𝐒𝐲𝐧 ┃𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

73. 𝑆𝘩𝑢𝑡 𝑈𝑝, 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒

May 13, 2023

Queen

Wow. I walked toward him, crossing my arms. "How long have you been here?"

"Well, I was planning to go as far as I could...but I heard you scream. By the time I got here, you seemed to have it under control."

"And at what point exactly did you get here..." I asked cautiously.

"Mmm." He looked up at the sky in thought for a moment before looking back at me. "When they were messing with you, maybe."

"And you just watched?"

"As I said, you seemed to have it under control." He shrugged. "I stayed here in the very slight chance I was wrong, but I'm never wrong. You handled it."

"What if I didn't?" I questioned, irritation bubbling up inside me. Sure I was able to figure it out myself, but what if I hadn't? The situation could've easily gone left.

He sighed. "If you had half as much of the faith I have in you for yourself, you'd be unstoppable," he said. "You don't need me. And as scary as that is for me, it's the truth. We both know if you wanted to you could take me down- okay that part was greatly exaggerated, but you get my point."

"Pfft, I wouldn't say exaggerated. I'm sure I could."

"We'll see." He blew out smoke, his eyes trailing my body like they always did. I rolled my eyes at his lack of discretion and he smiled. "You don't get to be mad at me right now, it's my turn. Be fair and save the eye-rolling for later."

There was yet another shift in his emotions and he seemed a lot happier. Either that or he was conversing his despair with teasing and jokes. Knowing Syn as I did, I went with the second option and sighed, walking towards him, the smell of his cologne and the cigarette smoke filling my nose and reminding me of memories long ago.

"Syn," I said softly, looking up at him. "I'm sorry." He looked away from me, continuing to smoke as his joking act slowly disappeared and his true emotions came to the surface. "You're right, it took me way longer than it should've. I know that. I wasn't thinking about how that would hurt you, and I'm sorry. But I promise you it wasn't because I don't love you, I love you more than I love myself.  I just got caught up in my own...shit inside my head, which now that I think about is completely unfair to you," I told him. "I'm truly sorry."

He sighed, his body relaxing against the street lamp as he looked down at me. "It's okay."

"It's not," I said. "But I'll do better, you deserve more."

He winced. "Don't say that shit."

"It's true," I said. "I can be... self-involved sometimes," I muttered, looking down at my hands. "And you- you're nothing like that." I sighed, at a loss for words as the realization set in more and more. "I'll just do better."

When I looked back up at him, his eyes were focused on me, a studious gaze fixed onto his emerald eyes. I stayed quiet, patiently waiting for him to say anything at all. If that wasn't enough and he was still upset, I'd understand. I'd do what I needed to gain his forgiveness. Even if he did forgive me I'd spend forever trying to make up for all the times I was too focused on myself to see what was wrong with him.

"You talk a lot sometimes," he finally said, leaning off of the lamp and walking toward me. My mouth dropped and I got ready for my rebuttal but he placed a hand over my mouth. "Shh." He hushed me, looking deep into my eyes with a small smile on his face. With his hand still over my mouth, he took another hit from the cigarette and slowly blew it out into the sky. "I love your voice, Princess. And I adore the way you can go off on these tangents...but I've had a headache for the past few hours," he admitted. "So would it be okay with you if we could just...stay silent together for a bit?"