Fractured [SHAWN MENDES]

~64~

Andrew knocked on the bathroom door of the posh Los Angeles suite. "You ready? We've got to meet the car in the next five minutes or you are at risk of being late to your interview."

Shawn stared at his reflection in the mirror. Was he ready? He was dressed in a gray button down shirt and black jeans, and his hair was styled just like it used to be many years ago, but he had beads of sweat on his forehead and his heart was pounding so loudly that he was sure his manager could hear it on the other side of the door. "Just a sec," he choked out as he turned on the cold water and placed his hands under the stream. He splashed some of it on his face and then toweled it off.

When he joined Andrew, he felt no better. He hoped that he'd get his shit together on the ride to Hollywood where the radio station was.

"You look a little pale. You feeling sick?" Andrew asked once they were in the backseat of the hired SUV.

"No. Just anxious. What if they ask about it?"

"Zach and his people have been told that what you did, the trial, and your prison time are all off limits. I don't think they'll violate that agreement."

"Okay. Good," he sighed.

They got checked in at Westwood One and the station manager went over all the standard pre-interview items. He was being filmed, so Shawn had to sign a release for that. He wanted to avoid any big appearances, but Capitol committed to this one without him. Eventually he was led to the actual studio where he greeted by Zach Sang and his co-host, Dan. He'd been in this room, in this exact chair, many times before, but there was no comfort in this fact because that was before everything happened, and he wasn't the same man now, even if he looked the part.

"Good to have you back! It's been too long!" Zach said in an overly enthusiastic manner which implied that Shawn had merely been on some sort of planned hiatus.

"I'm happy to be here." This was a lie, but he couldn't really be truthful.

"Your song dropped last night at midnight and I think I can speak for the whole world when I say it's fantastic. I'm getting Handwritten vibes from it. Would you say that you intentionally went back to your roots for this one?"

"I started writing music last year and there are a lot of different sounds. I think it reflects all eras of my career, though I hope you find that there's some new vibes, too," Shawn said. So far, this was going fine, which was a relief.

"Had you not been writing prior to that?" Dan asked.

He decided to answer honestly. "No. I took a pretty long break from music because my head wasn't in the right place. Initially I wrote some songs for other people, like the one Kyra recorded. In fact, I thought I might pass the one I just released to another artist but it ended up being mine." He left out that it wasn't the song he wanted to record, because the label wouldn't appreciate that.

"It's no secret that you've been dating someone in your hometown of Toronto. There have been some cute photos of the two of you. Was she the one who inspired you to dust off your guitar and start writing?" Zach queried.

"Yeah, I mean she's a huge part of me being in a healthier headspace and that definitely led me back to music. I'm really thankful to her for that."

"Your last album is often called 'The Winter Album' by your fans since you stated over and over that she was your muse and that you couldn't stop writing love songs about her."

Shawn fought to keep a neutral expression on his face when Winter's name came up. Wasn't this off-limits?

Zach continued, "Do you think that this upcoming album will be known as 'The Taryn Album' because she's the person behind the love songs now?"

His ears started ringing as his anxiety escalated. "I hope people call it by its name," he said as lightly as he could. "I spend a lot of time trying to capture the right title, so it's a bummer when that's ignored."

Laughing, Dan said, "But at least she knows the love songs are about her. That's got to be pretty flattering. Do you sing them to her?"

None of the songs he'd written so far were about Taryn, and if he lied on the air and said they were, he'd be lying to his girlfriend, too. "I'm gonna be honest here," he started, still trying to keep his tone upbeat. "When songwriters write songs, they aren't always about their lives. Sometimes you just write a song that has lyrics that you hope people can relate to and a tune that everyone thinks is unique."

"Of course. No one ever believed that Where Were You in the Morning was real, because who would ghost you?" Zach said with a chuckle. "But there's a line in your new song that goes 'Every time I look into her eyes, the air escapes my lungs.' Surely you were thinking of your girl when that poetry came to you."

Shawn hesitated a moment too long, which said everything.

"Orrrrr, maybe not," Dan said. "That's cool. Inspiration can come from lots of sources."

Suddenly Shawn regretted saying his criminal history couldn't be talked about because that topic would be a hell of a lot less painful than the path this conversation had taken. "I don't think I explained what I meant very well. I love my girlfriend, and the song is about falling in love, so obviously it relates to her. I'm just to a point where I don't want to assign specific people to my songs because I got burned by that before. One of the things that is hardest about this comeback attempt is that I have dozens of songs about a person who isn't in my life anymore and who I'm forever connected to because of what I did." He knew he'd said too much as the last words left his mouth.

"We weren't going to bring that up, but if there's anything you'd like to share about that incident...like perhaps to give your side...we're happy to hear it. We've known you a long time, and we want to see you succeed," Zach said.

"I don't want to talk about it. Every single one of your listeners knows what I did. I regret it and I hated myself for a long time, but it's in the past. I'm trying to move forward as a musician, and that's why I've released a song and have an album coming out later this year. Could we focus on that?"

"Fair enough. Let's talk about the music video. It's unlike anything you've done before and there's an eeriness to you being alone in that gigantic stadium. What was your experience filming it?"

Shawn talked about what went into making the video, and how they'd primarily used drones to do the shots of the whole stadium. They talked a little about his switch to Capitol Records, and then they discussed the album process. In a few months, he'd be recording in upstate New York and would be working with some of the collaborators from his earlier albums.

By the time they got back in the SUV and closed the doors, Shawn was both emotionally and physically drained. "That sucked."

His manager winced. "It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't terrible. The part about the song was a little weird, and it unfortunately ended up bringing Winter into the conversation."

"Technically, they brought her up first."

"Yes, and that was shitty. We need to add that her name is not to come up. Would you like Taryn to be off-limits, too?" Andrew asked. "You seemed uncomfortable talking about her."

"Taryn is so far removed from this part of my life that I wasn't prepared for them to ask if the song was about her. I wish I'd had an answer prepared, and now I'm a little worried about how she's going to react to what I said."