Things To Remember ♡ Shawn Mendes

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Time has passed by in the blink of an eye for the couple and before they knew it, they made traditions to go bowling and eat pizza, ending each day with cuddling anytime they could, making their own clichés on their little tour around the city every once in awhile and trying to stay up late, even though they're both lightweights and tend to get off their faces too easily. many people complimented them on their relationship, saying how cute of a couple they were and family from each side admired how long they've been together--six years and counting.

although they're still pretty young, the boy seventeen years of age and the girl sixteen, they grew up with each other. before figuring out that their 'i love you's were more than platonic, the two were the best of friends, defending each other, play fighting, dragging each other through the halls at school to force one another to go to their class so they wouldn't keep getting in trouble for skipping class. they always looked out for each other, almost like a brother and sister relationship where the older one would be the guardian angel between the two. everyone envied who they became and how they could always be themselves around each other.

but as life took a tole on them, they weren't able to glide through life without hitting a couple of pot holes on the way. school had gotten in the way of everything they did when the boy had graduated and was forced to find a job. he insisted on being able to support his girlfriend when she graduates, so they could be stable and never fight over bills. they never had time to spend together, creating a heavy burden on the foundation of their relationship.

none would say they fell out of love, for they fell in love all over again when doing the simple couple things, but they fell out of theirselves to the point where maintaining a relationship was so hard when you couldn't bare yourself.

the boy became self conscious of his scars, his eyes, the way his smile is always too big, how tall he was, the way his voice was at a higher pitch than the other boys and even though those are things you can't change at all, it was the mental image of what society put on him which became harder to handle.

the girl became self conscious of her raspy singing voice, the bags under her eyes that always made her look tired which she was but she didn't want everyone to know, how short she was to the point where she was a foot smaller than her significant other, how she only has one dimple when she smiles or grins, but again, those are things she will never be able to change about herself. it's societies standards, flat stomach, flawless features.

the pressure of being perfect hung over her head, almost as if it would drop on her like the pianos falling in cartoons. She could only hold so much weight on her shoulders until she would snap somehow, and snap she did.

she couldn't take it anymore, she was an emotional wreck one day when her boyfriend wouldn't answer her calls and the weight of the world was solely on her shoulders when her mother yelled at her, saying she wished her daughter could be more perfect.

she remembered the good ole days when she was always smiling, always happy, always being affectionate with her significant other. flashbacks of when she loved herself as much as she loved her boyfriend, them being conjoined at the hip every minute of every day and how they would always go out on dates together, each taking turns paying, but then she was thrown into reality at the snap of a finger and her whole world crumpled along with her when she downed a whole bottle of 400 gram ibuprofen pills and drifted off in a peaceful sleep, never to wake again.

her mother felt guilty, her boyfriend felt destroyed and everyone else was too shocked to function for the first few weeks of her death, because they realized that the happiest girl in the entire universe really wasn't happy at all. although, people carried on with their everyday lives except for one person: her lover.

he was torn apart at the seams because she was his rock, she kept him grounded to the point where if they were away from each other for more than an hour, he would go crazy. he was a lost puppy, didn't know what to do without her, so he didn't come out of his room. he slept his days away and barely ate, he was becoming skin and bones until her mother stopped by one day to drop something off for him: a letter.

it was months after she had passed, he thought if she wrote a suicide note for him, someone would've found it by now and given it to him, but the letter was no ordinary suicide note, it was something more of a list.

Things To Remember was written neatly at the top, her handwriting scrawled so perfectly across the college rule lined paper with a quote signed under the title, 'don't forget me, but don't hold onto me . find someone who will love you as much as i did, because you deserve the world . here's a list of things to never forget, because you need to take care of yourself like you did when i was still here'. the list changed his life forever after the girl's death, just like the girl changed his life forever before her death.

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in the story he's around 20 years old.