Admit It

6; mistakes feel like masterpieces

Shawn leaned against the glass door of the balcony, eyes closed and knuckles dripping in dried blood resting against its cool surface. Rubbing at his tired eyes, he slumped so he could look off the balcony, but found his eyes simply closing again. He didn't feel worthy of looking at something so beautiful. 

How he'd wished he could come home to an angry parent yelling at him, sending him to his room with heavy footsteps, pounding on his door and demanding reasons. He wanted to have someone to guide his life alongside him, and stop him from dialing girl's numbers on nights after something like this happened. 

The son of a bitch had made fun of his father for taking the 'pussy way out'. His friend imitated his mom during her last dying hours. The last fucking one had sexualized his 12 year old sister. 

He'd gotten 1 and 2. 

He planned for number 3 tomorrow. 

Shaking his head back and forth like he could shake the taunts forever from his mind, Shawn slowly opened the door and took through the hallway with steady, controlled steps, his hands like masterfully crafted balls of steel clenched uncomfortably tight. But it was the only thing to keep him from collapsing on the ground in begs and pleas that this could all be over. 

He walked down the stairs in the cold, uniform manner before letting himself fall at the bottom of them, sitting with his feet on the weathered floor mat but quickly turning to lay down once more, his long legs hanging through the railings. An innocent giggle sounded from upstairs. 

"What are you doing?" the young girl laughed at her brother. She ran down the stairs and laid down on the step above him and hung her feet out the other side, even running her hand through her hair to really look like Shawn. 

He smiled, bittersweet. He hoped her precious soul never had to hear some of the things he had to endure about her. 

"Give yourself 6 years and you'll understand what I'm doing." 

"You're not going to fall asleep, are you?" Aaliyah joked teasingly and pretended to snore. 

Shawn raised his hand to his mouth and yawned over-exaggeratingly loudly, asking sleepily, "What do you mean? I would never fall asleep like that-" And he suddenly closed his eyes and 'fell asleep'. 

Aaliyah laughed loudly, and for a moment, Shawn genuinely smiled through his mask of fake sleep. Tomorrow, he was going to find that third blonde-haired boy with the jeans that had holes large enough to almost fit his entire ego into, and make sure he knew what he said and what he deserved for it, because that laugh was the most beautiful thing he would ever hear and no one was going to dare take any more of it away from her. 

"What time is it?" he asked. 

"Time for you to wake up sleepyhead!" she joked and pulled Shawn off the bottom stair. "It's 5:20 p.m., we're making dinner and dessert together at 6:30!" 

Shawn slammed his hands to the stair as he pushed himself up and off the stairs, rushing to the door and pushing it open. Camila hadn't particularly said to meet her 'this time tomorrow', but he hoped that those little, entrancing smiles and long stares while he held her hand in between his own meant it. "I have to meet someone. Can I be back in an hour?" 

Aaliyah smiled. "Is it a girl?" 

Shawn blushed, and her jaw dropped. "You know a girl? Go to her! Bye!" 

"Bye," he mumbled back and closed the door behind him. 

Camila might not even be there, Shawn reminded himself. The notions he had in his mind might've been just hopes that would fall to the ground once he arrived in the dark library that wasn't filled with the small patter of feet pacing through that one room on the left with the high ceilings. That little sound might have not seemed like much, but when everything else was left completely still, even the slightest movement called all attention to it. 

Often, he found, it was hard to think of Camila without thinking of that dreadful 'dating' word. Why else would he brush her grown out, silky bangs from her face, hold her hand as if it was made of glass, kiss her forehead with the most delicate, cautious movements he could muster? He didn't need a relationship on top of everything else he had to manage, but at the same time he thought he might die if he left that quiet girl standing alone in the empty library. 

'Your tattoos are really beautiful,' Camila mused through the phone. 'Never ruin yourself with skulls and pirate ship stuff, okay?' 

"I love how I'm getting told what tattoos to not get by someone I've known for less than an hour," Shawn laughed back. He reached for her hand. "It's okay though, I agree." 

She smiled, tracing over the swallow on his hand with a touch as light as a feather tickling his skin. 'I really like this one. Why did you get it?' 

Shawn's breath caught in his throat, but the way she soothingly traced her finger across his skin made his heartbeat come out of his throat. "My dad always told me how sailors would get this tattoo as a form of protection from the sea. He grew up in Portugal, and there's so much open water there. Yeah. It's just sort of a way of reminding myself of home, I guess." That as long as he had his sister and his family's undying love, he would always have home, Shawn thought to himself. 

'I love it,' she typed while smiling, taking her finger off his hand and lifting it up to study the drawing. Shawn blushed and mumbled a thank you, his heartbeat slowly rising in his chest until it slowed down again. Camila was practically a stranger to him, but her gentle smiles and thoughtful words were warming, comforting, to him. And although it had only been an hour of softly conversing in this empty library, Camila began to feel like a person he could trust, and her features had been made her, and not the girl who'd dropped his heart of glass on the floor without a second thought, pieces scattering among the shards of the rest of his broken life. 

________

i am trying to give you guys flashbacks so you can kind of dwell in this safe, fluffy romance place- but we warned. i am NOT finishing this book without some fucking drama and i'm excited for it

also, i forgot to mention at the start of this book but the entire concept of the mute girl and the bad boy (i know shawn seems pretty soft right now but sometimes bad boys can be deep characters too 🙄) came from a super talented tiktok actress whose @ i will post in the comments! as well as the compilation of videos that inspired the concept of this book! i will be using details from that compilation in this story and also a few of the outlines for plot points, so to stay completely spoiler free it might be a good idea to skip watching that video. but there are original plot elements in this story and i changed up the characters A LOT, so feel free to watch whenever you feel like it!

october 3, 2022 (so sorry for posting late, there was an error that i did not notice that withheld this chapter from being posted last night)