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didn’t get my wish of not pressing charges on Zack. My parents came and Mom got hysterical all over me.
    Everyone from my dad to Lottie to Zan to Stryker blamed themselves. If the blame could be baked into bread, we could have fed the world.
    It took every ounce of restraint I had to not scream at all of them and say that it wasn’t their fault. I was the one who had made the decision to see Zack when I knew I shouldn’t have.
    My parents fought on the way home from the hospital the next morning. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t have a choice. Coming home used to feel comforting, like I was finally in a safe place, but all I wanted when we pulled into the driveway was to go back to school and watch Law and Order and eat ice cream with the girls.
    Mom fussed over me, getting me settled on the couch with a bowl of soup, as if I was five again and had a cold. It took Dad yelling at her before she would move even a few feet away from me. I wished Kayla, my sister, was home, but she was off saving starving orphans in Africa and only had contact with us via an email once a week. She was Mom and Dad’s golden child and I was the baby who couldn’t get anything right.
    “Gina, let her be.” Dad always found a way to get Mom to chill out. Eventually. It was going to take a lot of effort on his part this time, though. When it came to Mom, there was only one person who knew how to stop her from pushing the panic button and that was Dad. They were perfectly suited for one another, as weird as that was.
    They took their fight to the kitchen and I stole a moment to call Lottie and give her an update, but she wasn’t the only one I needed to talk to. I shifted on the couch, the movement giving me a twinge of pain. The nurses said I was lucky that I didn’t have any internal bleeding. Yeah, lucky was the right word. Fucking stupid was more accurate.
    I needed to talk to Stryker, and not just to tell him he was right. I just…I needed to talk to him.
    “Hey, are you okay?” Stryker said after Lottie handed him the phone. I heard him walking and then a door closed.
    “You’re not supposed to ask me that,” I said.
    “Katie.”
    “You were right. Is that what you wanted to hear?” I curled my feet up under the blanket.
    “I didn’t want to be right like this. I never wanted this to happen to you. If he wasn’t in jail I would have killed him myself. Or at least maimed him so he would have to crawl through the rest of his life. I still could. I’ve beat the shit out of more than one asshole in my life, although I think Zack deserves his own category.”
    “You don’t have to do that.”
    “Do what?”
    “Be all mad at him for me. Be mad at me for being an idiot.”
    He sighed heavily. “I’m not mad at you, Katie.”
    I heard Mom’s voice coming back from the kitchen. Probably bringing me a plate of cookies or something.
    “Look, I have to go, but I’m coming back on Monday. Bye,” I whispered before I shoved my phone under the blanket.
    “Who were you talking to?” Yes, it was a plate of cookies, but store bought. She hadn’t had time to make her traditional crisis oatmeal cookies. She held the plate out to me, but I shook my head.
    “Lottie. She wanted to know when I was coming back.”
    Mom pursed her lips and sat down on the edge of the couch.
    “Maybe you shouldn’t go back for a while.”
    “Gina,” Dad snapped from the kitchen. “Let her be.”
    Mom glared at him. “Don’t tell me what to do, Glenn.” Didn’t that sound familiar?
    I put my hand on my head. Where the hell was that pain medication? “Please, can you just leave me alone? I’m tired.”
    Mom started to protest, but when I closed my eyes, she sighed and got up.
    “Let me know if you need anything, okay baby?” she said, kissing the un-scratched part of my forehead.
    “I will. Thanks, Mom.” I watched as she went back into the kitchen and I scrunched back down on the couch.
    “It’s okay,” I heard Dad say.
    She sighed.