Page 53 of Heartbeats and Hashtags
“Kirra, let me explain,” I try calmly despite my heart hammering.
“Explain how you betrayed me? Lured me here towhat, have me hauled off to jail?” She lets out a high, broken laugh edging toward a shriek. “I loved you, Everly!”
Just then Cole enters, cautious but ready to intervene. Kirra doesn't seem to register him, trapped in her spiraling.
“I loved you, and you do this?” she repeats it like a desolate mantra. “I just wanted you to love me back. Why couldn't you love me too?”
I shudder, inching away. Sensing my fear, Kirra's eyes narrow.
“You don't get to run from me! From us!” She goes to move forward, but Cole's imposing form emerges, placing his body in front of mine like a shield.
I grasp Cole's forearm, struck by lingering questions despite my bone-deep exhaustion.
“Wait, I need to ask her something before this ends forever.”
Cole searches my face, hesitating. “She's unstable, Ev. Unpredictable. Let the authorities handle this from here.”
I set my jaw stubbornly. “Please, I just have to understand...”
Cole searches my eyes for a moment before nodding reluctantly.
“I’ll wait in the corner.”
Kirra shuffles toward me, arms wrapped around her frame. She won't meet my eyes.
I take a deep breath. “You left a knife in my mailbox, Kirra. You – you cut off the head of a teddy bear that looked like me? What we’re you thinking?” I whisper.
Kirra shakes her head jerkily. “You’ve got it all wrong. You loved me too, Ev. Before those friends…” she spits the word out of her mouth. “…of yours started encouraging you to date again, we werethisclose to being together. I could feel it. EvBear is mine. I found her in a shop, and she lookedjustlike you.”
She finally looks up, bitterness in her eyes. “Seemed meant to be. My chance to keep a part of you.”
I don’t know what else to say. Revulsion and pity churn sickly inside me. We stare at one another — two strangers now with an unbridgeable abyss stretched wide between us. I press my palms together to keep from shaking, desperate to regain some scrap of power she stripped away.
I look over to Cole, fists clenched in the corner and give him a small nod. I’m done.
Kirra sways dangerously, fueled by anguish. She grabs a lamp as if brandishing a weapon. Cole is beside her instantly, gently prying away the lamp. At his touch, the frenzy combusting inside Kirra sputters out. She sags like a marionette with snipped strings.
“I never meant to hurt you. I swear!” Kirra cries out as police flood the room and start pushing her to the floor to detain her. “I just wanted you to admit that you love me...”
She repeats this brokenly like a forsaken prayer. As they lead Kirra away, her anguished eyes cling to me still seeking impossible absolution.
The door clicks closed, leaving in its wake hollow silence. As delayed shock settles leaden in my veins, the tears I've held back suddenly crest.
Great heaving sobs overtake my exhausted frame. I fold inward under the crushing weight of it all. But just before I collapse to the unforgiving floor, strong arms envelop me.
Through blurred vision, I see Cole's sturdy shadow, anguish carved deeply across his handsome face mirroring my own. Yet he cradles me with infinite care against the dependable breadth of his chest as violent cries wrack through me. My heart feels broken, like it might rip out of my chest any moment.
Cole smooths back sweat-soaked hair from my temples, murmuring wordless comfort.
For endless grasping minutes, he just holds me close while I purged agonized tears. Wave after wave crashes as this tower of false strength finishes crumbling at long last.
Somehow in the aftermath of so much destruction, wrapped in Cole's sheltering care, I feel the first tender shoots of something whole emerging tentatively from the rubble.
* *. *
In the aftermath,I've replayed so many of my conversations with Kirra, seeing them now through the lens of her confession. So many comments take on new meaning — her constantly gushing about how beautiful I looked in casual moments when I felt anything but glamorous, the thoughtful little gifts that I thought were just her being a great assistant.
Even the night she insisted on coming to my awards gala as part of her job, even though it meant splashing extravagantly out of her budget for a dress — at the time, I just thought she was starstruck by the glitz and glamour. But looking back, the devotion in her eyes when she looked at me that night tells a different story. The signs were there, but I was oblivious.
