ShawnMendes entered Wattpad.

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<<Five-Step-Plan - 1st step: enter the stairs>>

"Heyyyyy, so nice to see you two," Karen welcomes us, with a bright smile on her face. She hugs first my Mum and then me. "I really love your curls, Mandy, you look so pretty."

I can't but smile back. My heart makes a bump while listening to the possible sound of Shawns steps, but I still manage to answer. "Thank you, Karen. I thought they'd look like they exploded. Somehow the weather always has the effect on my hair that it looks like I touched into a plug socket."

"Well, if I have such great hair afterwards I'm gonna touch a plug socket, right now," Karen jokes, and we laugh.

I'm glad, that she's so chilled, trying to make this whole situation as relaxed as it can be. Again, I'm listening to steps and wether I hear someone, Shawn or Aaliyah.
It endures only some moments where my Mum and I get out of our jackets and put out our shoes, when there are steps on the stairs. They are really bumpy, kinda as if someone is jumping down the stairs.
It's Aaliyah. "Hey Mandy! How are you? Long time no see!"

"Yeah, very long time," I reply her grin.

"Hi Ms. Riverdale, how are you? It's nice to see you!"

"I already told you, it's Jillian," my Mum smiles and hugs her. "And it's nice to see you, too."

"Do you wanna come in?" Karen says.

We follow her into a living room that is bordering to the kitchen I guess. I don't have the nerves to do a room tour.
Instead, I look around with a lot of strain. I expect Shawn sitting on the couch on the chair in the corner, but nothing. He's also not standing in front of the book shelter at the wall, neither is he sitting on the high floored carped of the living room. "Where is he?" I ask Aaliyah with my eyes, and she answers loud: "Shawn's in the kitchen I think. Or in his room. I don't know to be honest. Since he's not coming that much home, he uses most of the time to eat or to sleep cause touring is so stressful and exhausting."

"It must be very exhausting to be that much on the street, isn't it?" My mum says – more to Karen than to us. "I have to say, I was really surprised that you didn't tell me about your son. But I understand why you didn't do it. Probably I wouldn't have believed you."

Karen smiles apologetically. "I'm sorry, Jilian. But we've become very careful the last years of Shawn's Success, you know?"

"I totally get it. The more I was surprised that your son took the time yesterday to accompany Mandy home. I mean she never was a fan of 'the great Shawn Mendes', at least as far as I know – it used to be her friend who-"

"Mum, that's enough," I interrupt her, feeling my face turning red. "Really. And please never call him 'the great Shawn Mendes' again. That's really akward."

"Ah, darling, it's so funny when you're thinking, that I'm embarassing."

"My daughter always reminds me to stay in the public one and a half metre behind her," Karen laughs.

Now it's Aaliyah, getting red. "Mum, that's not fair! It was just one time. And I was fourteen."

"I had my hair styled in a ... bit experimenting way, and there was this skirt in a flashing green ... I just loved it. But a teenager may not be loving this outfit when she's possibly meeting one of her friends," Karen giggles. "I got over it."

"Mum, that's not the whole truth," Aaliyah answers, now really seeming to feel uncomfortable. "It was just at the time where everyone was photographing us when we're going out in public, and I wasn't feeling that good with all the attention..."

"You don't have to explain, everything's fine," Karen says, and as a confirmation she goes to Aaliyah to give her a warm hug.

I watch them, and my mum and I smile at each other.

Karen clears her throat. "And now: Please let me be a good host and let me ask you, if you wanna drink something. Wine – red or white, a hot punch, water, lemon or something else?"

"Wine," my mum says.

"A water would be great," I answer and then don't listen anymore to polite flowers of speech. Instead I go to Aaliyah and repeat my question from earlier. "Where the hell is your brother?!"

"I don't know. Maybe, you could go upstairs, looking up if he's there?" Aaliyah twinkles. "That could be number 1 of our five-step-plan."

"Oh no, I'm not going to walk through Shawn Mendes' house, as if I was in any kind familiar there, and if I was searching for something. Do you know what he'll say when he finds me sneaking around in your house?!"

"First of all, it's not his house – it's mine, too," Aaliyah says and frowns. "And second, I don't think that there's something suspicious about going upstairs and asking whether he will come downstairs. That's just not polite, staying up there. He knows that you're here."

"That's exactly the reason why he's staying up there," I answer, but somehow I give in. Maybe, I could at least give Shawn and me the try to act like civilized strangers. "Okay. I'm going. – But why aren't you going?"

"I'm helping my mum in the kitchen. And now go! Give our plan a start!"

"We never made a real plan," I roll my eyes.
Our five-step-plan remained (as already mentioned) on one or two steps only – first talking to Shawn (without fighting) and second clarifying this mess. But now it's just like in the label when it came to entering the elevator. Aaliayh is very strong-minded when it comes to her wanting to let something happen. And now she wants me to talk to her brother and put things right.

She shows me the way up. "You go up there – the second door is the right door. It's the door with the wooden 'Shawn'-name on it."

Okay, that sounds not that complicated.
I breath in, I breath out, and then I enter the stairs.