Chapter 3: Parking Tickets

It’s Complicated

 

Chapter 3: Parking Ticket

 

"Turn left in 400 feet."

 

"You have got to be f*****g kidding me." Holden declared a loud as he pulled the car to a stop and looked out the front window. There was no place to turn. To the left was nothing but parking lots and he knew this wasn’t the building he needed. He looked back to the GPS sitting snug in the hook attached to the window and raised an eyebrow. "Turn left WHERE?" He shouted growing more frustrated as he tried to rationalize why he couldn't throw out a 400 dollar GPS.  He didn't have another 400 bucks to replace it was reason number 1 with number 2 being that it wasn't so much his GPS as his roommates.  He thought the former was the better reason; he'd practically be doing Suoh a favor if he threw the piece of garbage out the window.

 

Course he might not look at it that way. Suoh had this knack with technology he could practically bend it to his will which may or may not involve a fist smacking it a few times to encourage it along.

 

Holden didn't think it'd be a lie to say he was slightly jealous because in all honesty he was. The only thing he could ever get to obey him that was electronic was his computer and that had its moments of childish electrical rebellion from time to time.

 

"Ugh!" Holden cried aloud as he slammed his head against the steering wheel and tried to calm himself down before he started to rip out green chunks of hair. Bald at 23, he'd die of shame but at least he could say the GPS made him do it.

 

Morgan, he lamented, would never date him then.

 

"Course," He said aloud to himself.  "I have to be able to get back to the college to ever even SEE Morgan again." and then work up the courage to ask her out and then get the money to even be able to afford some place nice. It'd be tacky to let the girl pay for herself on a date.

 

If she said yes anyways, if she said no it was a moot point. Which she would do if he was bald and lost forever, something told him Morgan had standards.

 

Letting out a grunt of frustration he turned off the GPS and rolled down the window on the driver side of the car. He stuck his head out the window as he spotted a girl walking down the school side-walk. "Yo!" He called out as he tried to put some kind of cheer into his voice so he didn't sound like a complete downer. The girl turned to him, a look of confusion on her face. She pointed to herself and Holden nodded enthusiastically, excited at possibly getting help.

 

"Um..?"

 

"My GPS is a moron, and I'm trying to find the Lawrence Building do you think you might be able to tell me where it is?" Holden tried to smile big and bright and look trustworthy and not the borderline creepy that he was feeling his was nailing instead.

 

The girl lifted her arm and pointed down the street from where they were currently at. "It's down that way. You get back on the main road and keep going straight and you can't miss it, I think there should be some sort of parking down there."

 

"Right," Holden said with a small nod to her. "Thank you!" He said as he put the gear in reverse and rolled the car window back up. He gave the girl another wave as he waited for her to finish crossing the street so he could back up the car and turn himself around. He pushed the off switch on the GPS and pulled it off the window, shoving it into the little hatch on the dash of the car underneath the CD player. He turned his neck to look out the back window to make sure no one was coming as he let his foot off the break and lightly pushed down the gas and turned the steering wheel in the direction he wanted to turn around to.

 

It took him 5 minutes and a lot of swearing at people walking on the pavement to get fully turned around and in the direction he wanted to go, and it took an additional 20 to find the Lawrence Building and then proceed to pass it as he tried to find a parking spot, that took him another total of 5 minutes.

 

At that point he found the first parking lot that wasn't blocked and parked his car. He swore silently to himself as he looked at the hike he'd have to make in order to get to the building he needed.

 

Today, Holden decided as he started walking, was simply not going to be his day and all because the building had lost his payment for this semesters tuition which he still couldn't figure out how they managed that considering he was on a Pell Grant. It made no sense. He was pretty sure they'd gotten him confused with another student, again.

 

Last semester they'd call him down to the Registrar building in order to make him take a Compass Test. Holden had argued with a lady for 30 minutes that he didn't need one considering he'd already taken one when he enrolled.

 

He couldn't forget it, he'd make a 20 on his math portion and been stuck in remedial math. This was his first semester of a normal math class.

 

With a sigh of frustration and a inhale of wheezing breath ("Damn asthma." he cursed) he settled himself in for what was going to be a long day.

 

----

 

 

"Somebody told me, that you had a boyfriend." Syn was pretty sure if he beat his head against the wall until his brains leaked out it'd be a pretty justified suicide (or as justified as suicide could possibly be). He make a little note and pin it to his shirt with the words "I needed the song out of my head" written in bold black words. The world would understand right?

 

Maybe someone would sue The Killers in his honor, or throw a party in their honor for making Syn kill himself. God knows, he thought his parents had been trying for that outcome for years. They were strict and expected a lot more from Syn then he wanted to put out. Did that make them bad parents, no but that did make them a pain in Syn a*s. Or so he figured anyways.

 

Really what were you expecting from a child when you named him Syndicate.

 

“Tough love my a*s.” He said aloud. A woman beside him jumped in surprise and gave him an odd look as she picked her books up and stood to move to a different table. Syn stuck his tongue out at her back, uncaring of what she thought of him.

 

He sighed as he looked at his watch, 10 minutes past 1 and Holden was late. He glanced at the room to see if he could spot him when he caught a glimpse of unruly bright green hair. It was Holden, it had to be. Syn didn’t think there was another kid in the college with hair the color of his, and if there was it certainly wasn’t neon green.

 

Said bright hair color was making his way over to where Syn was sitting, albeit slowly. Holden was sort of doubled over and holding his side. Syn gave a big cheerful wave as Holden collapsed into the table chair, wheezing and already digging around in a messenger bag. He smiled in relief as he pulled out a yellow inhaler and took a deep breath and then breathed out slightly wheezing all the while.

 

Syn watched him as he wrapped his mouth around the inhaler and took a deep breath, pumping the inhaler and then repeating the process before putting it back in his bag.

 

It took a couple of more minutes before the effects kicked in and Syn waited patiently before he spoke. He was nothing if not considerate of other people medical conditions and needing time to pull themselves together.

 

"You're late." To a point anyways, this was Holden. He winced as he felt a foot connect with his shin and Holden was scowling at him something fierce. "What you do that for?"

 

"I'm dying and all you can say is your late?"

 

"You sound like you're breathin' better to me."

 

"A*s"

 

"So…?"

 

"So I get there after almost being late because I couldn't find the Lawrence Buildi--"

 

"We have a Lawrence building?"

 

"EXACTLY!" Holden exclaimed as he threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. Syn grinned as he watched him. "So I finally found it and I walk ALL the way up there because I can't find a close parking spot and attempt to talk to the lady who looks at me like I'm stupid and says they don't have a problem with my account, she even looks it up, no problem."

 

"So here the question," Syn propped his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands as he stared at Holden. "Which person did you piss off in finical aid?”

 

"Just one?" Holden asked curiously as he closed brown eyes and titled his head back thinking, or Syn thought he was thinking. He hoped he was thinking otherwise what he was doing was just weird.

 

Then again it was Holden so maybe not that weird.

 

"Um… well… possibly Kasey" Holden said sheepishly as he opened his eyes back up. "Now that I think about it we had a date a couple of nights ago and I might have canceled on her due to uh… a raid in wow."

 

"Holden!" Syn about fell off his chair as he burst into laughter, the occupants of the library looked at him in silent disapproval but he didn't care, it was funny. "I can't believe you, didn't you learn after the first time you stood up a girl due to wow."

 

"… I thought I had the time zone figured out this time and ya, I didn't obviously.”

 

"I'm pretty sure if you explained that you had a hot date they would have understood." Syn rationalized.

 

"It's not like I wanted to date her anyways, I just asked her out because I got tired of Liam pestering me to go out on a date." Holden said with a tone that pretty much said lets end this conversation here. Syn didn't push it; he knew when the other man wanted a conservation dropped.

 

"So anything else happen?"

 

"Ya," Holden said as he reached a hand into his bag and pulled out a slim yellow piece of paper. "I got a parking ticket.”

 

End Chapter 3

 

End Notes: This chapter was pretty much a venting chapter. I went to take a COMPASS test for my college I enrolled in and ya, I got horrible lost and had to ask for directions and then got a parking ticket for parking in the wrong spot. I needed someone to suffer as I suffered.

Author's Note

As of this chapter the writing style changes in tone.