CHAPTER 1
Kira stumbled down the steps of the old brown-stone apartment building, her stiletto heels catching on the broken bricks. Tugging on the hem of her silver minidress, she threw her purse over a shoulder and winced at the morning sunlight, just beginning to spill between the trees and buildings.
Another night, another guy, and now another dawn of a new day of doing the same old shit. It wasn’t that she didn’t find pleasure in spending most of her nights in the apartments of random men she’d met in bars or clubs, it was just always the same thing.
Pretend to care about the mundane job she barely held down, go home, eat dinner alone in her small kitchen, throw on some skimpy outfit, go to one of the handful of bars or clubs she frequented and meet a guy. Then go back to his place, slip out before he wakes up, go home, clean up, go to work, pretend to care. A never-ending cycle of mundane events.
It was a schedule she’d kept up for over a year. Ever since her break up with Marc. Handsome, funny, musician and trust-fund baby Marc. Marc was supposed to be her golden ticket, a fast pass out of her own lonely hell.
They met at a coffee shop and had been together for nearly two years. She was going to marry Marc and move upstate to his family’s big house. The one with the huge yard, big enough for a massive vegetable garden and chickens and solitude. But fate was a cruel bitch and that wasn’t how it happened.
Her heart had shattered when she’d found a text message from someone named Suz. Suz was Marc’s wife. They’d been married for five years. Suz already lived in that big house up state, with the yard and the fucking chickens.
When she found out, Kira had thrown everything that had even remotely belonged to or come from Marc out of the window of her tenth story apartment. She shattered the framed picture of the two of them in Atlantic City, wearing matching swimsuits and smiling like idiots, melted ice cream dripping down their arms.
She hurled his clothes down onto the concrete, flannels and band t-shirts scattered amongst the city’s filth and refuse. She even screamed as the glass box surrounding his precious signed baseball broke into a million pieces in the alley below. It was a very dramatic scene.
That night, the landlord came, handed Kira a broom and told her to clean up the alley on the side of the building. Once she had swept it all up and tossed it into the dumpster, he came by and helped her change the locks on her door.
Marc had shown up the next afternoon and banged on the door, finding that his key no longer worked, but she ignored him, blocked his number in her phone, and called the police. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since.
Kira walked a ways down the sidewalk; the apartment from last night wasn’t too far from her own and she was looking forward to a long, hot shower, and a cup of steaming coffee. A chill breeze whipped past and she wished she’d worn a sweater last night. But for now, she wrapped her arms around herself and trekked home in her five inch heels.
CHAPTER 2
“Hey Kira, going out tonight?” said a chipper voice from the other side of her cubicle wall.
“Yeah, Mary, probably.” Kira’s own voice was dull and emotionless.
A bright face popped up over the fabric covered wall, tan skin and dark brown hair catching Kira’s attention. Mary’s face was full of concern, her big brown eyes wide.
“Are you still sleeping around? You really should meet my cousin, Jorge. You’d really like him.” Her pleading eyes sparkled with excitement. “I can set up a meeting this weekend. I’ll bring Antonio and it can be a double date! Name the time and the place and we’ll be there!”
“I don’t want to meet your cousin, Mary. I’m done with relationships. I’m perfectly happy to fuck them and leave, thank you very much.” Kira threw a wadded up post-it note at Mary and she ducked to avoid it.
“Fine, whatever.” The bright face disappeared over the gray wall with a frustrated sigh and Kira went back to typing.
The phone next to Kira’s keyboard rang. She answered it and a strong, measured female voice on the other end of the line spoke, “Kira, my office, now please.”
“Yes, Maggie, I’ll be right there.” Kira replied.
She walked up to the glass-walled office and found the door open and Maggie Crenshaw sitting behind a large mahogany desk. Kira’s boss was still rather striking for her age. In her mid-fifties, but in great shape, long blonde hair, and fake tits that made Kira’s look more like deflated water balloons. Her face was solemn and her lips were pressed together in a thin line. Maybe time for more filler, Kira thought.
“You wanted to see me?” Kira asked from the doorway.
“Yes, shut the door, have a seat.” Maggie motioned for Kira to sit in one of the leather armchairs across the desk. Kira tried to shut the large glass door as carefully and quietly as possible and then gently placed her ass on the edge of one of the armchairs. She put her hands in her lap and fiddled with the hem of her black pencil skirt. Her eyes looked past Maggie to the skyline outside.
“Kira,” Maggie began, “You’ve been here for almost two years now and to be frank, we’ve not seen much change in your performance. For a while there, I really thought you were going places, but now, I’m not so sure.” She knitted her brows and gave Kira an almost sympathetic look.
“I can do better. It’s just, well you know it’s been hard for me since…” Kira realized she was defending herself and started to trail off.
Maggie picked up her thought, “It’s been over a year since your break up, Kira. You can’t use that as an excuse any longer. I hate to be the one to do this, but I’ve been instructed by upper management to cut out some overhead.” She shuffled some papers on the desk. “We’re going to have to let you go, Kira.”
Kira’s jaw fell open, but there were no words. There were no thoughts in her head either. She knew she should be upset, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel it, to feel anything really. She lowered her eyes to her lap.
“I understand,” was all she could say.
Maggie attempted to soften her face again, but it didn’t really work. Kira assumed the botox injections wouldn’t allow her muscles to even shift. “I’m sorry, Kira. You have until the end of the day to gather your personal belongings. Pete from HR will be down shortly to explain everything else.”
Kira rose from the chair and thanked her boss for formality’s sake only. As she turned to head out the door, she paused momentarily when Maggie spoke again, “Kira, sometimes when we’re put in a difficult situation, we must make our own happiness. Good luck.”
She scoffed to herself as she walked down the hall. What did Maggie Crenshaw know about happiness? Probably everything, Kira answered herself.
When she got to her desk, she saw Pete had already left an empty printer paper box and an envelope of paperwork with a yellow sticky note that read Sorry I couldn’t deliver this to you in person. I had a meeting. Good luck, Kira.
Cool. Very fucking cool, she thought as she packed up a few pictures and trinkets from her cubicle. She placed the picture of her mom gently into the box and thought about how if she’d been alive, she would have told Kira it was just a job and that she’d get another one before she knew it. To keep her chin up or some inspirational shit.
Her mom had always been like that, sunshine and goodness. Kira assumed she got her stormy disposition from her dad, though she’d never even met the asshole. It was quite possible he didn’t even know she existed. Her mom always skirted the subject when asked, and hadn’t told her who he was before she’d slammed into a tree on a ski slope in the Catskills.
She was grateful that Mary was not at her desk when she left and even more grateful that leaving work around three o’clock meant the train was mostly empty. She was able to get a seat for the ride home which made lugging the box full of crap a lot easier.
CHAPTER 3
“FUCK!” Kira screamed as she hurled a bottle of shampoo at the tile wall and sunk lower into the bath. A dull knock sounded on the other side of the wall behind her.
“Y’alright, Kira?” A man’s voice with a thick rural accent sounded through the wall.
“I’m fine, Wally!” She shouted in response. “Just a bad day.”
She sank down into the water again, and seriously contemplated going to get the toaster, but she didn’t want to get water all over the apartment, and figured Wally and the other residents probably wouldn’t appreciate it if she blew the breaker. So she just pulled the wine bottle off the side of the tub and drank deeply from it.
She soaked in the tub until the water was cold, her fingertips were pruny, and the bottle of cheap red wine was empty. When she finally emerged into her bedroom, the little digital clock on her bedside table showed it was just past 6 o’clock. Perfect timing, she thought as she moved into the small kitchen to throw some salad into a bowl.
Drowning the lettuce in ranch dressing, she chucked in a handful of cherry tomatoes and proceeded to sit on the worn, cream loveseat in the cozy living room, and turn on the tv. She flipped through channels as she ate; there was never anything worth watching.
A striking man with brown hair and sharp blue eyes snagged her attention enough to pause her channel surfing. He was too old for her, almost old enough to be her father, but he was handsome nonetheless, even though his hair was slicked back with too much gel.
Then he opened his mouth, “Matthew tells us more in chapter thirteen, verse fifty. He says “The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth””.
Kira quickly turned off the TV and made a face at the screen. “Gross. The Christian channel. Why are all the attractive ones actually monsters?” she asked into the empty apartment.
Dishes were tossed into the sink and she headed back into the bedroom to get dressed. She rummaged through her closet and pulled out every slinky dress she owned. Maybe the salad had been in the fridge too long. Maybe it was just the frustration from the day, but when she thought about squeezing her curves into one of those dresses, she cringed.
So she opted for ripped black jeans and a hot pink sweater that showed off her cleavage. Maybe a quiet night was exactly what she needed. Maybe she’d even try this whole sleeping alone business.
Kira sat down at her vanity and started to apply her makeup. It was second nature by now, concealer under her eyes, light foundation, mascara, and a little blush.. Just enough to cover the imperfections only she could see, but not enough to cover the dusting of freckles across her cheeks that she loved.
She sat and stared into the mirror for several minutes, drowning in thoughts. What was she going to do for money? She’d have to update her resume and that was always a pain in the ass.
She poked a fingertip at a little crease next to her eye. Great. A wrinkle. She supposed it was about time. She would be thirty-two in July and assumed the late nights and excessive drinking probably didn’t help. She made a conscious decision to ignore it, to ignore everything, and pulled her long brown hair into a high ponytail.
As Kira walked down the sidewalk to a bar she knew would be mostly empty on a Thursday, she tried in vain to distract her thoughts from what a load of garbage she felt like she’d become.
Most of her friends were married and had kids. She was the only one still in the city and still living this life. Maybe Mary was right, maybe it was time to settle down. Maybe tonight wasn’t the night to think about that.
But she was still thinking about it when the bartender said her name for the second time. “Oi, Kira! What are you having, love?”
“Shit! Ben, I’m so sorry. It’s been one hell of a day,” she said, tossing her hands up in exasperation. “I’ll have a whisky on the rocks. Better make it a double.”
Ben was nice, not a friend, per say, but he was always nice to Kira in the way that bartenders are always nice to their regulars. And she liked his Liverpuddlian accent. Too bad he already had a wife and three effing kids!
Drink in hand, she was content to sit at the bar, sip her whisky, and stare at Ben’s ass in his tight jeans. A soccer match playing on the TV behind the bar kept her attention when Ben was out of her line of sight.
“Hey. Kira?” A male voice sounded from behind her. She spun around on the barstool to see a tall, blonde man in his mid-thirties standing there, his plain white t-shirt stretched thin over his broad and sculpted chest.
He looked at her and smiled, mouth full of perfectly straight teeth. “I thought that was you! I haven’t seen you around in a while. How are you?”
Kira rifled through the pages of her mental black book. She couldn’t for the life of her remember his name. His cock on the other hand? That she remembered. She almost always remembered the sex, and she remembered he was pretty good. She attempted a smile that probably looked more like a grimace. “Hey, um…”
“Keith, remember? We met here before. It’s been a few months though.” He looked into his pint glass. “You, uh, never returned any of my texts.”
“Duh! Keith, of course I remember you!” She mockingly slapped herself in the forehead. “Sorry about the texts,” she lied. “It’s just been so busy with work and family and… well you know how it is”.
“Yeah sure, I do. How is your job? Going well?” he asked.
Kira tipped back her lowball and swallowed the last of the amber liquid. “Actually, I was let go today.”
“Oh shit! I’m so sorry, Kira.” He shuffled on to the stool next to her and waved down Ben. “Let me get you another drink. Hey Ben, can I get another for Kira?”
“Double again, love?” Ben raised an eyebrow at her.
“Yeah sure, why not?” Kira said, trying to sound like she wasn’t falling apart inside.
“Well, other than that bullshit, which, honestly, fuck em. How are you?” He was still smiling that too straight, too white smile.
“Fine,” she lied again. “Same as always,” that part was true. “What about you? Anything exciting going on?”
His face lit up. Men always liked to talk about themselves. Kira learned this at a young age and continued to use it to her advantage whenever she could.
“The firm made me a partner last month. So that’s been great. Busy as fuck, but great for my bank account.” He laughed.
Kira only had to slightly force herself to chuckle. She was surprised at how quickly she found herself enjoying a light and easy conversation with Keith. He was sweet and a little funny. He looked like a jock, but he was a lawyer, so she figured he must be smart.
She found herself thinking that Keith might actually be a catch, and one worth casting her line into the water for, especially if his bank account situation was what he said it was.
Her mother had done something similar when Kira was twelve. She’d met Jarrod at one of her gallery openings. He was rich and handsome and rich. He bought three of Kira’s mother’s paintings that night and honestly, had probably fucked her that night too.
They were married within six months and had remained so until her mother smashed into that tree. After that though, he’d set Kira up with a decent apartment in Brooklyn, a little money, and that was it. She never heard from him again. That was nearly ten years ago.
After several drinks, Keith got that look in his eyes that Kira knew all too well. Bedroom eyes, she called it.
“Want to go back to my place?” he said, looking at her under his brows before dipping his eyes down to her chest. Yes, she did want to go back to his place, and with no work tomorrow, maybe she’d just stay there, forever. Problem solved.
They left the bar together and walked out into the crisp autumn night. As they stood on the corner, waiting for the light to change, Keith put the palm of his hand on her ass and squeezed.
Squealing, Kira turned to see him grinning like a cat and flirtatiously smacked his chest. Jesus Christ! It was solid muscle. She was very much looking forward to taking off that t-shirt later and kissing every inch of his chest.
The walk symbol appeared and he pulled his hand back to himself, leaned down and whispered in her ear, “oh we’re gonna have fun tonight, Kira.” Then he took off running across the street.
“Hey!” she shouted across the crosswalk. “Wait for me!”
She was running across the street as he reached the other side and smiled. God, he was fucking perfect, she thought.
The heel of her stiletto caught on something in the concrete and her ankle twisted unnaturally as the heel snapped and broke clean away from the shoe. “Shit!” she cursed and in an instant Keith was running back to her.
But it was too late. A sports car barrelled down the street, driving too fast and recklessly. As she bent down to remove her shoe, she heard the squealing of the brakes, the screech of the tires, even the gasps and shouts of people around them, but she didn’t feel the impact. It just happened.
She felt the sensation of floating in a pool, and when she looked down, she saw her mangled body sprawled out on the crosswalk. Her left leg was twisted at a disturbing angle and her face stared up at the night sky, blood leaking from her nose. She watched as Keith and others rushed to her side.
Keith collapsed to his knees beside her. He picked up her wrist and someone in the gathering crowd shouted “call 911!”. He placed two fingers along the blue vein in her wrist, then angled his ear to her mouth. He sat back on his heels and shook his head.
Keith rose painfully slowly to his feet and turned to a woman next to him, “I think she’s dead.”
Within minutes, paramedics arrived on the scene and pushed Keith and the other on-lookers out of the way. They pushed hard on Kira’s chest. They tried to force air into her lungs. For a split second, Kira felt a gentle pull back toward her body, but she looked once more at the surrounding scene and fought against that tug.
She watched as one of the medics picked her up carefully and laid her onto a stretcher. Another draped a white sheet over her disjointed body. They loaded the stretcher into the back of an ambulance.
She dragged her gaze across the crowd, saw Keith with tears streaming down his handsome face. Saw a woman in a headscarf utter a prayer, and another cross herself.
One of the medics took Keith aside and started asking questions. Kira wanted to hear his answers, but something new was tugging at her, stronger than before, like a rope tied around her waist.
Something was pulling her away, into darkness. “Well,” she thought, “that’s not how I expected the night to go.” And then, she was gone, swallowed by the silent dark.