Page 9 of Forgotten Prejudice

Getting up from my chair, I walked over to the small mirror in my room and examined my lips. I always thought they were too big for my face, and I sometimes felt insecure about them. Pressing the pads of my fingers to my bottom lip, which was slightly fuller, I wondered how it would feel to have Soren’s lips pressed against mine. I bet he was a good kisser, as he seemed to look like a man with lots of experience.

The sound of something breaking came from our front porch, cutting off my line of thought. Mom was visiting her friend, so I threw my hoodie over my shirtless body and went down to check myself. I wasn’t at all surprised to find a drunk Kai trying to pick up the pieces of the ceramic vase he’d just broken.

“Let me guess, you drank too much,” I said while holding the door open for him to step in.

Not bothering to glance my way, Kai grunted and then dragged his drunk ass inside the house. As always, he made his way straight to my bedroom. Considering his state, I made a quick stop in the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water before going after him.

He left my bedroom door open, so I walked in with the bottle in hand. “You need to drink some water—”

“Are you gay?”

My heart stopped, and my blood turned to ice as my stomach flipped. Swallowing back this awful feeling, I tried to pretend his question didn’t take me by complete surprise and walked straight to my study desk.

“What on earth are you talking about?” A nervous laugh broke past my lips. With my back to him, I placed the bottle on the desk, my hand shaking.

“Don’t lie to me.” He sounded so angry.

Turning to face him, I tried to smile. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—”

“I didn’t hear anything. I saw it with my own eyes,” he hissed. “I saw you flirting with that guy tonight.”

Since the restaurant was empty when Soren arrived, I’d let my guard down and just went with it, not thinking even for a second that Kai might be there to witness it.

Realizing that I had no way of denying the truth, I didn’t know what to do. This, right now, was worse than my nightmares.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asked, his fists clenched close to his sides. “How long have you known? Why did you lie? We went on all those double dates. Fuck, Ash.” His voice broke. “We slept together so many nights. You hugged me…”

The more he talked, the harder it was to listen, and I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t cry in front of him. He was disgusted by me. I could see it so clearly in the way his lips curled with repulsion with each word he spat and even more vividly in his eyes, which didn’t hold the same spark I loved so much. Now, his eyes were cold and unfamiliar.

“Do you love me?” he asked, and that was it.

No longer able to hold myself together, I broke, and tears began to roll down my flaming cheeks.

If I could have chosen not to be gay, I would have. If I could have chosen to love someone else, I would have. But those things were out of my reach. For years, I’d tried to conceal my emotions in the hope they’d vanish, but they’d only grown, and now, it was all out in the most horrible way I could have ever imagined.

Shaking my head, I tried to swallow back my tears. “I-I’m sorry.” Sob. “I didn’t mean to.”

With two large steps, Kai closed the distance between us, grabbed my hoodie, and pulled me close. Shutting my eyes, I prepared myself to get punched when, instead, I was met with his lips.

For years, I’d dreamed of this moment. Hours went by with me imagining what it would be like to be kissed by him. I thought it would be warm like his smiles and consuming like his hugs. I knew it would be a passionate kiss, just like his character, and imagined it like a warm summer breeze that hits you after a long day, making you grateful for being alive.

But it wasn’t.

This kiss wasn’t warm like sunrays, but a blizzard, leaving you cold and alone. Kai wasn’t wrapping me in his embrace as I hoped he would, but grabbing onto me until the places he touched hurt. All of me hurt. It was also messy. Not the sexy kind of messy, but the mess left after a storm. Mostly, it was a goodbye, and my heart broke, but I’d yearned for him for so long that even that was okay with me.

Slowly, Kai’s hands dropped from around me before he stepped back. I opened my eyes just in time to catch him wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Disgust. That was what he looked at me with before he turned around and walked out of my room and probably my life.

Kai

I didn’t know what I was doing, thinking, or feeling. My head and body were like a train that had gone off the rails and was speeding down a cliff.

Ash wasn’t supposed to be gay because it changed everything between us. The way we hung, the way we looked at each other, the way we loved each other.

Fuck no.

I didn’t love him that way because I wasn’t gay.

So why did you kiss him?