Perish: Book Three (bxb) ✔️

25. Please change my phone number.

Kayax Adler

My chest felt like someone was taking a dull screwdriver and repeatedly smashing it into my heart. I stumbled as I walked through the hallways of everything I'd built back up since deciding to take my life back. I did this all for me, but seeing that look on Lennox's face--everyone's faces--I started to question whether or not I could even take back my name. 

What was I supposed to do now? Mama always told me that heartbreak was the worst pain there was. She never loved Davis, but she had her heart broken before him. And she warned me that it would feel like I couldn't breathe properly. That part of my life was ripped away from me, and I had to figure out how to fill that other half of my life back up.

She told me to warn me, so I knew what it felt like. So that I was careful when making choices where my broken heart was concerned. She never wanted me to do anything stupid, but I honestly felt like laying in the middle of my floor and refusing to move until someone took it away. I was clawing at my chest, hoping for some relief, but it only kept growing at getting worse.

And through it all, I felt like I didn't deserve to feel this way because I played the game. I fucked around and found out. I never thought August and I would become what we were now. We spent eight amazing months building something so beautiful and strong that I thought it was going to be okay after we talked the other day. He reminded me of how strong we were, but it wasn't going to be enough.

August had a loving family, and I was not going to sit in his house, knowing that I'd always be left out of family activities because I'd feel unwanted and unwelcome. I would never want August to feel like he had to always choose between me and his family because I'd never be welcome. He could sit there and be with me all he wanted, but it would cause his relationship with his parents to weaken day by day.

And I would not be the cause of that. I would never want that for him. I wouldn't be selfish because I knew what it was like to fear that slip between parent and child. I wasn't sure if my Mama was going to forgive me because Davis put so much cruel shit in my head. But she did, and while my story ended up being okay, August would be explicitly going against his parents. Their comfort mattered. If I made them uncomfortable, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Our relationship would suffer anyway. 

I swayed on my feet when I stopped in the doorway of my office. Brutus was still there, working on his laptop. I wasn't sure why I came back here. Maybe I feared August would show up at my apartment anyway. Because he was passionate about what he wanted, but I also knew he respected me too much. Still, I wasn't one hundred percent sure. 

And I knew that if I saw him, I wouldn't be able to resist. He always knew how to make everything better, even if he was fixing up something that hadn't been fixed yet. He made me feel better and stronger about speaking to his parents, but his parents were unaware of our relationship, and that hadn't been fixed yet.

I supposed it never would, either.

Brutus looked up as I stared out the window, watching the Los Angeles traffic pass by as if my world wasn't completely on fire and burning to the ground. I wondered how many people were going through something that felt impassable. How badly did they hurt? How did they cope?

"Kayax, what's wrong?"

I slowly turned my head. "Please change my phone number."

Brutus had questions swirling around his eyes as he started doing as I asked. It was simple to change your phone number, and I knew I had to send the message to August that way. I knew he'd try to call me, at the very least. My phone was off right now, but I wasn't sure what I'd do if I saw that he left a voicemail.