Dangerous Love//Shawn Mendes

Chapter 65

As much as I wanted to stay in his arms forever, to forget everything else in the world, I knew it was wrong to cheat on Will. While he was undoubtedly in the wrong for acting the way he had, I couldn't excuse my own role in this either. I walked tentatively into the waiting room, where Will was slumped in the same chair he'd been sitting in hours earlier. He looked up when he saw me, awaiting my news and studying my expression carefully.

'He's okay.' I said, unable to mask the emotion in my voice as I sat down next to Will, and while he should have been relieved too, he didn't respond, he didn't even look at me.

'How many times?' He whispered, his eyes slightly red and glassy. I looked at him quizzically, unsure what he meant.

'How many times did you cheat on me with him?' I could hear the bitterness in his tone, and I understood that he was hurt, but this moment was not about him.

'This was the only time, I swear.' I said, and paused to swallow my tears. 'The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you.'

'You're a little late on that one.' He ran a hand through his hair, huffing quietly.

'I don't know what to say Will, I don't even know why I called him, I just...' I trailed off, not knowing what to say. I knew he wanted me to tell him I was sorry and that I took it all back, but I couldn't do that.

'What does this mean for us?' He dared to ask, and I bit my lip as I searched for the right words.

'Will there's so much happening right now, I just don't know what any of this means.' I said, not having the headspace to compensate any feelings I might have had for Will; all I could feel was Shawn's touch on my face and the butterflies in my stomach that were missing with Will. He reached out and took my hand, bringing me to look at him.

'I love you.' He said, his eyes searching mine, trying to connect with me. He and I had not said those words, and truthfully I wasn't sure that I could ever feel that way about him, that I could ever truly love him.

'I-' was all I could get out, frozen and unable to process any of it.

'You what?' He said, growing frustrated, wanting to hear me say the words. This was wrong, it was the wrong timing, and it was forced, and I didn't love him, I realised in that moment.

'I can't say it back.' I said, freezing under his gaze, and he sighed in frustration. 'Will I know this doesn't make a lot of sense right now but I just, I don't know what I'm feeling-' I began to explain, but he cut me off, not wanting to listen to what he knew I was about to say.

'It's him, isn't it.' I said nothing. 'I'm the one that was there to pick up the pieces, every single time he hurt you. I was there for you through everything, and that's not enough, it's still him.' He said, his tone sad with a hint of bitterness.

'Will please try and understand, I-I can't change the way I'm feeling, and it was never meant to be like this, I never wanted-' I tried to explain, although this was proving difficult given that I had no legitimate reason for taking Shawn back. My feelings, that was my reason, but I didn't expect that to make sense to anyone else. I gasped quietly as he took my face in his hands, cupping my cheeks as he stared intensely into my eyes.

'Eleanor tell me what he did.' He demanded, desperately searching for some sort of reason to make me stay.

'Wh-what?' I stammered.

'Tell me what he did, what happened in Canada. Look me in the eye and tell me that I could ever hurt you the way that he hurt you, that I could do what he did, tell me what happened and I swear Eleanor I will let you go.' He begged, cupping my face to stop me from moving away. But he was right, it was all true, Will would never do what Shawn had done, he wasn't even capable of it.

'I-I can't, I'm sorry.' Was all I could think to say.

'Yeah me too.' He said, then stood up and walked out of the waiting room. I knew I should run after him, that I was losing the one stable thing I had left in my life, but I didn't want to. For the first time since we'd been together, I had to face the fact that I didn't want him, I didn't feel for him what I felt for Shawn, and I was lying to myself and to him if I tried to make out otherwise.

I sat in the waiting room chair for a few minutes, staring at my hands where they lay limply in my lap, trying to figure out if I was doing the right thing. I knew Shawn's letter was a long shot, and that I couldn't fully trust him, but I wanted to. Everything in me, every cell in my body was screaming to be with him, to believe him, to accept this happiness. And maybe that's what love is, a leap of faith, a gamble based on blind hope. Or maybe I was naïve and stupid and I just didn't learn from the mistakes I kept on making. Maybe I should have accepted the fact that everything that had gone so wrong in my life lately had started with him, and that I'd cried more in the time since I met him than I had in my whole life before that day, and that my heart was tattered and torn with pieces missing and holes punched through it, all because of him. But that would mean giving up the fact that I'd never known happiness like the feelings he gave me, and that I could look into the galaxies of his eyes for decades on end and never get bored, and that no matter how complicated things became, I still wanted to love him for the rest of my life. I wanted to fight over pointless things and then make love until we forgot what the argument was about, I wanted to unpack boxes with him and watch his eyes glaze over as I walked down the aisle, I wanted to squeeze his hand in the delivery room then take turns changing diapers. I wanted all of him, everyday for the rest of my life, and despite every logical thought in my brain telling me to walk away, I wanted to stay. And so I stayed.