Sweet as Syn

35: GREYSON-Three Reasons

My family scared her away. My dad's cold heart and my brothers' miserable faces. My resemblance to them, my ties to them. The look into the depressing future she could possibly have with me. She wouldn't be coming into a warm, happy-go-lucky family. She'd have to hold her tongue every time my dad shit on my life, and have to make forced conversation just to fill in the awkward silences with Beth and Katherine. She seemed fine doing it for a night, but for the rest of her life? She'd hate that.

Taking what wasn't mine to take. I knew I should have kept it in my pants. She isn't Nathalie, but she also left me the moment I took her virginity. I was too rough, I freaked her out. I hurt her. I didn't make her feel special, because I am a fucking manslut who stuck his dick in every girl that offered herself before Syn. I made her feel dirty, like she was just another hole to fuck.

I was too much of a pussy to tell her how I felt. I let the most important person in my life walk away because I'm a coward and was too scared to tell her I fucking love her. I mean, really, who tells someone they love them for the first time right after they break up?

I have been shuffling those three reasons in my mind for four weeks now. I've been torturing myself trying to figure out where it went wrong, what I could have done differently. Even though I knew in the back of my mind that I'd fuck it up sooner or later. She is too good for me in every aspect. She's intelligent where I am a mindless jock, she is compassionate where I am a careless dick, she is pure where I am filthy, she is bold where I am cowardly. I deserved to get my heart ripped from my chest.

***

"I'm confused," Leah starts for the hundredth time tonight. "You didn't get into any fights. She just up and left you?"

"Are you sure you didn't piss her off and just weren't aware? I mean, you're a grumpy pants, maybe she doesn't like that," Jessie suggests, leaning over the console from the back of my truck, trying to get me to acknowledge her.

"Maybe there's someone else?" Kat assumes blindly.

I death grip the steering wheel, doing everything in my power not to press my foot on the accelerator and drive the truck straight into their dorm building just to shut them up.

Leah, Kat and Jessie all came over to put the finishing touches on our final project, but it took all fucking night because they wouldn't stop badgering me about why I looked so depressed.

The old me wouldn't have even allowed the girls to be in my room unless they were sucking or fucking me, let alone allowing them to question me about my personal life. Luckily, they're not trying to hop on my cock, and are actually trying to help, even though I didn't ask for or want it. Especially from these three randos I'm not close with.

"Thanks for the suggestions about my love life," I grunt. "But the final project is done and I'd love to go home and light myself on fire now."

"Oh my gosh, don't do that!" Kat squeals and yanks my hand into hers.

I roll my eyes, because Syn would have said something equally sarcastic. She would have made me laugh.

"Go," I instruct, shooing them out of my truck. There's only so much I can tolerate. Leah lingers in the front seat. "Leah..."

"God, I'm going to hell for this. But I'd risk it for you—"

"Whatever you're about to say, don't say it."

"I want to be your rebound." She bats her dark blue eyes at me, not nearly as sparkly and bright as Syn's. "I'll literally let you do whatever you want to me. I won't even mind if you're picturing me as your ex while you're doing it."

I sigh and shake my head. I take back my statement about them not trying to hop on my cock. Where is the self respect?

"Leah, just go. Get out."

Does it look like I'm in any state for a fucking rebound? I'm like a lovesick, heartbroken puppy dog, quickly crumbling, slowly dying inside. The only time I'm not wallowing in self-loathing and crying inside from the constant sharp blades to my chest is when I'm around Syn. But even then, just knowing I can't touch her, kiss her, love her... it breaks my heart all over again.

I've been doing my best to act unaffected, trying to be a good friend to her. It's hard. And it really fucking hurts.

So why the hell am I sitting in the parking lot, torturing myself by creeping on her middle-of-the-night date with, drumroll... CJ, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm punishing myself like the masochist I am. She looks beautiful as always, but in a sad kind of way. She has black under her puffy eyes, she is slouched, and her hair is knotted in her ponytail.

God, I hope she isn't having nightmares again.

My heart pounds everywhere when Syn looks up from her drink and turns her head, looking out across all the cars in the lot, directly at me. Into my goddamn soul, like she could sense my presence somehow.

It would be pointless ducking down and trying to hide from her—she sees me. And she has this pained expression on her face, like she just caught me shooting heroin in the basement of a crack house.

I offer her a salute in acknowledgement, but couldn't possibly lift my scowl if you had a fucking gun to my head. I'm not surprised CJ swooped in the second I was out of the picture. I wonder if she's kissing him, touching him the way she used to with me. The thought rips me apart, and I drive home in a blind rage. Luckily, no one else was on the road.

She's done it. The tiny, feisty girl who wears XXL shirts, dances on stage at karaoke night, jams out to early 2000's hits, is the top student of her major, makes her entire cheer team look like amateurs, doesn't give a fuck about what anyone thinks... she stole my heart, ripped it from my chest, stabbed it, tore it to shreds and danced on its grave.

She owns me. And the worst part is, I want her to. But she doesn't want me or my fucked up heart.