The One After [SHAWN MENDES]

Chapter 36

On the drive over, I felt both excited and nervous over Shawn's sudden reappearance, but mostly I was confused. We met in front of my apartment building and walked inside together, both of us reflectively quiet. Once we were sitting on my couch, I launched into the questions that were swarming inside my head like bees. "If you missed me, why didn't you text or call?"

"You could ignore those forms of communication. It would have been harder to ignore me if I just showed up at your door. I came here first and then remembered that you often helped at the bakery on Sundays, so I figured I might find you there."

"Why did you think I'd ignore you?"

A frown flickered over his face. "The way you told me to leave the last time I saw you...it felt really final and that you wanted me out of your life."

"You told me I stressed you out and that I was too much work, so what else was I supposed to do?"

"I wish I hadn't said all that. I was on the defensive because it felt like you were accusing me of things unfairly and that you didn't trust me, which really hurt. I also don't think I explained some things well. All this happened right at the point I was ready to level up our relationship, so when you got drunk and angry, it made me question that decision. I've had time to think and I know I wasn't communicating with you. I'm sorry."

"I've reconsidered. You do need to read my letter." I got up and went into my bedroom so that he could read it in my journal instead of on his phone. "It's the second to last entry," I flipped to the first entry I wrote after meeting him, "but if you really want to peer into my brain to see where my head has been this whole time, you should start here."

He looked up at me with a surprised expression. "You're letting me read your journal? Aren't these your most personal thoughts?"

"Letting you in is really scary for me, but this is something I need to do so you can see that I trust you. Some of what you read might sound crazy, and you'll see I was a little preoccupied with Camila, but all that should explain why I acted like I did."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, but I can't watch you. I'm going to go in my room. Let me know when you are done," I told him before I left.

While Shawn was in my living room reading, I attempted to do a calming meditation as I sat cross legged on my bed. I left my phone in my purse, so I couldn't use an app to guide me, but I did my best to focus on my breathing. Time felt like it was passing very slowly, and I wondered if he was sitting out there coming up with a plan to nicely tell me he never wanted to see me again after seeing my entries.

Finally, there was a soft knock at the door. "Come in," I said.

He sat next to me on the bed and opened up my journal to the letter. "Why did you think I was thinking about Camila the night we met?" he asked, pointing to what I'd written. "You mentioned it in an early entry, too."

"You had that call you needed to take in private and then you looked upset after checking your phone later. Plus you just seemed off."

"None of those things had anything to do with her. The call was from my manager because there was an problem with my first tour stops. I'd already postponed the Europe leg and I was stressed about possibly canceling shows in North America. There were issues with the trucking company that moves my set, but we got them worked out. I checked my phone because people posted pics of me boarding the cruise and I was irritated. And yeah, I was off. Don't you ever go out with your friends and not feel into it?"

"That was me last night. I bailed early since I wasn't drinking and the girls wanted to go dancing," I told him. "I'm staying dry for the rest of the year."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I've been in that place before where a break from alcohol is needed. One recent time was after my birthday party when I got smashed."

"Because Camila didn't come."

"There were a lot of things going on that night. You overheard the talk with my mom, but I'd like to provide background. I invited Camila to the party before I asked you, and she declined, claiming it would be weird if people took photos of us. I know that makes it sound like you were my second choice, but I didn't ask her to come in a romantic way. The morning of my birthday she called me to say she was in New York and would pop by, then later she texted and said she'd changed her mind. It was the roller coaster of not knowing whether she'd be there or not that bothered me. We vowed to stay best friends, yet she couldn't even wish me happy birthday in person."

"Wouldn't it have been strange to have us both there?" I asked. "Nothing had happened between us at that point, but you made a move on me later, so I wasn't there strictly platonically."

"I knew she wouldn't have stayed if she came. Being around my friends and family after everything that happened would have been hard. Looking back, I should have known she'd never show," he explained. "As for it being strange, I was definitely worried about how you'd feel, but by the time you got there, I knew she wasn't coming."

"It stinks that you had all that going on at your birthday party. In hindsight, flying me there after meeting me once was too much too soon and added more to your stress. It was a lovely grand gesture, but I was looking forward to the coffee date more than anything else," I told him.

He winced. "Which I fucked up."

"Mistakes are part of being human. I'm sorry so many entries in my journal brought up Camila."

"It was hard for me to read, but like you said, it explains so much. I wish I'd told you at the start that things were a hundred percent over with her, but I didn't feel comfortable talking about it. I should have for your sake, and I'm sorry I didn't think of how everything looked to you," he said. "You mentioned one of my recent songs about her in one entry, and I probably should have clarified that earlier, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Lyrics are like time capsules: you write them when you're feeling a certain way, and they perfectly capture that moment in time. The thing is...time keeps moving on and usually feelings change, so eventually the lyrics are no longer representative of where your mind is. I'm not going to throw away songs just because the words I'm singing aren't the literal truth anymore. If I did that, I'd be left with a small catalog to perform from. After both the Toronto and Vegas shows, I thought about talking to you about this, but you seemed fine and never brought it up. This goes back to what I said about you communicating with me instead of just journaling."

"Even if you'd said all that months ago, I still might have believed that you were in love with her and that I was a rebound."

"You've never been a rebound in my eyes." His voice was sincere, but I still had questions.

"What was I?"

"Was? We're using past tense?"

"I don't know. You were clearly ending things when we last talked."

He shook his head. "I didn't show up at your apartment to call everything off. I wanted us to talk and try to get to the bottom of our problems. It all went downhill pretty quickly and then you got sick and threw me out."

"You never texted or anything. What was I supposed to think?"

"You asked me to leave and said it was over!"

"We're going in circles," I noted. "I asked you to leave because I was puking my guts out from my hangover and from telling you how I felt. I was a mess physically and mentally, and to me it seemed like you were done, so I just reaffirmed that by saying we were over. When you stopped texting and calling, that assumption was confirmed."

"I didn't know where things stood so I decided to wait until I got home to deal with it. I wanted to end my tour strong without stressing about us."

"I think you're right that I'm more stress than it's worth for you."

Shawn took my hands in his. "We've had some big misunderstandings, and we've both made mistakes, but the times we've been together have been amazing. I don't want this to end before it truly gets started. When you told me you were falling in love, it was like lightning struck me because I've been fighting having real feelings for you. I don't want to fight it any longer."