Page 86 of Forgotten Prejudice

“I was thinking, maybe we can go somewhere soon?” I said. Soren always felt better when it was just the two of us on the other side of the world. Greece, Italy, Sri Lanka, Spain. We’d already been to so many places together. Maybe that was what he needed? “We can go someplace warm. I know how much you enjoy the sun—”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, his hoarse voice cutting into my ongoing monologue.

Looking up at him, I smiled. “S-Sorry?”

“I said, I can’t do this anymore,” he repeated himself, and I frowned.

“Well, if the steak is that bad, we can just order takeout.”

He sighed, his face paler than usual. “I’m not talking about the food, Ashton.”

My heart suddenly began to pound fast, each beat feeling like a punch to my chest until it was hard to breathe.

“W-What are you talking about, then?”

Finally, he looked up from his plate, and our eyes met.

I hated it.

I hated how dead his eyes were while he looked at me with such coldness that it shattered my illusion of a perfect life. But then, he continued talking, and it got even worse.

“I’m talking about this.” He pointed his finger between us. “About us.”

Usually, I loved it when he used that word.

Us.

Referring to him and me as one and the same.

Not right now.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”

And just like that, Soren had ended our relationship. There was no explanation, no discussion. One short sentence and it was over. Finished.

He was out of our house the same evening, leaving me alone and more broken than I ever thought was possible.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I squeezed my eyes shut before shifting on the bed. I’d been lying awake for the past hour, rethinking that evening again and again. Since the breakup, I’d been going over every minute of that night, desperately searching for a clue. Maybe I’d missed something that could have provided me with an explanation.

Soren leaving me that way didn’t make any sense, but then again, most of the things Soren did made no sense. Perhaps, just like his obsession with counting pictures on a wall, I was an obsession, too, until I wasn’t.

But whenever I came up with some sort of a reasonable answer as to why he’d ended things, I immediately discounted it. My heart and brain didn’t align, not in the slightest, and accepting we were over seemed impossible.

It was also his cruelty that took me by surprise. I knew Soren was a fierce man who eliminated anything or anyone who stood in his way, but never me. I was his little Sparrow, or so I thought, until the day he cut me so completely out of his life. Our life. We weren’t just a casual hookup. We lived together. I depended on him by every means possible. We shared a world until he decided he didn’t want to share anymore, and I was kicked out. And while he had left me with a lot of money, I refused to take a penny because this was never about that.

Since returning to LA, I must have called him a thousand times. But none of my calls or texts were ever answered. By now, I’d stopped trying.

Despair would be the best word to describe my current state, where I didn’t know what to do with my life. I was twenty-five years old, with a degree I had no intention of using, no savings, and no actual friends.

Yes, Kai was back in my life, but calling him a friend felt wrong, especially after he jerked me off until I came wrapped in his strong embrace.

Being the coward that I was, I’d avoided Kai for the last few days. He was probably the one thing that gave me comfort lately, but of course, we had to screw it up with hot, quick, spontaneous sex that flipped my stomach whenever I remembered it.

The sensation of Kai’s muscular body pressed against mine in the cold water with his hot breath on my neck and his talented hands around my throbbing dick still got me worked up. Even now, my eager dick twitched with the fresh memory I tried repressing.

With a grunt, I flipped to my stomach and kicked the mattress with my legs. I was getting real fucking tired from how my body had functioned the last few days. How could one be so miserable and yet so horny? But it wasn’t just sex that I craved; it was the feeling of being wanted. The way Kai looked at me with those nostalgic eyes shifted something inside me. His affection valued me, and I found myself craving his attention. It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with my fucked-up brain that fed off other people’s approval.

Voices had been coming from downstairs since the early morning, and finally giving in to my curiosity, I’d decided to get out of my room and go see what the fuss was all about. But first, I had to shower.