Don't Sleep With the Drummer

♤ 4. Kayla ♤

Kayla was dizzy.

To help with her pesky nerves, she'd smoked two cigarettes—okay so maybe it was more than two. Her lungs felt compressed, her breathing was easy, and the left eye she always had a problem with wasn't twitching. That was a good sign. Her anxiety was subsided by the white, translucent clouds of smoke, inching her closer to death with each drag.

Kayla didn't care if it killed her.

If it wasn't this, then perhaps her siblings would.

She was seated inside her new room, one her siblings surely would hate. She could tell the blue color scheme was something Mary would despise. She noticed the bookshelf Tyler, her youngest brother, would find no use in, nor the books that were piled inside. Imagining the way this room would look without so much clutter became Kayla's next train of thought. There were foldable chairs behind the door and a chair missing a leg lied on its side near the window.

She had a new home.

Her father was pleased to see her, or so she thought. His warmth, to the average on looker, was too business like to have reached the cold exterior of his daughter. He smelled the smoke off her hair after the hug, but didn't mention it until they were in the car.

"You can't smoke inside my house."

"I wasn't planning to," she said to her father. "I wouldn't disrespect you like that. You're offer me a lot by allowing me to go to this school and have my own room."

"I appreciate you seeing the scarifies I make."

Scarifies?

Was he saying that taking in his daughter was the sacrifices? Or was he referring to something entirely different? Kayla didn't know. For that reason, she kept her mouth shut for the remainder of the ride.

Contemplating her chances of quit, she recalled the conversation she had with her former boyfriend and currently archnemesis. August was a daunting man. He loved Kayla the summer they met yet worked hard to change her in every way going into the autumn.

"Your hair is too frizzy."

"Your style is so childish."

"Your music taste is terrible. Listen to this instead."

"You don't look that good when you do that with your makeup."

He couldn't draw a straight line, let alone a winged eyeliner. But he brought upon himself, quite rigorously so, that he knew what looked good on Kayla. Since Kayla had hooded eyelids, he proposed that she watch different makeup artists online to get a better look.

What was he up to now?

Kayla thought maybe he finally got out the closet he was occupying.

Pulling out her phone, she looked up his name. She had blocked him the spring they broke up and lost contact with him when he moved twice. He was going to a place in Calabasas, or so she predicted.

She was wrong, sadly.

Scrolling up to his bio, she almost missed it.

August Winters // Going to Grand Arts // Junior in Theatre.

Her nightmare was set to worsen, as it seemed.