𝒆𝒗𝒂 ➙ 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒘𝒏 𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒔

one

adelaine miller
TORONTO, CANADA

"eva! where are you?" i yelled as i walked up the staircase to her bedroom, "come on baby, mommy has an important meeting we need to go!"

"boo!" i hear behind me, i turn around to be greeted by the presence of my sweet three year old toddler, i smile, picking her up and resting her body against my hip, "did i scare you mommy?" she asks, with a beaming smile.

my lips press a soft kiss to her cheek, the tint of my red lipstick staining it, "you did!" i tell her, feigning fright as i wipe the stain off of her. "come on, let's go to uncle daniel's house, yeah?" eva nods happily, excited to go see my older brother.

this year has been such an immense stress on my shoulders, eva turned three which is amazing but now i have the added pressure of finding her a pre-school, she was supposed to begin one before she turned three but i haven't been able to find the right one for her, the pre-school needed to be a private one.

i couldn't risk people knowing about eva, the only people that knew she existed were trusted employees, friends and family, well my family, not his.

as far as i'm concerned, eva doesn't have a father, and she never will have one.

luckily, my brother lived really close by, he had his own condo five minutes away from my house, five minutes by car, of course — i would never risk walking around with eva especially not in the morning when there's a high chance of people taking photos.

ever since i was spotted with shawn three years ago, and then disappeared from the public eye for a year people got suspicious, but i never gave them a reason to, i lost the baby weight quickly so once i went back outside and people took photos, they were probably expecting me to walk out with eva but i never did.

the last thing i would want to do is to give eva the consequences of being in the media, i didn't want that for her.

"mommy! can we watch belle tonight?" she asks, making me chuckle slightly, she meant beauty and the beast but it was too wordy for her, i look at her through the car mirror and smile, she was playing with her belle doll.

"of course honey, after mommy picks you up from uncle daniel's we can go get food and watch belle, what do you think?" she nods her head excitedly and yells in excitement.

my fingers reach for the radio, turning it on as i reach a red light, "this next song is called wonder by shawn–" immediately i switch the radio off again, plugging my phone into the aux cord instead letting daniel caesar's voice flood through the speakers as 'best part' begins to play.

"you're the sunshine of my life." i hum along to the song as i attempt to beat the toronto traffic, constantly looking over to eva who was busy playing with her dolls.

"ok baby, we're here, are you ready?" i ask her as i park my car in my brother's driveway, i look over to see that she was packing her small backpack with toys, i unbuckle my seatbelt and walk out, taking eva out of her booster seat.

"can i knock on the door?" eva asks, i nod and she smiles giddily, wriggling in my arms as we walk up the steps to his door, she knocks on the door as soon as we get there and daniel opens the door practically instantly. "uncle daniel!" eva yelps, making my brother chuckle.

"hi mon ange." my brother says, calling her by her nickname, he was teaching eva french so he insisted on speaking to her in french as much as he could, starting by giving her a nickname, mon ange — it meant my angel, which i thought was sweet. i hand eva over to daniel.

"i'll be back by three, i'll try not to be late." i tell him, and daniel nods, taking eva from me, covering her face from the outside. "bye angel!" i yelled from the car.

"bye mommy!"

∎ ∎ ∎

"how's my pumpkin?" alaina, my personal assistant and bestfriend asks, walking in to my office, expecting to see eva, "oh she's not here today." she then says pouting, i shake my head.

"nah, shes with daniel today, i didn't want to bring her into the office today, she was here yesterday." i mutter as i sign some papers that were left on my desk last night.

"oh, alright." alaina replies, sounding defeated, "uhm, your meeting is in half an hour, need me to do anything?" she asks and i nod my head.

"actually yeah, can you give me a quick brief on what it's about?" i ask, alaina nods pulling up a seat in front of my desk, "i was meant to read the brief but eva wouldn't go to sleep last night so i couldn't."

"so, from the brief notes it's about getting a celebrity spokesperson for the brand, discussing the new collection and getting some new vendors." she tells me and i nod.

"alright, thanks a." i say and she smiles.

"no biggie, i'm going back to my desk until the meeting, buzz if you need anything, yeah?"

she leaves my office, closing the door behind her, thankfully, she forgets to do that sometimes and i don't mind it too much but when i'm doing something like signing papers that requires me to focus i appreciate having the door shut.

after signing all those papers, i quickly filed them and looked through the payroll email that the human resources department sent me, i also checked my other emails for anything that was an urgent matter.

there was a knock at my office door again, "come in!" i yelled out, the door unlocks revealing alaina, with two cups of coffee.

she hands me one of them, "they were all out of bagels at tim's so i just bought you a coffee but the meeting is about to start." she warns me and i nod, getting up from my chair, walking over to the meeting room where all the representatives and share holders were waiting for me.

let's get this day over with.