ROSES (Oli Sykes Fan Fiction) COMPLETE

CONTACT

NOTE - This entire chapter is written from Oli's side of the story 🖤

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The weeks passed by, filled with writing, recording, working out and talking about my problems with a psychologist three times a week. I wanted to change, but outside of therapy, I wasn't 100% sure where I was going to start. Cutting back on the drinking and meaningless sex was probably a good place.

We started rehearsals for our US tour in late January and Jordan asked me again if I was going to message Roses. God he was so persistent... I don't know why he wanted me to anyway after I told him what had happened, well, kind of told him. Mat heard her name and looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but I was still kind of pissed off with him over everything that went down. He was the one who told me to basically destroy her and I still felt fucking bad about it. 

Of course I started thinking about her again since Jordan brought her name up; about messaging her... apologising firstly, telling her she wasn't 'nothing' to me secondly, and just maybe trying to mend the wound. I didn't stand any chance of being with her again, I wasn't an idiot and I didn't want to look at that as some kind of challenge like I maybe would have a year ago, but making amends would at least be something. At least it might clear my conscience a bit. I did think about how different things could have gone, and it bothered me knowing that they would have gone differently if I hadn't of been so immature. I still felt guilty about all of it, I wondered if I ever wouldn't.

That night, for the first time since Mexico, I gave in to curiosity and ended up on her instagram profile. I felt sick, almost like I was doing something wrong as I clicked onto it, and when I saw her face I felt this sensation in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't pleasant. I opened her newest photo and just stared at it. Posted a week or so after Mexico, but now months ago; she had changed her hair colour and her entire look was dark. She didn't look like the bright, happy, bubbly person I knew and I felt the pain coming out of my screen, even though she wasn't looking at the camera. I knew that was because of me... like she didn't want to be herself anymore because I'd hurt her so much. I closed instagram and threw my phone away with an exhale full of guilt. I knew I shouldn't have fucking looked.

After seeing her photo that night I felt so guilty, and for days I battled with my head and heart as I debated internally whether I should contact her or not. It had been a long time, but late was better than never, right? I just wanted to apologise for my actions, to make her feel less shit about all of it, but I also didn't want to open the old wound. Maybe she'd forgotten it and moved on. What if I just made it worse? I was being pulled in different directions with my thoughts, but if I really got serious with myself, I knew I wanted to contact her. I told myself for months that I had forgotten her, that I didn't care at all about what happened, but I did. I hated how I left things with her. She never did anything wrong, in fact she saw me in a way that few people ever had and she still accepted me. She was a good person and she never deserved for me to hurt her like that. 

Every time I talked with my psychologist, his advice was to face my feelings head on, and what I did to Roses was the thing that haunted me; the thing that made me feel the most awful about myself. I could come to terms with most things from my past, but her... she was this memory that brought me so much pain and guilt. I wanted to make things better. Hell, after having time to think about everything, maybe I wished things had of gone differently. I'm not saying I loved her back or wanted to be in a relationship with her or anything, but I guess I realised I shouldn't have pushed her away the way I did. She wanted to get to know me when I barely even treated her like a human being... the real me, not the version of me that people get infatuated with; the 'rock star' me. I had always liked being with her, even when I didn't verbalise it and probably gave her the impression that I didn't. I missed the sex, sure, but I missed the way she'd hug me for absolutely no reason more; almost as if she knew when I needed it... the way she'd play with my hands or push my hair up off my face even though it kept falling back down. I missed her company and undying attention she gave me the most though. I never doubted anything with her because she was so authentically herself. She made me feel seen and understood, and that's not something many people have ever been able to make me feel - let alone after such a short amount of time. I didn't know why I'd let Mat talk me into completely crushing her, we could have at least been friends.