Go back to sleep,” I said, not answering the question. He got up from the floor and sat back in the chair. He looked like shit, which meant that I probably looked worse.
“Can I get you anything? I’m up now.” It was a lie because he yawned a moment later.
“No, I’m fine.”
“That’s such a load of shit,” Kayla said, laughing a little. “We are so not fine.”
“I know,” I said, and we both laughed like it was the funniest thing ever. We woke Adam up and he looked at Stryker, who shrugged.
“Everyone has their own way to deal,” he said.
***
My mother seemed to have flipped a switch while she was sleeping and the next few days she didn’t stop. If she wasn’t organizing Dad’s service or fielding sympathy calls and cards and flowers and casseroles, she was cleaning or picking out clothes for us to wear to the service or meeting with Dad’s lawyer.
She was so busy she didn’t even have time to notice that Stryker was still here and that we hadn’t spent a night apart.
Sex was the furthest thing from both of our minds (or at least from his, I supposed), but that didn’t mean we didn’t sleep in the same room. I was never far from him as Mom fluttered around and relatives came and went and I tried to figure out what my life meant without my dad in it.
I was definitely still in denial. I still hadn’t really cried since that one time at the hospital.
Everyone said that it was okay, but seriously, it wasn’t. I also still couldn’t go into my parents’ room. Mom had cleaned and scrubbed the rest of the house, but she hadn’t touched his stuff. Guess I wasn’t the only one in denial.
I tried to call and talk to Lottie, but she ended up rambling and then crying and apologizing so much that I told her I had to go, and from then on Stryker kept my phone and was responsible for calling everyone and giving them updates.
I knew he was missing his classes, but he told me not to worry about it, so I didn’t. I had enough things to worry about.
Chapter Twenty
Stryker
Mr. Hallman’s funeral was less than a week after he’d died. Mrs. Hallman had turned into a woman possessed, as if the funeral was some sort of grand event, like a wedding, or a terribly important party. I just kept Katie out of the fray and tried to be invisible, but Mrs. Hallman barely noticed I was there.
I helped Katie zip up the back of her dress in her room, which she hadn’t slept in since she’d come home. We usually ended up in the basement, snatching sleep whenever.
“How do I look?” She was gorgeous, even in her sadness.
“Beautiful.” I kissed her shoulder and she turned slowly. I’d barely kissed her since we’d gotten back from the hospital and it wasn’t just because it didn’t seem like the right thing to do in light of her father’s death.
I didn’t deserve to kiss her; not after what I’d done with Ric. In a stupid way, I thought that she might find out, if she kissed me. Like the truth would be written on my lips.
“You ready?” Katie didn’t know it, but everyone was coming down for the funeral. I’d organized what Trish had dubbed the “Grief Committee” when she’d come down to bring me some clothes a few days ago. I told them not to go overboard, but I had no idea what to expect.
The house was full of people. Lots of relatives and friends that I’d become acquainted with. They all gave me strange looks until I explained who I was, which