Flawed (s.m.)

014.

  Surprisingly enough, the vibrant sunlight dripping through the tiny cracks in my blinds wasn't what awakened me. Instead, the sound of my mother furiously banging on my door caused me to jolt upright, tearing the comfort of my warm bed away from myself. I would've preferred the peaceful awakening of the chirping of morning songbirds and the brightness of a beautifully orange sunrise, but alas, it was a school day, and my alarm failed at being an alarm. After rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I angrily through my hands down as I huffed.

  "Umph," a male voice grunted. For the sake of my well-being, I hoped that I hadn't imagined my bed making that sound. I nervously peeked downwards through my long eyelashes, seeing that none other than Shawn Mendes was staring up at me with the best smirk of the decade. "That was quite the awakening, Audrey, but how about a k--" It took me a while to react due to simply being too tired to deal with this shit at seven a.m. on a Tuesday, but I harshly shoved my hand over his mouth just as my mom began knocking at the door again. Shawn's eyes widened with panic.

  "Audrey Ann!" she screamed with obviously strained vocal chords. Jesus, how long had she been at this? I peered over at my pitiful alarm clock, which unfortunately told me we had about twenty-three minutes until the bell rang for first period. "You better open this door young lady! What do we say about locking doors?" I rolled my eyes dramatically, hating how she always treated me like I'm five years old. I abruptly grabbed Shawn's shirt to pull him to my window seat, pointing at it to signal that he should get inside and hide. This wasn't the first time I'd had to hide a cute boy to avoid certain death.

  "Are you crazy?!" he whisper/yelled at me, leaning in close to make sure my mom wouldn't hear.

  "Do you even know how tall I am?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

  "Get in the goddamn box, Shawn." And just as he tried to fight me, I opened the box and shoved his torso in with one swift motion. He raised his hands up in surrender before cramming his legs in and shutting the top, leaving me to jog over to the door and face the wrath of the witch that was my mother. "Hi mom," I greeted, smiling warmly. She raised her eyebrows as she tilted her head down to give me the I-know-you-did-something-but-I-don't-have-evidence look, folding her arms across her chest.

  "Hello, Audrey. Are you aware that school starts in twenty minutes? And that I've been knocking on this door for God knows how long?" Immediately, I came up with the perfect response.

  "Mom. oh my gosh. I'm so sorry! My alarm didn't go off and I took a huge dose of melatonin before I went to bed..." I explained, mentally patting myself on the back for the clever excuse.

  "Hmm..." she hummed, contemplating if I was really telling her the truth. She sighed, dropping her arms to her side. "Well, okay. Hurry up now. I need to get to work." She began to walk down the hallway before she shot me a glance over her shoulder. "Love you," she said curtly, but sincerely. I smiled weakly and placed a gentle kiss to my fingers before giving her a dainty wave. I loved my mom. I really did, but that woman could not get the hell out of the house fast enough. Not that it particularly mattered, because Shawn found his way out of the window seat without me giving him any sort of signal that the coast was clear. I cocked an eyebrow at him as I folded my arms, realizing I must look like my mother did just a couple of minutes ago. I dropped them to my sides. The last thing I wanted was to get all motherly. That shit's weird. He chuckled, furrowing his eyebrows.

  "What?" he questioned, wondering why my eyes were boring into his soul at this point.

  "You could've ruined it," I said. This bare statement left him confused.

  "Ruined wha--" he paused in the middle of his sentence, and I'm pretty sure I watched the answer to his question slap him across the face. "Oh. I didn't get out until she said bye, I swear!" I laughed at how skittish he was as I walked over to him. I really wanted to kiss him. Like, I really wanted to. I hated that. I hated that I wanted to kiss this guy I'd only just gotten to know for absolutely no reason at all. That wasn't a very Audrey Landenna thing to want. Even so, I strolled over to him so I could wrap my arms around his waist. Being significantly shorter than him, I was able to gently rest my chin on his chest to look up at him. His smile was soft as he looked down at me with his big brown eyes and I could feel my heart rate speed up a little. This wasn't okay. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Still, I continued to make what I'm sure are the stupidest googly eyes up at him as he scanned my face, like he was trying to make sense of every little feature.

  "We have to get ready..." he murmured.

  "Do we?" I tested, completely comfortable in our current position.

  "We do."

  "Really?"

  "No." My lips contorted into a smile while I continued to look at him, standing up on the tips of my toes for him to bring his lips to mine. The kiss was short and sweet, causing me to pout as his face crept away from mine. He bit down on his lip, holding my gaze. I knew that we had to get to school, but I could've stayed there all day and maybe even more.

  That terrified me.

--

  We decided to skip the first period of school so that we both had time to get ready (and time for McDonald's breakfast), but regrettably, Shawn and I walked through the halls of our school, dodging the kids who clearly had somewhere more important to be. Not getting body checked into the lockers was always a tough task for me and my tiny frame, and Shawn seemed to take notice of that. I felt his hand wrap itself around mine as we walked. As bad as it sounds, my immediate thought was "oh no". We were holding hands in public, and I didn't know if that was okay with me. I was notorious at school as the girl who refused to be tied down, and now that I was holding hands with this boy who I admittedly had amazingly strong feelings for, that reputation would be gone. The reputation wasn't what truly mattered to me, though. I feared the hoards of questions that were bound to come our way that I wouldn't know how to answer. They would ask if we were dating, and I would be forced to answer with a measly "I don't know". They would ask why I would date an underclassmen. But are we even dating? They would ask what changed my mind about the dating scene, and I would just stare at them with the classic deer-in-the-headlights look. I truly had no idea what was going on, and I didn't want people to smack a label on this thing before I even got the chance to figure out what was really happening. It dawned on me that I might have to have a talk with Shawn, and I hated those kinds of talks. I forbade myself from those kinds of talks. The ones that start with "so" are the worst ones, as the great Zac Efron once taught me. And I knew that would be a "so" conversation. Shawn took notice of my hesitance, probably because every muscle in my arm tensed up the moment he touched my skin.

  "Audrey? Are.. are you okay?" he asked with genuine concern.

  "I'm okay." I replied quickly, unsuccessfully trying to not be suspicious. He pulled me to the side of the hallway and began to speak in a hushed tone.

  "Did I freak you out with the hand thing?" he questioned, a hint of sadness in his eyes. I sighed, not wanting to upset him.

  "You didn't freak me out, no. I just.. I don't..."

  "Know what we are yet?" he guessed. I nodded, looking down at my feet. "Hey," he spoke. "Look at me." And so I did. It was that easy for him. He said it, and I did it. Ew. "It's okay, because I have no fucking clue either." Despite the foul language, he smiled at me with such innocence, making me laugh a little. He said that it was okay, and everything definitely felt okay in that moment. I took a couple deep breaths, squeezing his hand as I did so. I really liked holding his hand. So why the hell wouldn't I do that in front of people? I pulled him along the hallways with me, not letting him leave my side. I could hear a couple of whispers and could feel some pairs of eyes staring at us, but I was slowly learning not to care. This was Shawn Mendes, my whatever you want to call him. And I liked him a lot. Just as I was beginning to feel that cheesy invincibility that's usually exaggerated in crappy teen movies, a familiar face approached us. There wasn't a single gagging impression in the world that could do him justice.

  "Well, well, well.." Sam began, looking us up and down. The shit-eating grin on his face was almost enough to make me slap him again. "Look what we have here."

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A/N: I'M SO SORRY I LEFT YOU HANGING I'M THE WORST SORRY FOR TYPOS ILY