ROSES (Oli Sykes Fan Fiction) COMPLETE

ENDING | BEGINNING

The following day I scoured the tour schedule and I ended up finding a 2 day window after a couple more shows where I could fly back to the UK to speak with Zoe. I felt sick about doing it, I knew she wasn't going to take it well – who would?! – but I knew I had to do it. She had to be the first to know, well... the next to know anyway. I had been messaging her a little while I was in San Francisco, but I hadn't actually spoken to her in nearly a week. She had to have been wondering what the fuck was going on. I called her to tell her I was coming back for a day and of course she asked why I wanted to fly back from Germany for such a short amount of time, but I said I just wanted to see her. I didn't need to freak her out... I already felt bad that I'd kept it from her for so long, but until I had the paternity test results, I wanted to wait. She questioned if it would be better for her to fly over and join me for a few days on the tour, but I didn't want that. No. This had to be done at home where she wouldn't be left in a mess in an unknown place without friends and family around. I'd done that to Roses before and look how broken she'd ended up because of it. I didn't want to be responsible for that kind of suffering to anyone ever again.

I honestly had no idea how Zoe was going to react, what she was going to say... I didn't even know what I wanted her to say, but surprisingly I didn't give it too much thought over the few days before I told her. It was strange because Roses and Ivy felt like a completely different lifetime to Zoe and the band. They felt like parallel universes that I could somehow switch between, completely removed from one another, never overlapping and never being in contact with one another. Roses and I messaged every couple of days, I just checked in with how she was, what Ivy was up to and of course she sent me photos including the most gorgeous one of Ivy yawning. I didn't save them to my phone out of fear of someone finding them, but I went into my instagram chat with Roses to look at them more times than I'd like to admit. I don't know what had happened to me, but I was completely smitten with my little girl.

Mat offered to come with me on the morning I flew back to Sheffield, you know, for moral support, but I assured him it was fine. I had to be responsible and deal with my own problems and honestly, I felt relatively OK about it. I was eerily calm actually, I don't even know why... usually the idea of potential conflict would give me an anxiety attack. Deep down, I don't think I had any expectation of what the outcome would be, and as terrible as it sounds, I wasn't worried about the worst happening. I had accepted it, I suppose.

I arrived back in town and went straight to Zoe's place because I didn't want to waste any time in telling her the truth. Zoe answered her door and threw herself at me, kissing me and just generally smothering me. I pushed her off me because I didn't want that at all, not now... not when I was about to drop a complete bombshell on her. She asked me what was wrong when I pushed her away and I told her we needed to talk. "Oh my God. You're dumping me?!" she squealed dramatically. "No, you can't!" she begged as she verged on tears already. Jesus.
"No, I'm not... just, calm down so can we talk." I pleaded. This was going to be harder than I thought. She was already jumping to conclusions and acting crazy. I calmly told her about Ivy, that she was my Daughter and that Roses was her Mother - and to say she was shocked would be an understatement. To say she was upset would be an understatement. To say she was absolutely fucking pissed off beyond belief would be an understatement...

For a moment she just stood silently, blankly, with that same look of fear of being dumped plastered on her face, but then it all changed. Her eyebrows furrowed, I could see her breathing change and as she flicked her eyes to me, they were full of rage. "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" she screamed. I should have known we wouldn't be having a civilised conversation about this... she'd always been so dramatic. "AND WITH HER!?!?!!!!?!?!" she squealed. What the fuck did that mean?

"YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME! YOU'RE FUCKING DISGUSTING FOR GETTING SOME PATHETIC, DESPERATE SLUTTY FAN GIRL PREGNANT!" she screamed. What the fuck?! How dare she?! She had no idea about the relationship I had with Roses, and she wasn't a slut or a 'fan girl' at all. She was one of the most down-to-earth and genuine people I knew! Honestly, it actually pissed me off to hear her call her names when she had no idea who she was, but I bit my tongue. I needed to stay calm.