𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝, shawn mendes

𝟨.𝟪

shawn mendes
09/06/18
7:13pm
london, united kingdom

The second of March. That was the day I flew to Italy, just so I could be closer to Aurora. So I could finally make her realise her feelings, and fall in love with me. It was also the day we took our first photo together, looking like a couple with my arm around her neck and my head rested on hers, both of us looking aggravatingly happy.

I stare at the photo of us until it no longer looks like Aurora and I, trying to make the feeling it ignites in me disappear. But it never does.

I flick to the next photo, one of her laughing while she splashes me with water in the pool. And then to the next one, a photo of her that should probably be in a private folder, just for my eyes. And the next, and the next. I go through all the photos until it hurts me too much and I have to stop, but I never have the heart to delete them.

"Andrew says you've got an interview scheduled, so you need to go. C'mon we need to get out of the dressing room." Brian bursts in, doing a double take as he catches me looking at photos of Aurora and I. I close my photos quickly, placing my phone in my lap to maintain the illusion of me being over Aurora. "Shawn, man, I saw."

"I wasn't looking at our photos, I was just looking for another photo and my finger slipped." I lie, unconvincing. "I'm gonna delete them, anyway."

"You don't have to." He says as we walk out of the dressing room. I walk ahead, leaving him to lock the door. "You don't have to pretend that you're over her, either. She was your first true love, dude."

"Fake it until you make it, I guess." I shrug, "I'm hoping that the more I say I'm over her, the faster I'll get over her."

"But do you really want to get over her?" He says suddenly, his change in attitude taking me by surprise. For the past two weeks he'd been all about me getting to move on, even taking me to bars so we could meet girls like old times. But every time we met someone, I found something wrong with them to cover up the most obvious flaw of all. They just weren't Aurora.

"Obviously not. I want to go back to the way things were, when we took photos like this," I pull out my phone, showing him photos of the two of us when we were loved up. "but we can't go back to that. I can't just pretend like things are ok."

"Why can't you?"

"What?" I blink at him, my mind not understanding his thought process. "What d'you mean? I can't go back to her because I can't trust her, Brian. She made a promise and she broke it and she wouldn't even tell me why!"

"I just think, maybe you're being a little stubborn." He shrugs. "But I don't know."

"Stubborn? I'm being stubborn? Brian, you sat with me for hours that night and you saw how hurt I was. She didn't even give me a reason." I sigh. "I wish I knew why, so I could stop torturing myself."

"Did she not give you any clue?"

"No. She just said she couldn't say it over the phone." I pause, my brain coming up with explanations. "Brian, what if I messed up?"

"What do you mean?" He blinks.

"What if something is really wrong?" I fret, "What if she was sick, or really hurt or- or... I don't know. But what if something was really wrong, and I wouldn't let her tell me because I was drunk?"