WONDER | shawmila

nine.

Camila's heart pounded and her stomach clenched with nerves as she and Shawn sat outside Andrew's office. She was anxious, but it was somehow nothing compared to what Shawn was feeling.

It'd only been a day since Shawn had called his manager, but here they already were, about to enter a meeting that would truly solidify the course of their careers.

Camila thought back to that night that Shawn stayed up practicing. She'd fallen asleep in his bed with him and woke hours later when the sun was up and he was still passed out.

She remembered sitting up in bed, watching him sleep, watching him breathe.

She'd been a little nervous back then about the idea of him calling his manager, but now that they were actually here, it seemed more exciting than just scary.

Camila had been nervously twirling the end of her braid around her fingers over and over again, leaving the end curled. Shawn's fidgeting was much worse.

He kept leaning forward in his chair, his elbows firm on his knees, his nails in his mouth. He'd then lean back, his head against the wall, his arms crossed and his leg bouncing like crazy right up against hers.

She found it cute at first, his nervous ticks. But after the fourth time he shifted in the last sixty seconds, it began to grate on her own nervousness.

"Shawn, don't bite your nails." She whispered.

"Yeah, sorry." He took his hands out of his mouth and leaned back again, cue the leg bouncing that seemed to be in time to her beating heart.

He hadn't seemed this bad earlier when they first arrived. If anything, he seemed just as excited as she was. Camila gasped, her eyes wide as she walked into a real record studio.

Andrew's office was on the sixth floor, and as they walked towards the elevators, Camila noticed huge framed posters and records from the studio's various artists.

"Where's your picture?" She'd asked him.

"They took it down a few years ago." Shawn said. "But there were no hard feelings. They let me keep it, and I ended up sending it back home to my parents. It's currently hanging up in their house, which my sister was super thrilled about."

Camila smirked, picturing a huge poster and framed record like these. She understood why it'd been phased out—it'd been years since Shawn released anything—but she still thought he deserved a place here. At least his poster was with people who could appreciate it.

The receptionist looked exactly like someone Camila would expect to work at a studio like this. She had a pink streak in her hair and several piercings in each ear. She smiled when Shawn told her his name for their appointment time and told him to wait in the chairs outside of Andrew's office.

"Right, he said he was expecting you and your friend. He's with a client right now, but it shouldn't be long."

"Okay, cool."

She and Shawn had taken their seats almost fifteen minutes ago and with every passing second, Shawn's anxiety seemed visibly worse.

"Hey—" She whispered, gently bumping his shoulder with her own. "What are you so nervous about? You sounded so excited when you got off the phone with him yesterday." 

  "I am. Excited, I mean." He whispered back, his knee still bouncing. "It's just, Andrew and I haven't really talked in forever. The last time we had a long in-depth, in-person conversation, I was hooked up to a million IVs after I got dehydrated and nearly worked myself to death."

"Shawn, that was a long time ago."

"Exactly. We've talked on the phone, seen each other around, and even video-chatted earlier this year when I told him about my album idea, but now that I'm actually going to see him in person, it's just scary. He always told me I could come back, and part of me still can't believe he always meant it."