His Fling, My Forever

•Chapter 16•

Shawn Mendes
I was in the middle of rehearsing with the team when I found out.

We were all sat, having a break from rehearsing certain pieces of music and lyrics for my upcoming album. I was excited. It was going to be another step up in my career, nothing was going to get in the way of my happiness.
Everyone was laughing and joking around with each other, all of us feeling positive about the future, each of us had a smile on our faces.
It was Connor's smile that faded first. His mouth dropped open and he couldn't take his eyes off of his phone. At first I guessed it was a text from someone he knew, but when his eyes locked with mine and his face paled slightly, I knew it was something more.
I frowned as he cleared his throat.
"Shawn you need to see this." He said and with a shaking hand passed me his phone. I swallowed and prepared myself.
He didn't look well. So I knew it was bad. But I didn't expect this.
'Exclusive: Old Shawn Mendes fling emerges from hospital with baby.'

I felt like I was going to be sick. I scrolled down to find a photo. At first I was telling myself that it wasn't her, just someone who looked like her. But the more I looked at the photo the more I knew in my heart that it was Elara.
I had to swallow the vomit rising up my throat. This wasn't happening.
This couldn't be happening.
It could just be a coincidence.
It wouldn't be mine.
It couldn't be.

The phone was passed around the group and everyone ended up with their eyes on me. But their eyes were the least of my problems.
I looked at Andrew who, like everyone else, looked sick.
"Please please tell me this is a massive coincidence and there is no possible way that that child could be yours." He said and my breath hitched in my throat. I opened my mouth to speak after carefully planning the words in my head.
"T-there's a small possibility. But surely, surely this is just a coincidence right?" I said and he shrugged.

I was going to open my mouth to respond when Connor slapped his forehead. I turned to him and he was shaking his head lightly.
"Oh my god. This could be why she was trying to get a hold of you before!" He said and it made me feel so much worse.
All these factors were coming together to show that the probability of it being a coincidence was becoming less and less.
"Shawn think about it seriously for a minute. Your fling with her was around the right time for her to be having a baby now. She's been trying to get in contact with you for months. It all fits. If she thought it was someone else's child then she wouldn't have been so desperate to talk to you." Connor explained.

I didn't want to see where he was coming from.
I wanted to believe that it couldn't be mine.
I put my head in my hands.
Everything was going so well. Now I had to deal with this.
"What are you going to do?" Andrew asked and I shrugged.
"Well I'm going to have to go and visit her. If she's round there I bet she's going to the university." I sighed.
"No, I mean what are you going to do if it's yours?" He asked and again bile rose up from my stomach and into my throat at the mere thought of me having a child.
"Can I not think about that now. Let me just go and talk to her first." I sighed.

I didn't know what I would do if the child was mine. I would feel too awful to even imagine.
If the baby was mine, I would feel awful that I hadn't been with her through the whole process, I hadn't been there with her for the child's birth. I wouldn't have been involved in what the name was or the plan. I wouldn't have helped at all and that would have sat so wrong in my chest.

I felt so awful thinking that that would be the case that I tried so hard to convince myself that the baby could never be mine. But no matter how much I tried to convince myself that this was a mistake there was something nagging inside me telling me that it was mine.