McKenna POV.
I grabbed a doughnut off the counter in the kitchen and dumped the dog leashes in my hand on the hook. The guys had been caught up in meetings all week, but I had a feeling that Syn was avoiding me. When he was with me, he was moody and distant. I didn’t understand it. I waved at Zacky as he watched TV and jogged up the stairs. I pushed open the door to my bedroom, to find Syn shoving a stack of his t-shirts back into the cupboard. I frowned in confusion.
“Whatcha doin’?” I asked, sitting on the end of the bed. He turned to face me.
“I’m sick of sharing a bed with Zacky. I’m moving back in here.” My grand response?
“Oh.” Syn sighed and walked over to me, pulling me up to my feet.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind me ear. “But I just cannot put up with his fat arse farting and snoring anymore. “ I smiled and laughed a little at that. He was staring into my eyes, as if he was looking for something. Slowly he began to lean into me, his eyes still boring into mine. I knew what he wanted. God knows, I wanted it too. But something held me back. The dark demons of my past were still running riot in my head. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, I had this illogical fear that if I told him how I felt, if I showed him how much he meant to me, that something terrible would happen to him. And it would be because of me. Because it was always my fault in the end. My fault that my family hated me. My fault that Mark had died. My fault that Patrin…I forced myself to stop. I was not going to think about that. I was not. Syn was mere millimetres away from my lips. Ignoring my screaming hormones and pounding heart, I took half a step back and looked at my feet. Syn stopped, took several steps back and sighed. It wasn’t a good sigh.
“Why, Mac? Why are you doing this to me?” I looked at him, frowning. I didn’t get a chance to speak. “Why is it that every time I try to kiss you, you move away? Why do you tense up every time that I try to surprise you?” His voice was rising in volume as he got angrier. “Why will you kiss my best friend and not me?” I froze. I think my heart even stopped for a moment.
“Wh-What?” I breathed, my mind numb from shock.
“Oh don’t even bother trying to deny it Mac! I saw you!” He turned away from me and stared out of the window. “I saw you with Jimmy in the music room last week.” Realisation hit me. Oh. That. I took a step towards him, hand outstretched.
“Syn, you don’t understand.” He spun back round to face me.
“Don’t understand? What is there not to understand about seeing the girl I’m meant to marry lip-locked with my best friend?!” I forced myself to try and stay calm.
“It wasn’t like that, Syn.”
“Really? Then what was it like? Just a random kiss? Tell me, do you kiss every guy that you happen to be playing piano cuddled up with, or is it just ones that I know?” Any calmness that I had managed to hold onto went out of the window.
“How dare you?!” I snarled, feeling the anger start to mount. “If you bothered to stop and let me explain, you might see that there is nothing going on between me and Jimmy. Instead you’re just throwing accusations around.”
“Nothing going on between you? you were kissing him Mac, when you back off every time I try.”
“If you knew, if you understood why I do that, you would eat every single fucking word of these accusations you’re throwing at me. If you knew what had happened to me, then you’d regret everything that you’ve just said.” I was fighting back tears.
“I heard every word that you said to Greg last week Mac. I do underst…”
“No, you don’t.” My voice was deadly quiet by now. A warning sign. “You think that I told you and Greg everything? There are some things in my past Syn, that no-one should ever have to endure. Some things that are next to impossible for me to even begin to describe to people that I barely even know. You don’t understand half of what I’ve been through.”
“How and I supposed to understand things that you won’t fucking tell me?! It’s impossible! If we don’t talk to each other, how the hell is this relationship supposed to work?” He yelled, meeting my gaze. “Not that it would anyway.” He added, storming from the room. That hurt the most. Before this fight, I had been starting to believe that it actually would work. I couldn’t fight back the tears that were prickling at the back of my eyes anymore. I let go, sinking to the floor and sobbing my eyes out. Something else that was my fault. Something else to add to list of things that I had failed at. But how was I supposed to break my darkest secret to someone that you were starting to love? He knew that I’d killed. He knew that I’d tried to kill myself. He knew that I’d been an assassin. But how could I tell him … how could I tell him that I’d been repeatedly raped?