Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
KIARA
“You know, you’re really starting to piss me off, girl,” Yolanda says on the phone later. Zyran is downstairs getting some work done while I’m sitting at my desk on my lunch break. I’m tempted to lie to my boss about being sick so I can clock out for the rest of the day. I just want to be with Zyran.
I sigh and lean back in my desk chair. “I’m sorry, Yo. No one is more frustrated and confused about all of this than me.”
“Why won’t you just leave him?” she asks sharply.
Isn’t that my life’s greatest mystery?
I’m silent for a moment, thinking of all the reasons I won’t.
“I don’t know. I just… can’t ,” I say pathetically, rubbing my forehead.
Yolanda sighs heavily into the phone, and I swear I can feel her disappointment. I certainly hear it when she says, “You’re really letting me down, Kiara. I can’t do this anymore.”
I shoot up in my chair so fast it rolls back on the hardwood floors. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that your… whatever it is that you have with Zyran, is stressing me the fuck out. Do you know how hard it is to keep my knowledge of his various crimes a secret? There’s a manhunt going on as we speak because the police think whoever killed Anthony and his friends is the same person who murdered Malcolm and Ahmad. And guess what? They’re right! ”
“Listen, I know this is hard on you—” I start, but Yo cuts me off.
“No. There’s no world in which you understand the mental stress I’m dealing with because nothing exists outside of Zyran,” she sneers disgustedly.
A part of me wants to snap back at her for talking about Zyran like that, but she’s not wrong about anything she’s saying. I’ve been so absorbed in him that I’ve pretty much given up all of my common sense. My whole world revolves around him, and I’m powerless to change it.
I can’t think of anything else to say except, “I’m sorry.”
Yolanda just scoffs. “Yeah, you sure are.”
And then she hangs up.