the fall • s.m.

51 • the promise

// shawn mendes //

Margot Kate Franklin is a puzzle. And every time I think I've finally finished completing the puzzle, it's like a hundred more pieces are dumped into my lap. Figure it out, Shawn. You love her. She's your mess to fix.

Right now, seeing her cry, I felt like a hundred more pieces were dumped into my lap.

Figure it out.

"I'm sorry, Shawn. I really am," she said, her tears slowing. She didn't look at me, but I was looking at her. "I don't know how to stop being such a mess. I just don't know how to be the girl you deserve, and I really want to be."

"Margot, you don't have to be —"

"Yes I do. I want to. I have to be, Shawn. Everything is falling apart because of me, and I have to keep it together. I have to keep us together, because you're the only one who makes me feel like this is all worth it. You're the only one who makes me want to be better, and all I do is hurt you," she interjected, sniffling.

I brushed a piece of her hair out of her eyes, which were a bit red from the crying. "Margot, the only way you're hurting me is by hurting yourself. You're so hard on yourself. You don't have to put on some act for everyone. At least don't put on an act around me. I've seen you at your worst and I love you just as much at your worst. Nothing is ever going to change that, you have to understand that," I said. She didn't say anything.

"You have to stop beating yourself up, babe. You have to," I told her, looking at her until she looked back. Her eyes locked with mine for a moment, but she snapped her head away and looked back down at her hands.

"I don't know how," she replied, her voice almost a whisper. "I don't want it to be like this anymore."

"You've got to talk to me. That's the only way it will get better. Keeping it inside is what gets you like this; writing it down for only yourself to see is what gets you like this. You get yourself like this. I can pick you up, Margot. That's what I'm here for," I told her, trying to give her a genuine smile, but everything in me was refusing to smile. She gave me a doubtful look.

"I'll try. I really will," she told me, taking my hand in hers.

"That's all I'm asking," I replied, and now a genuine smile came naturally. "In the words of Justin Bieber: let me love you."

She chuckled, which instantly made me feel better. "Ok. I'll let you love me as long as you want to love me," she simply replied.

"Which will be always."

She smiled again but shook her head after a moment. "I feel like we do this all the time. Too much. I fall apart and you try to piece me back together, and I promise to be better but then I never get better. It's always the same," she said.

"I don't mind piecing you back together, Margot. It's ok."

"But is it really ok?" she asked, her eyes looking into mine, daring me to say it's not.

But it was. I knew Margot was like this from the first month we were dating. I've known her like this for a long time now. She was an emotional train wreck; she was a beautiful mess. Piecing her back together has become something I've gotten used to, because I know she needs someone to do it. And if it's not me, than who is it?