Dirty Gold ✓ [bxb]

Chapter 19 - Knock You Down

For the next few days I slept in my apartment. My excuse to Axel was that I needed to study and didn’t want to be in his space all the time. When I mentioned that it had to do with my academics he completely understood which made me feel even worse already.

After that night in the bathroom with Lauren I shut down completely. Axel tried asking me what the matter was but I didn’t tell him and just allowed him assume that it was exam jitters. There was no way I could tell him. Every time I tried to open my mouth to say something I felt bile raise up my throat and felt the urge to puke my brains out.

I had no idea if he knew or not. If he did, why didn’t he tell me? I never made him think that it was compulsory for him to tell me everything but this was important. Something within me questioned whether it was his child or not.

I remembered shouting at Lauren and asking her if the child was his. All she did was smile and told me to ask Axel.

Maybe that was why I didn’t ask him yet.

I was afraid that she might be right. The somewhat sensible part of me knew Lauren was the ruthless type and would say anything to get what she wanted. But why was there this thing in me that wondered whether she was lying. Axel had refused to tell me details of their relationship. While I knew that he would never cheat on me, it was a possibility that something could have happened long before I came into the picture.

“Mate are you gonna murder the poor fork?” Pierce’s concerned voice drew me out of my thoughts. Instead of eating I was fisting my plastic fork so hard it was already breaking a little. The seafood chow mien in front of me was untouched apart from a few nudges when I pushed it around before.

“Not really hungry.” I stated dropping the fork and running my hands over my face.

“Normally you’d be trying to wrestle the egg rolls with me but you haven’t even touched one. What’s wrong Kenny?” He asked also dropping his own fork.

I shrugged “Studying’s just taken a chunk out of my appetite I guess.”

“Are you sure?” Pierce questioned further.

I sighed “Yes I am. I'm really not in the mood for an interrogation tonight.”

“Ok.” He mumbled even though he wasn’t satisfied with my reply. Even Pierce seemed to be seeing someone judging by the late calls he received and unconscious grins while reading his texts nowadays.

I pushed my plate away and went to my room to see if I could get some more studying done. Luckily despite this issue I’d been able to study and write my exams without any difficulties. Whenever I study I'm able to shut out the world around me and do so. It only makes me a lot reluctant to close my textbooks and face the world around me.

The doorbell rang.

I waited for a little while but Pierce didn’t go to check who it was. He was probably showering or in bed already.