Always been you

2020 (48)

"Hi", Camila says to me when she gets in the car.

I was waiting for her inside because I really didn't want to run into Kaiden and his smug smile again.

She puts her bag in the backseat and I don't say a thing. When she's ready, with the seatbealt over her body, I start the car and drive away.

"How was your day?", she asks me.

Boring, confusing, stressing. I spent the rest of my day wondering why she acted like that, why it seemed like being in front of me made her uncomfortable, and why she didn't even look at me. I breathe in to calm myself because I'm too pissed off and I don't want to make it worse.

"You're not talking to me?", she says again but there's a cheerful note to that question, like if my mood was funny and this was a joke.

I hold on the the steering wheel with both hands and squeeze it trying to relieve some of the pressure.

"C'mon, Shawn", she chuckles but her laugh dies in her mouth when she notices I'm not playing.

"I don't wanna talk about it", I murmur and stop at a red light.

"What? Why?", she frowns and turns her body on the seat to face me.

Oh, now she's looking at me.

"Shawn, please", she calls me but the light turns green again and I focus on the traffic ahead.

I can feel her eyes staring at me, making my skin burn. Did she feel this way when I was looking at her and she was looking elsewhere but me? Because I don't know how she managed to look so calm about it.

The car ride isn't just awkward, it's painful. I have words stuck in my throat, making it tight, but I don't want to let them out yet. Maybe I'm overreacting, maybe I imagined it. I keep my breathing steady, focusing on that rather than on the girl next to me.

When I park outside her house, she doesn't get out and I don't move an inch.

"Shawn, talk to me", she pleades.

"No. It's ok, just go", I say. Please go and leave me alone for today, I pray in my head.

"No", she replies with emphasis. "It's not ok".

I sigh and rest my head on the seat, looking at the ceiling of my car. I really don't want to make this worse.

"What happened?"

Does she really not know?

"Are you serious?", I say and finally look back at her.

Camila looks tiny, even more than she really is. With her fircely personality, I sometimes forget about how short she is next to me. Something flickers in her eyes and she just nods at my question.

"Are you embarassed of me?", I ask her directly, without hesitation.

I know the question might hurt her, but maybe it will make her understand how I feel right now.

"No, Shawn. Oh my God... Why would you think that?", she speaks and sounds offended.

"Because it looked like you were today", I tell her.

"No, that's not...", she starts to say but doesn't finish the sentence.

I wait for her to say something else, just like I waited for her to do it earlier, but once again she leaves me hanging. This is stupid. What is she doing? What is going on?

"I thought you liked me", I say and it hurts like hell. "I thought we were dating and telling our families and friends and being all happy about it. You really made me feel like you wanted this too".