You Chose Mine

Chapter 32

I was starting to feel the chill of the new season coming, and it was coming fast. I wrapped my coat tighter around my body as I headed down the main street. Michael offered to buy me a hot chocolate considering I don't drink coffee and I only have tea when I really feel like it. I thought it was sweet so I accepted his generosity. My hair bounced around my shoulders as I picked up the pace, I was already 15 minutes late and I had no good excuse. I heard a sudden whistle coming from a bench ahead. "Check me out on Facebook!" one of the bogan boys called out. I scrunched my face up in disgust before scoffing to myself, "Hey! Check me out!" I heard him holler one last time as I reached the café where Michael was sitting outside. Cuffing onto his mug he smiled up at me.

"Hey" he greeted before taking a sip of his steaming drink.

"Hey" I sighed as I sat down.

"What's wrong?" I cringed at the sound of his words. There all I seem to hear these days, 'what's wrong?', 'are you okay?', 'how are you coping?', 'how are you feeling?', 'everything will get better I promise' day in and day out. Michael must have caught on, he detached himself from his mug and rested his folded arms on the table.

"Was it something I said?"

I shook my head before running my hand through the front of my hair, "I'm just sick of everyone treating me like I'm made of glass" I told him "Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate how people are trying to spare my feelings and letting me off for being forgetful or being slower at things, but it's been nearly 3 weeks..." I said to him "I should be going back to normal, but everyone and I mean nearly everyone I know is babying me" I complained. Things went silent as Michael picked up his mug keeping his visual on me and drank out of it, and then carefully placed it back on the table. I sat back shaking my head at my random outburst, I've been doing this a lot lately.

"I'm sorry" I apologised, "You probably didn't want to talk about my problems or my fucked up mental state" I said to him, when suddenly he started laughing at me.

"What?" I asked with a slight smile.

He looked to me "That's the first time I've heard you swear in about a week and a half"

I muffled a quiet laugh with my hand as I shook my head to myself. "Why did you want to have a drink with me Michael? And not the kind that I obviously need?" he laughed once more at my words. It's pretty obvious we would both rather a drink with a lot more kick for this conversation.

"We haven't talked that much since we did the twitcam at your place..." he ended the sentence, but I knew there was more to it.

"And, either Ashton or Luke told you about what went down between me and Kennedy so..." I left my sentence open so he could finish it. He shrugged and that told me more than his words could sometimes. He didn't want to push the story out of me but he didn't want to leave without hearing it.

"Whatever either of them told you is what happened" I said to him, a waitress came over and took my order and smiled before leaving.

"Why didn't you hit her back?" Michael questioned, "I mean from what I've heard from Derek you have a pretty mean right and left hook" I took my scarf off and laid it down in my lap. Kennedy chose this scarf for me, not only did she do that but she did it on my birthday. I began to play with the end of it while Michael continued to look at me expectantly.

"Because I've already hurt her too much" I said plainly to him.

"Actually, you didn't" he said, my fingers froze as I looked up to him in slight confusion. "You didn't really hurt her, you just got to Luke first"

I shook my head, "I knew how she felt about him... and I let my own selfishness get in the way of Kennedy and I's friendship" I told him.

"Stop feeling guilty for finally getting something you wanted" he said leaning forward. "Shannon, you can be a lot of things but selfish isn't one of them. Do you even realise how much you do for other people?" Cool wind whipped past as small chatter surrounded us. These days Michael is the only one who can talk sense into me; maybe if I played video games like him I could try and make sense of all this myself. "Shannon..." he began, "You would have be one of the nicest people I have ever come across, one of these nicest girls I have met" he complimented. "You give clothes away when you know you're not allowed to, you've invited our fans to your store for pizza parties and you're one hell of a friend" I smiled at his kind words. He shook his head to me, "I don't like seeing you this upset over someone who I don't think is worth crying over at this point" I felt the smile drop almost instantly off my face.