Desire | Shawn Mendes

ELEVEN

Oh, but if she knew. Do I tell her that I feel like that? "Hey, Jasmine, I still love you, but you don't love me and that hurts."

"And all you can do is just sit there, expressionless, and just say 'oh,' because you can't even grasp how badly you hurt me." Jasmine continues. "So you're really just gonna sit there then, huh?"

"What do you want me to say? Jasmine, all I can think of is how strong and kept together you are." I say. "You're doing an interview with your ex. That's strong."

Jasmine leans back in her chair and crosses her arms under her chest. "You have some fucking nerve! I mean, my god! You come up out of the blue four years later and just request - no, demand - that I interview you! And then you try to weakly compliment me with some, 'you're so strong oh, how do you do it blah blah blah' bullshit."

"Out of the blue?" I ask. I lean forward and lower my voice. "I fucking searched endlessly for you. I asked Jack, I tried to contact your mother, I even thought of hiring a private detective to find you! Your profiles were gone or I was blocked. The only thing I could do was find your articles with Cosmo and that was it! Do you know how long I kept searching for you? You were my everything! I searched everywhere for my everything. I may be four years too late, but there's a saying that goes better late than never. You decide what you wanna do with that information, baby."

Jasmine scoffs. "Baby? I'm not your baby. But you know what?...." She stops and I can truly see her biting her tongue and she begins to play with her fingers as she places her hands on the table. "Nothing."

"No, come on, say it." I say.
"It's nothing. Actually, maybe we can meet up another four years later and I can tell you."

She gets up from the table and places a five dollar bill before walking out the cafe. I take out a twenty and leave it on top of Jasmine's bill and then follow her outside. She begins to walk down to the nearest corner of the nearest main street in hope of finding a cab.

"So why are you walking away?" I ask her. "Didn't you have any questions for me? You don't like these answers I'm giving you?"

Jasmine continues walking and turns a corner. I continue to follow her and catch up to her. There's an alley underneath a train station and I grab her by the arm and turn her around. A train passes quickly and the wind pushes her hair back over her shoulders. We stand to the side of the alley and Jasmine removes her arm from my grip and tucks her hair behind her ear. For fucks sake, can she stop!?

"I wanna know when." Jasmine says.

"When what?" I ask her.

"When did you stop loving me? And when did you realize you wanted to have me interview you?" She asks. "Tell me how long it took for you to get over me. Tell me how much you hurt. Tell me."

I'm taken aback by the slight raise in her voice and the hint of anger. She has the same look on her face as she did when she said she hated me. Now I want to know if she still hates me.

"Exactly. You didn't go through what I went through and you have the nerve to call me strong. No, Shawn, it's not being strong, it's called being professional. I have to be professional because the only place where I thought I could escape you was whenever I wrote. But then you showed up, and, well, I guess not. I guess that I'll never escape you. I guess these questions that I have will forever haunt me because I really don't know if I want answers from you." She says.