was always awkward. I just told them that I was Katie’s friend and let them make their own conclusions, which they were going to do anyway.
Katie’s phone buzzed with a message from Trish saying that they were waiting out front.
“Come with me.” I took her hand and led her through the living room as Mrs. Hallman yelled at someone about making sure the flowers had arrived at the funeral home.
There they were, all dressed in black, standing on the porch.
“What are you doing here?” Katie said. “I said you didn’t have to come.”
“Of course we had to come,” Audrey said coming forward and giving Katie a hug. Will and Lottie and Trish and Simon and Zan followed, each giving her a hug and their sympathies. I’d heard enough of them by now to know which were genuine and which weren’t. These were of the former.
“When are you coming back to school?” Trish said as we shivered on the porch. There wasn’t really enough room in the house, but I had an idea.
“Hey, why don’t we move this inside? We can go down to the basement.” Adam and I had consolidated a lot of the furniture and moved it around so we’d have a place to sleep, and we could probably fit down there.
I led them all through the house, and everyone gave us looks but no one asked any questions.
“Oh my God, it’s Hoarders, The Furniture Edition,” Lottie said when she saw it.
“Don’t talk about Hoarders,” Simon said, shuddering. I’d been right to invite them. Katie almost cracked a smile.
“Oh, sorry,” Lottie said. “I should be more respectful.”
“No, you should be however you want to be. Everyone’s been so damn respectful it makes me want to scream,” Katie said, sitting on the bed. “Be normal. I need some normal, because everything else isn’t normal.”
“I’ve got it,” Simon said, snapping his fingers. “Picnic game.” I remembered playing it while waiting outside Katie’s hospital room the night Zack attacked her. It seemed as good a plan as any, and Katie actually did smile. I could count on one hand the amount of smiles I’d seen from her in the past few days.
I put my arm around her and she leaned into me.
“Thank you, again,” she whispered. “I needed them.”
“I know,” I said as Simon started the game.
We played until it was time for everyone to go over to the funeral home. We’d all laughed and it had been like a completely normal thing, with the exception of everyone wearing black.
Katie relaxed a little and then tensed back up. I knew she was berating herself for laughing and having a good time on the day of her dad’s funeral. Like she wasn’t allowed to have fun anymore, which was so beyond wrong, but I couldn’t tell her that. She had to figure it out for herself. If there was anything I knew about Katie, it was that she had do things her own way.
In the back of my mind, the guilt for my drunken night with Ric hovered, keeping me up when I tried to sleep and whispering in my ear every time Katie looked at me like she was glad I was here, that she needed me.
I was going to help get her through this and then I’d have to pull myself out of her life. But for right now, I was going to help her get through the next few hours, the next few days, until she could do it on her own again.
Katie
The funeral was nice. The flowers were nice and everyone said nice things and smiled nice and cried nice and it was all nice, nice, nice.
I hated every second of it. All I wanted to do was push one of the windows open and jump, or pull the fire alarm, which was exactly in my line of vision. I wondered what my mother would have said if I’d have done it.
I wished Stryker could have sat with me, but he was stuck a row behind. As much as I was sick of people hugging me and consoling me and touching me, I wished my hand was in his for the service.
I snuck a few looks back at him and he gave me a little smile each time. At one point I heard a cough and glanced back to see him holding his hand over his mouth, and on the back of his hand was drawn, here 4 U.
Thank you, I mouthed at him and turned back around. Leave