Texting / Shawn Mendes

At Frankies

I am sitting at Frankies waiting for Shawn to come. He texted me 20 minutes ago, saying that he just left the house but there is still no sight of him. He's probably driving, so texting him or even calling him was not a good idea.
I am staring at the wall in front of me. There are pictures of all of the customers that stopped by Frankies.

On the top left, there is a picture of me with Andrea. I remember that day so clear as if it was yesterday. We lost the bus and the next one was in three hours so we started walking, not sure of where we were going. It started raining so by the time we reached the cafe we were soaking wet. It was almost close time, but Julia, a blondie that used to work here, let us in and brought us a towel. Julie left for college three months ago and I haven't seen her yet. In the photograph, me and Andrea are wrapped in a towel, our hair is wet and we are laughing. Our eyes are closed and we seem so happy...

I am brought back to reality, when Shawn comes and sits on the chair in front of me and he places his hand over mine. I remove my gaze from the wall and look at him.

"Hi baby."

"Hey." I say and a smile is immediately painted on my face.

"We need to talk." I say in a serious tone.

"Yes. We have to." And he removes his hand from mine. I look at my hand, already missing his touch.

"You go first."

"Do you remember when your mom picked us from the airport? When my mood changed in seconds and you asked me about it and I said that we will discuss it later, but we never did. The truth is that I've been thinking about us... your mom said something to me that made me realize a lot."

"What did she say?"

"Thanks for keeping her save. She was going through a lot."

"Oh."

"What's wrong? Why didn't you talk to me?"

"The whole point of me leaving my house, was to keep my mind busy and stop thinking of how bad everything is but most importantly, I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be close to you, you make me feel safe and when I'm around you, I stop thinking about anything else. On my birthday, we had a call from my dad's hometown. My grandma had a heart attack and her condition was critical. My dad left the next day and me and my mom stayed behind. I was feeling like a mess for weeks. I couldn't eat so I lost a lot of weight and I couldn't focus. The guilty emotions kept coming on the surface. I haven't seen my grandma for years and the thought of losing her was terrifying. My mom said to me that as soon as I was finished with my exams, I could go on tour with you. She also said that I could help you feel better after the incident in Manchester, I knew you were upset, but I didn't think that I'd manage to change anything because I was a mess myself. The day we came back home, my dad told me that my grandma is finally at a stable state." The whole time I was talking, I was unable to look at him. I was embarassed for hiding everyrhing from him for months but what else could I do? Even talking about it, makes me emotional.

"Malia... I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"For all the drama during tour. I should have spent more time with you, enjoying the little moments, instead of fighting you and pushing you away. I'm sorry for missing your birthday, I'm sorry for not giving you my time when you needed it the most and last but not least sorry for adding more weight on your shoulders. I know I'm an idiot, but I promise I'll make it up."

"Shawn, you didn't know because I didn't want you to. With tour and rehersals you were too stressed out and by telling you about my grandma it would make it even worse. I told you... what happened with Sofia belongs to the past. We need to move on."

"When was your birthday?"

"On May."

"And I didn't even know."

"It's fine."

"No it's not! Don't you get it? I don't even know your favourite colour."

"Blue. If you want to know more about me then just ask me. I'd be more than happy to answer."

"We had so much time... we could have spent it together but instead we wasted it. I didn't give you my time. I didn't treat you well. I'm so busy all the time."

"Shawn! Stop it! We can't go back in time okay? We both made mistakes but still I understand you. You are busy with your career, doing what you love the most and I'm not going to prevent you from doing it because I love you and I respect it. Let's just focus on the future, because if you keep looking at the past, there will be no future for us."