Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
I’ll never stop being grateful to her for letting me stay here after Dad’s death.
But that doesn’t mean I feel at ease here, even after four years of these gold-gilded doors sliding open to reveal a long marble hallway decorated with abstract art on each wall. Blocks of vibrant colors, jagged triangles of flaring red and orange, and dozens of other configurations that lead me down the hallway and into the open plan living room and kitchen.
Her apartment is an ultra modern loft style palace. With faux fur rugs lining the floors and floor to ceiling windows looking down upon the city, it feels like somewhere I’d only ever get to visit online or as some sort of special field trip. An untouched piano sits in one corner, and the TV is about seventy inches, a huge thing mounted onto the wall. A fish tank is set into another wall, tropical fish drifting here and there in every color of the rainbow.
Yasmin is sitting on the sleek obsidian kitchen island, legs dangling casually. The black of the kitchen island contrasts sharply with the white of the marble floor, creating a sort of chessboard décor.
Yasmin glances up at me and then back to her camera, mounted on the opposite kitchen counter. She smiles and pulls a variety of poses as I drag my work heavy body into the living room and drop down onto the leather couch.
Yasmin wanders over a minute later, looking devastatingly beautiful in her wet-look leggings and her leopard print tank top. Yasmin has the sort of body that most women would kill for, shaped by hours at the gym and a diet to match, every contour sculpted to perfection.
Even if she’s my surrogate sister and my best friend and my onetime mentor, I still find it hard to look at her for long, like the sun, because she’s too damn bright. It’s hard not to think of my curvy physique, my penchant for sweet things, and the baggy clothes I purposefully choose to hide my shapeliness.
She sits down next to me, casually pulling her jet black hair into a ponytail and tying it up.
“Sorry about that,” she says. “You know what I’m like.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “If I got mad at you every time you ignored me so you could take a thousand pictures for Instagram, I don’t think we could be friends, Yas.”
“Fair,” she giggles. “But I’m here now. I’m present. So why don’t you tell me why the fuck you’re still working as a waitress when I’ve already told you that you don’t have to work at all?”
I sigh, rolling my eyes. “This again?”
“Yes,” she snaps. “This again. I understand that you don’t want anything handed to you. And I respect that. But I just don’t see why you’d force yourself to endure that when you could be working on your writing full-time … instead of coming home from a job you hate too tired to do something you love. Tell me that doesn’t make sense. Especially now, with this creep following you, whoever he is.”
I turn to her, looking into her kind pleading pale blue eyes.
“Yas, what you’re saying makes sense. I get it. But every time I think about taking you up on that offer, all I see is Dad’s face and all I hear is that freaking speech he gave me every single week of his life before he passed. All he talked about was hard work, about never taking handouts … and I’ve already failed at that by living here, and—”
I bite down, tears budding in my eyes and a sob trying to twist my words in my throat.
“Can we please not talk about this?” I murmur.
She reaches over and wraps her arm around me, squeezing me close to her.
“I only want the best for you,” she says. “I’m sorry. At least let me put some of Dad’s security on you when you go to work?”
I nod shortly.
“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Maybe that would be for the best.”
She lets out a long breath, relief shimmering in the sound. She’s been asking me for almost two weeks to let her do this, and right now I don’t see that I have a choice.
A voice whispers inside of me that I’m an idiot for not taking her up on her offer of writing full-time instead of busting my ass for minimum wage as a waitress, but then Dad’s voice rises, louder, his eyes staring hard in my mind.
“You’re a Clark, young lady, and Clarks don’t take handouts.”
Yasmin lets go of the hug and stands up, walking over to the kitchen.
“Want some cocoa?” she calls.
“Sure,” I say, glancing at the massive sparkling clean windows, down at the snow encased city.
“Oh, did I tell you?” she says. “Dad’s finally coming back from Japan.”
“Oh,” I murmur.