Chapter 5
KIRA
The Burrow Bitches
Kira: SOS. I’m bored at work.
Britney: you can come do my law school assignments instead
Macey: I’m packing for Florida!
Macey: …I realize this doesn’t help.
Ariadne: I’m right there with you, Kira.
The meeting dragged on, the clock ticking louder in my head than the monotonous hum of Riley’s voice. My boss was kind—a little dull, but I had no complaints. He was a fair leader who respected his employees.
I shifted in my chair, trying to offer him the same respect he always gave me, but my eyes kept flickering to the bottom right of my laptop screen—4:52 p.m. Eight more minutes, and I was free. Not that I had anything thrilling to do, but at least I could grab a latte and pretend today didn’t suck.
Riley was still talking about risk assessments, something about mortality rates. Or was it annuity tables? I stopped listening ten minutes ago.
I glanced around the conference room, noting the familiar faces: all of them older, mostly men, nodding along as if these numbers were their passion. I wondered if that was the case or if they were as checked out as I was.
Don’t get me wrong. I liked numbers. Numbers were reliable, methodical; they behaved according to my direction, unlike art, which had a mind of its own. Whenever I plugged numbers into an equation, I got exactly what I expected. Whenever I painted, I ended up with something unintended.
There was safety in numbers. It made sense why I had chosen them over art years ago. But no combination of numbers could solve the gap in my heart.
I sighed internally because any noise in this room felt like a betrayal to the attentiveness I tried to portray.
I wasn’t unhappy, exactly. The job was stable, the salary was good, and nobody was terrible to work with.
But the days felt like they melted into each other, a series of endless calculations and the same predictable conversations.
My friends used to tease me when I landed this position. “An actuary?” They’d laugh. “That’s the safest job ever. You’ll never get fired!”
It was a good thing, though. Job security.
My stomach rumbled softly, and I glanced down at my notepad, where I’d half-heartedly doodled geometric shapes in the margins. There were actual notes, too. I wasn’t completely irresponsible.
Riley wrapped up his monologue, and there was a moment of shuffling as everyone pretended they hadn’t been zoning out. “Thanks, everyone,” he said, voice as neutral as ever.
I was halfway out of my chair when he turned to me and commented, “Great work this week, Kira.” His curly mustache shifted when he smiled. Riley checked the watch on his wrist, an expensive Rolodex, and excused himself.
Great. Now I felt guilty for feeling bad.
I muttered a polite, “Thank you,” to nobody in particular as I filed out.
Downstairs, Britney sat behind the counter of the almost empty café. Her bright red hair was pulled into a high bun, a few strands hugging her heart-shaped face. When she spotted me, she set down her heavy textbook and sent me a kind smile.
“A little late for a chai latte, isn’t it?” Britney asked, but she was already reaching for the jar on the shelf.
“It’s been a long day,” I said, leaning against the counter while she prepared the drink in a to-go cup.
The floor-to-ceiling windows of the café let in the last glimpses of the sun we’d see today. I needed some sunshine and caffeine after spending half a day stuck in a presentation and the other half correcting Riley’s gross misuse of ellipses in his reports.
“You’re quiet today,” Britney stated as she handed me the chai.
To a social butterfly like Britney, my silence was unusual. I didn’t know how to explain to her that it was my default setting. Our friendship had taken time to grow because of it.
That was the thing extroverts never quite got: introverts weren’t quiet because we had nothing to say—we were quiet because we overthought everything.
Of course I came off as quiet. It took me ten minutes to think of something funny to contribute to a conversation, and by the time I worked up the nerve to say it, the moment had already passed.
But as I’d learned, friendship didn’t have to be built on sameness. Sometimes, it was the differences that made it work. I’d even argue they were what helped us become better versions of ourselves.
“Sorry.” I held the cup close to my chest. “Like I said, long day.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m guilty of under-appreciating quiet.”
There was something else there, too—a hint of an apology for her attitude during our last conversation, when I felt judged for the lack of a sex life between Xavier and me.
I reached over the counter to squeeze her hand. “That’s why we balance each other out.” The jingle of bells on the door indicated another customer’s presence, so I let go and stepped back. “Hopefully, they’re your last customer.”
“We close in a few minutes, so they better be,” Britney muttered under her breath, waving as I left.
There was one additional reason for the late latte, one that I didn’t want to get into with Britney right now. Every Friday at 5:15 p.m., like clockwork, my mother called. Usually, I didn’t require caffeine to handle Hana Park, but my anxiety had been through the roof recently.
Yes, I was aware that caffeine made anxiety worse. No, I didn’t care.
The sky had started bruising a deep indigo, and I attempted to hype myself up by downing half of my drink. I had only made it down the street when “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” started playing. The ringtone I’d linked to my mom years ago.
“Hi, Mom.” My earphones were in, so I dropped my phone in my purse.
“Kira, honey, it’s been too long.”
Without fail, my mother would say it’d been too long since we last spoke. Even though each week we had the same amount of time between phone calls.
“How’s Dad?”
Last month, Dad was diagnosed with arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeats.
He had described a flipping sensation in his chest for months, but it took a while before the proper diagnosis came in.
Fortunately, it was manageable, but it was effects like shortness of breath and dizziness that made it difficult to manage day-to-day tasks.
“He’s doing better,” Mom said. “This new medication is working well. He even went for a long walk around the neighborhood yesterday.”
Where Mom was the pushy, challenging force, Dad was the lackadaisical one, like the parent who promised to help you with your science fair project but ended up just holding the glue gun while you did everything else.
“Oh, good.” I turned a sharp corner, avoiding nearly colliding with someone. “I’m glad to hear that. Tell him I’ll come visit soon.”
I had grown up in Chicago, but a few months after my move to the college dorms, my parents had also decided to make a move of their own. All the way to Michigan. They’d been arguing over the best Great Lake ever since.
“Don’t worry, honey, we know you’re busy. But I’m sure he’d love that.” A new hunger for information oozed out of her tone. “How’s work? Did you get that promotion?”
One deep breath. Two sips of sugary goodness.
“Work is work. I’m under consideration for the promotion, but I won’t find out until the start of the new year.”
“That’s not a good sign, honey. If they wanted to promote you, they would.”
I shuddered. Not from the cold, but from the eerie likeness to the dating advice I often read: If he wanted to, he would. According to my mother, that also applied in the workplace.
“It’s all a formal process, Mom.”
“Well, maybe if you work a little harder and put in more hours, they will.”
I sucked in a breath in time with the next gust of wind. A part of me wanted to disagree, to explain to my mother that that wasn’t how the world worked anymore. But no matter how old I got or how much success I had, I found it was a bad idea to talk back to my parents like that.
You could put in tons of labor and extra hours at work, but your employer would still fire you if it benefited them.
You could put in tons of work and extra hours into a relationship, but your boyfriend would still leave if it benefited him.
Some people would say leave before you get left, but unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at the leaving part either.
“I’ll try,” I promised absentmindedly.
“They’d be fools not to promote you, honey.” There was a rustling of papers in the background, like Mom had just cracked open the book she wrote all the family recipes down in. “I have to go, but I’ll call you next week. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
The line waned before clicking off completely, and with it, so did my remaining energy.
After climbing three flights of stairs, I reached the apartment I shared with Macey. Sure, the floors creaked everywhere you stepped and the wallpaper was fading, but to me, it looked lived in. Like home.
A row of colorful rugs warmed my feet as I walked through the living room and into the kitchen.
Even though I liked my room, the kitchen was my favorite part of our apartment.
Open shelves that displayed our thrifted dishes, a fridge that looked like a rainbow, considering it was covered in sticky notes and postcards, and a dining nook perfect for two.
I wouldn’t be home long. Xavier and I had planned a date night.
We were going to have dinner at that tiny Italian place in Lincoln Park, the one with string lights on the patio and candlelit tables that made everything feel a little cinematic.
He’d even mentioned grabbing dessert after, something “spontaneous,” which usually meant overpriced gelato from that place he liked.
Maybe this was what I needed after a boring day at work, coupled with the weekly challenge of a phone conversation with Mom.