Admit It

26; open skies

Shawn didn't want to be in the car on that morning where the air warmed up again for some reason he couldn't name and the clouds cleared to somewhere faraway from the outskirts of the city, or maybe he did. All he knew was that the last thing in the world he wanted was for the girl with the quiet presence, dark hair, and soft touch to be with him.

Some things in life seemed like wants, until the car drove off the cliff and the screams were desperate cries for the thing you'd left behind. And some things seemed like needs, and when the car was falling through the air like bird whose wings had been pierced through, you realized those things were the only things holding the shattered pieces of your life together.

Both of Shawn's parents had loved nature. His mother loved all kinds of flowers, especially purple lilacs, the same flowers her late father grew in their gardens, and his father loved tending to their woods and disliked most flowers people would keep inside their homes, except sunflowers, which he said looked like happiness, and red roses, which he said were tolerable enough.

Which was why in the hand that wasn't on the steering wheel Shawn held a bouquet of purple lilacs and in the hand closest to the window Camila held a bouquet of sunflowers with a few red roses in the mix as they drove to the cemetary.

Shawn had decided that morning to not take Aaliyah to see their parents. The ground, although slowly warming, was still covered with spots of snow, and he wanted her to see the graves when it was springtime again and the sky was cornflower blue and there were little daisies sprouting up from the ground. But when he got a little too close to the road that lead to the cemetary, he felt like his throat was closing in on itself and drove to the familiar quiet apartment and knocked on her door.

Now she was here next to him in the car, and he knew bringing her was a bad idea. His throat was still closing up until he couldn't breathe and his heart was sinking deeper in his stomach until even she couldn't bring it back out of him. The familiar warmth that always filled his chest when she looked at him was gone, replaced by an uncanny iciness and an abnormal numbness.

Parking the car on the small road adjacent to the cemetary, he walked out of the car, a hand taking his free one as they made their way through the wooden gate overgrown with vines and weeds and flowers that were sprouting far too early.

"Which one is your parents?" Camila asked quietly. He pointed to their left.

Karen Rayment Mendes was further to the left than Manuel Mendes. They had, luckily or unluckily, died on the same day and gotten the chance to be buried next to each other, though his father taking a week's worth of depression meds and driving into a lake wasn't a coincidence. Shawn sat down in front of his mother's grave and gently placed the flowers next to where her name was engraved. Camila, sitting next to him, placed the bouquet of sunflowers and roses in his unmoving, cold hands, and he placed the bouquet against his father's headstone.

For a moment, he thought of saying something, but his throat was too tight and his mind was filled with too many accusations and apologies and admissions to ever find the words he wanted to say. He wanted to scream at them and sob against the cold stone, but all he could manage was to stare at the cut flowers and sit there, numb.

"Shawn," Camila said. "Shawn. Do you want me to leave?"

He couldn't think of an answer, so he didn't move. He could feel his eyes becoming hot and the tears threatening to spill down his cheeks, but he resisted the urge to let his walls fall down and pulled his hands from Camila's grasp, shoving them in his pockets so she couldn't see how badly they shook.

"Shawn," she said. He wasn't sure if he was making things up, but he was pretty sure he heard her voice crack. "Don't do this to me. Don't do this to me. Don't to this to yourself, please. I don't care if you cry, or if you say things you wish you hadn't, or if you push me away, but first, just please let me in. You can't hide youself from me, Shawn."

Camila pulled his hand from his pocket and turned his face to look at her. She drew patterns on the skin of his face, gentle, delicate touches. "Y-you're shutting me out. Yourself out. It'll be okay. Just let your walls fall down. It'll be okay. I'm here. I love you."

Meeting her eyes for the first time, he whispered carefully, "I wish they could've met you. They would have l-loved you."

"I love you. And your parents love you still, more than anything else that has ever existed." And suddenly, a burning sensation filled Shawn's chest and he began to sob silently into her arms.

And for a time that seemed like hours, that was all he did, sobbing until he felt empty on the inside, until the shoulder of the denim jacket that had quickly become hers was soaked, until he felt like he had made up for the past year of holding back his suffering from the people that he would burn the world for. And she stayed there, holding him, crying tears of her own, reassuring him that the people that truly loved him wouldn't ever really leave him, and never for forever.

✧✦✧

"Thank you," Shawn said. They sat in the backseat of his car and ate ice cream instead of getting a proper lunch, although it was getting colder as the day went on. They sat close to each other, and it was warm enough so they didn't care about the winter chill.

"For what?" Camila responded.

"Staying with me."

She smiled and leaned over to kiss him, tasting the sweet, vanilla taste from his soft, pink lips. "I'll stay with you forever. Forever and always."

"That's my line," he joked, and pulled her to him. The feeling of her lips dancing so softly against his made his heart race faster than he could remember it racing before, filling the cold as winter air with small butterflies that rested on their skin. Sometimes, you met a person, and suddenly you couldn't remember how you lived before without them.

"Promise me something," she whispered, lips still brushing his own.

"Anything."

"Promise me that you won't close up like that around me," she said. "It scares me."

"I promise. I promise, sweetheart," he said, letting his words cover her while his lips kissed every part of her and his hands travel her skin. Against her lips, she made him feel like his tears didn't have to scare him, and that with her soft touch, she could heal every piece of his broken soul.

___________

three updates in two days? i've never been more productive in my life

but also i'm very sad because after the next chapter (which i just published) is the fucking EPILOGUE i'm going to go cry and take two months to write the last ch 😖

april 1, 2023

1:45 p.m.