“No, Kennedy, he’s cheating on me. I know he is, he’s not trying to be secretive about it.” Her eyes welled up again, but she spoke through the tears. “Well, I don’t even know if you can consider it cheating anymore. He broke up with me a week ago.”
I was too shocked to even know how to respond to what she’d just told me, but now I understood why she thought I would have a celebration with our parents. Kira had been the only person in our family to actually like Zane.
“I knew this would happen,” she muttered. “As soon as Dad told me that we needed to leave for California, I knew.”
“You couldn’t have known, I mean . . .” I drifted off, once again not knowing what to say. “How could you know he would do something like this?”
“Because I wouldn’t be around to keep him interested anymore.”
“That’s bullshit, Kira. Keep him interested? You’ve been together for years! If anything, the distance should have made your relationship stronger . . . isn’t that what they say? Distance makes the heart . . . I don’t know. Whatever that stupid saying says?”
“Grow fonder,” she finished for me on a huff. “Not with Zane. He needs . . . well, he needs to have someone within reach. Someone he can touch. Someone to satisfy him when he wants it. That’s the only reason he went to the same college with us. I practically bribed him into going there.”
“What? I thought he was just following you to be with you.”
Kira shook her head. “That’s why I was always near him in Florida, I was afraid he’d lose interest if I wasn’t around.”
“Why the fuck would you stay with him? And why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because we were in love! Because I still love him!” she shot back defensively.
“That is not love, Kira, that’s—I don’t even know what that is. He was just using you to get laid whenever he felt like it!”
“That’s not true!”
“It’s not?” I asked incredulously. “You knew the second you found out you had to move away that he would cheat on you. You weren’t in love with him, you were scared of being alone!”
Kira sat up and stared down at me. “Oh, and suddenly you’re the love expert? You don’t even believe in love, Kennedy! You think it’s something people have made up to trick other people into marrying them. But then again, I guess you would know all about that, now, wouldn’t you? You would run screaming in the opposite direction now if anyone ever mentioned the idea of loving you. And why is that? Because of some bullshit relationship that you won’t even talk about anymore?”
I sat there in shock for a moment, then slid off the bed. Grabbing my shoes, I walked toward the door. “Fuck you, Kira.” Just before I was out of her room, I stopped, but didn’t turn to look at her. “Get ready for work and cheer up. I’m not going to cover for you again because you’re too upset to leave your room. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s tired of watching you bitch and complain over Zane—especially if it’s been over for him since we moved here. It’s been long enough, you need to get over it—you’re starting to look pathetic.”
I ignored her next screams, just went to my bathroom and took a quick shower to rinse off. A feeling close to panic mixed with a deep sorrow filled me as I slowly got ready for work, and by the time I was ready and we were leaving, it was consuming me.
Kira and I didn’t talk on the way to the gym, or after we were there. I knew I’d been harsh, and I should have been more caring about how upset she was, but I didn’t know how to be. Not now that I knew the real reason she was so obsessed with her relationship with Zane, not when she’d known about his cheating for months and hadn’t even been blindsided by it, and not when she’d kept something like that from me for years.
I wanted to apologize to her, but knew I wouldn’t because I was being childish. I was mad that she’d purposely used something against me to hurt me simply because she was hurting.
And, unfortunately for me, she was right. I didn’t believe in love anymore, and her words had me on the edge of panicking over my situation with Liam. I’d pushed him away for so many reasons in the beginning. Being afraid of getting involved with someone, afraid of the way I easily lost all control around him, and afraid of the way I couldn’t stay away from him. But now, after I’d finally given in to him, Kira’s words had slapped me with the reality of what I was doing—and now I didn’t know how to let the relationship continue when all I could remember was why I’d built walls between us in the first place.