I Do / S.M/ ( sequel to Strings) *On Hold*

Chapter 9 Honesty

"Hey, so I'm going to a college party tonight and was hoping you would be my wing women?" I ask Sophia. She screams excitedly making me pull the phone away from my ear. "I take that as a yes?"  "Of course! Meet at your place?" She asks. "Sounds good see you  in twenty minutes?" "Great." I hang up and I look over at Shawn standing in the doorway of our room. "Call me if you two get into any trouble." I nod. "Are you still mad at me?"

"We'll talk about this later." 

"I want to talk about it now." He says coldly. I take a deep breath. I look down at the ring on my finger and close my eyes.  "Maybe.. we need to take a break I don't know if I can do this anymore, I'm sorry." I look at him and slide the ring off my finger and  uncurl his fingers and drop the ring in his palm. His eyes widen and his face goes from shock to sadness.

"Zoë you can't mean that! I'm trying so hard to be-"

"No Shawn, maybe when your career slows down. We're still good friends but were not speaking the same language and we need a break, things happened really fast. I don't want to be in the way of things. You can still see Skye..." I  take a few steps backward and look up at him and feel my heart twist. His brown eyes look so heartbroken. "Zo.."

"I'll be back later."

I feel my phone buzz and text, Sophia, back. "Zoë please,"  He sounds close to tears. I shake my head and walk out of the room and down the stairs and outside. I don't start to tear up until I'm in Sophia's car. "What's wrong hun?" She asks. 

"I just gave Shawn back the ring, I said we needed to take a break." I sob and begin sniffling. "Zoë! What happened? "She asks and pulls out a pack of tissues from her purse. "I can't deal with him being gone all the time, and raising Skye along with school, and work? I can't do that anymore. I didn't ask to have a kid this young."  Sophia hugs me tightly. "Can  we leave please?"   She turns the car on and pulls off. 

I cry the whole car ride to Beck's house and wonder if I made the right decision. I  dab at my eyes to erase the evidence of me crying before we walk up to Beck's apartment. "Glad you could come!" He says giving me a hug. "Oh, Beck this is my best friend Sophia." A pleasure to meet you." He shakes her hand, Come in and meet everyone." He says and looks at me. "Are you ok?" He mouths. "Fine." I lie and follow Sophia to the living room. "My roommate Lloyd is right..." He looks around as athletic looking ginger walks in.

"I was mentioned?" He asks looking at Beck. "I wanted you to meet my friend Zoë and her friend Sophia." "Oh!  you're the famous Zoë,  Beck's told me  all about you."  I  stiffen and glance over at him to see his cheeks are bright red.  "I- I don't talk about you a ton." He looks at Lloyd who tries to eat his words before tilting his head toward the couch where there are two girls playing Mario Kart "Have you met Janet and Lacy? They're really cool." He says and goes down the hall.  Beck sits on the couch and reaches over to the controller that the girl with the super curly brown hair is holding and pauses it making her turn right around annoyance evident in her eyes. "Beck what the hell I was so close to winning!" "I wanted you to meet Zoë and Sophia." 

"Nice to meet you," Janet says. Lacy looks at me as if trying to figure something out and I'm nervous that she knows who I am.  "So Zoë what are you majoring in?" Lacy asks. "Undecided currently, what about you?" I ask. "I'd like to be a writer or a journalist."

"That sounds  fun, I love writing." She smiles at this. "What do you write mainly?" I ask. 

"Poetry!" 

"You?"

 "Short stories poetry too." She nods excitedly." "I also write songs." I nod as she excitedly talks about music and her favorite artist when Shawn's name pops into the conversation. "Apparently he's dating his high school sweetheart, that's so cute! Are you a fan of him? I know not everyone loves him as much as  I do" She says chuckling a little. I purse my lips as I think about our conversation earlier. "He's really talented."