PENELOPE : MENDES

(20)

Grade 8 by Ed Sheeran
Shawn
I pulled up to the restaurant, "Âme Sœur". It was French, because I knew she loved all things Parisian. The air practically sparkled with the twinkling lights reflecting off the rich red velvet seats and fancy glasses. This is perfect, I thought to myself. Just like her. "This is gorgeous," she gasped. "Shawn, how can you afford this?" I shrugged. "I've been saving up."

The waiter came and seated us at the middle of the room and handed us menus. Five minutes into the silence, Penelope spoke up. "Okay Mendes, what's up with all this. It's too fancy for a one week anniversary. Is there something you want to tell me?" I smiled as I thought about how she react to the rest of the evening. "You'll see! Just trust me."

The night practically flew by, as time usually does when I'm with her. Almost too soon we are offered dessert. "Raspberry sorbet?" I offered and gestured to the waiter. Fortunately Penelope agreed. I felt my palms get sweaty and I became more and more nervous. What if she wouldn't like it? What if she said no? She noticed my mood. "What?" She asked, just as nervous. "Did you take me here just to break up with me?" Her voiced cracked at the end of her question and I was pulled back into reality. "No, no, of course not." I assured her, and all her fears were calmed as she looked down at her plate.

I had asked our waiter to put a note on her dessert that said, "will you be my girlfriend?" In delicate black writing. She started to blush and covered her mouth with her hands. "Shawn," she whispered my name shakily and I took her hand in mine. "I don't need two weeks to decide. In fact, the moment I laid eyes on you, the day in the mall when we first kissed, I knew that I-" say it. You love her. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Penelope. I don't want anybody else. I want you and all of your quirks, your victories, your mistakes. I want the best of you and the worst of you. I want... you." A tear rolled down her soft cheek and I wiped it away gently. Hopefully I'd get to do that for many years. She laughed and wiped her eyes. "So is that a yes?" "Yes," she smiled. "Yes a thousand times yes!"

We stood outside on the pavement, just like our houses did. Her next to me was too great of a distance, so I pulled her into my chest. I fell the steady rise and fall of her breathing and smelled the vanilla in her hair. My mind was a swirl of emotions and thoughts, all interrupted by three little words she uttered into my shirt:
"I love you."
My heart skipped a beat. Actually, I don't know that is started beating again. Say it back, Shawn, you idiot. But I froze. I, the boy who wrote songs about her in my journal. I, the boy whose thoughts of her could not be fit into a single book. I could not say I loved her.
Did I love her?
Of course I did.
I opened my mouth to speak but it was too late. The warmth of her pulled away as she ran her hand to mine and smiled as she went, full well knowing she had my wrapped around her finger. She waved before she went inside, and that was it.

My girlfriend, my Penelope.

((YALL THIS BROUGHT ME SO MUCH FEELS. Also are any of you reading only one perspective of this story or both? ))