Desire | Shawn Mendes

TWELVE

Song of the Chapter: Little Bit of You - Kevin Garrett

"And I don't wanna know what it's like / To be the one who's on your mind."

= =

The girl stares back at me. Her hazel eyes stick out the most as we stare each other down. I reach up and tuck my hair behind my ear - so does she. The touch I tried to recreate wasn't the same as his touch. I look at my hand - so does she. We close our eyes and think, why didn't we move our hand? Why did he let his hand warm our hand? Why?

I open my eyes to no longer see the small fragment of 19 year old Jasmine, but instead see twenty three year old Jasmine with her morning face masks on. I turn on the faucet and begin to remove my mask, then do my skin routine before going in to my makeup for the day - light concealer, brows, and lips.

After getting dressed - and making sure that the sweater I wore was mine and not actually Shawn's - I head downstairs and gather my things before I head into the kitchen.

Jack sits at the copper countertop and sips his coffee while reviewing his blue prints. Paige is already gone and I remember that she has an early meeting with a students parents this morning. I go to pour myself some tea in a mug and wonder if I should talk to Jack or not about what happened last night.

"Hey," I say to him. Jack looks up and sets his blue prints down. He can already tell I have something to say to him and he gives me all his attention.

"I have ten minutes and then I got to go. But until then, you have my full attention." Jack says to me. "What's up?"

"Shawn and I talked last night. And not, like, hey how ya been? It was literally us talking about what's happened in the past four years." I say.

"Did you tell him?" Jack asks.
"No, but I almost did." I say.

"What happened? He normally tells me about it, but he didn't say a thing last night." Jack tells me. He's genuinely intrigued and I wish that Paige could be a little more like him.

"We went to Wicker and then went to some cafe and there we just talked. But he kept asking me about how much I hurt, what was I feeling, and he...he made a hint, I suppose." I shrug my shoulders.

"A hint at what?"

I grab my tea bag and dip it into the steaming cup of water that was in my blue mug. "He hinted that he's changed and blah blah blah. But, he kept wanting to talk about the breakup and so we did, and then I mentioned had he listened to me back then, we could have done a long distance thing and he wouldn't have been a distraction. So then he goes, Oh, so do you want to try this out again? And like, he said he can love me better now."

Jack furrows his brows at me and I take a sip of my drink. "He hinted he wants to get back together with you?"

"I think it was a hint. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But it was just his tone. I can't - I can't explain his tone, but it was just stuck in my head, ya know." I take another sip of my drink and then think back to the cab ride home. "And then - he held my hand on the cab ride home. But before I got out, he leaned over and..."

"He kissed you, didn't he?!" Jack exclaims and I look at him. He has a hand over his mouth and I can tell he's hiding a smile.