SHAWN
27th of October, 2015
I brush my thumb along the top of the rock, the fluid edges soft against the palm of my hand. I skim it, watching as it skips across the water, three easy dances before falling with a splash. I haven't written in my diary in almost a month, but only because I've been working on something for Hannah. And then she dumped me.
Which, guaranteed, I deserved.
On the grass of the riverbank beside me, my phone illuminates. I ignore the text, looking up at the bridge to my right as I wonder why it felt wrong as I slipped my legs through it half an hour ago - and then I remember it's because this is our spot.
Curiosity kills me and I peer down at my phone, the message from Andrew expected but still a shock. I don't know whether to be excited or scared.
Andrew: Flights are booked, meeting is arranged. Be at the airport by 11, no later. I hope this is worth cancelling 4 shows.
I gulp, a fistful of grass clenched in my left hand. This is happening - finally. I stand up, get back on my putrid green bike and pedal towards Hannah's house, knowing if I don't do this now, I'll never gain the courage.
Her sister opens the door with a smile, a phone pressed between her shoulder and ear. She has a hair towel wrapped around her head, and I can't help but notice, now that she's older, the vast amount of similarities she shares with her older sister. I smile internally at how much she's grown.
"Hey," She says, hanging up on whoever was on the phone, "God, I'm glad you're finally here - it's been hard keeping it from her. I'm allowed to come, right?"
I laugh, my tongue pressed against my front teeth. "Of course, and Noah too. You'll have to ask your parents, though."
Chloe nods, a fist bump in the air - and I know she already has. She calls for her sister loudly, before returning to face me, eyes calm and warm. She disappears for a second, returning with a pink sweater. "Aaliyah left her hoodie here last night," She smiles, handing it to me.
I take it in my hands, just as Hannah bounces down the last stair. I find an odd sense of satisfaction in knowing that even if my plan fails, Chloe's close friendship with Aaliyah will somehow grant me the opportunity to come to their house. I crinkle my nose at how creepy it sounds.
Hannah's eyes widen as she peers at me from the staircase. She inches forward, lips pressed firmly together in a way that shows she's choking back a smile.
"Shawn, what are you doing here?" She asks, her words reminding me once again that me being distant from her has torn away my right to stand in her house. But she doesn't know yet.
I try to stand with confidence, as if I am 100% sure that this will work. "I know I've been shit to you," I say, watching as she inches closer with each word, "but I want to show you I still care."
"I missed you." She shakes her head, taking a step back after realising how close she's grown towards me. I can almost feel the pain in her eyes as reality finds it's way back into her mind. "You forgot my birthday."
I want to tell her that I never forgot her birthday. I want to tell her that this was suppose to happen on her birthday, and that the contract only ended yesterday. I want to tell her how long all of this took to plan - but I don't want to ruin the surprise.
"I have something for you." I bite my bottom lip, calming only as Chloe shoots me a reassuring smile from the hallway as she slowly backs away.
Hannah crosses her arms over her chest, pulling at her knit sweater shyly. "Shawn..."
Shaking my head, I pull the ticket from the pocket of my hoodie. "Han, please," I give it to her, the small slip of paper passing from my hand to hers. Our fingers graze, and I gulp at how much I miss her. "Please."
She gasps, her lips forming a distressed smile as she reads the destination on the ticket. And then, with a jolt, I try to hide a grin as her final string of self-control breaks, and she launches herself into my arms.
"I'm not trying to buy you back," I confirm into her shoulder as she wraps her arms tighter around my body, "I just want you to know I love you."
My best friend breaks herself away from my embrace, a single tear floating down her cheeks, wide, spread with happiness. "I can't take this..." She pulls away and hands the ticket back to me, her eyes wide and confused. "Shawn, I can't."
"We leave tomorrow afternoon," I tell her, "Noah and Chloe are coming too, if that's alright." I swallow, wondering if I should have asked her first. But she nods, her eyes lighting up even bigger, even brighter.
She doesn't say anything, but instead pulls me closer to her and rests her head below my shoulder, grateful and warm.
And she takes my hand, her head still shaking in disbelief as she leads me up to her room just the same as she did before I left for tour. She's grown, and I can't help but smile at the mustard sweater that hangs from her shoulders. It matches her blonde hair, which sits shorter than I remember. She looks mature.
She tells me to sit on her bed as she fetches her laptop, and I make myself comfortable amongst a sea of pillows. Her seventeenth birthday was a week ago, and a line of cards hang on string above her headboard.
"I entered this short story competition." Hannah exclaims, joining me on the bed. My eyes light up and she shakes her head, "Wipe that smirk off your face, Mendes. I did it because the head of English told me to, not just you."
I clutch my heart, as if this is bone crushingly soul shattering, - though I can't stay in character for longer than a minute, because I'm ecstatic that she finally did it.
"I didn't win," She smiles with integrity, "but the woman hosting it sent me the link to her publisher; they're looking for underaged writers."
I lean forward, her ecstatic expression bringing a fuzzy sense of warmth to my core. "And, Farrah, the head editor," She pauses, hands flying to her eyes as if all of this is beyond her, "told me she loved it!"
Her eyes sparkle, hands brushing blonde hair from her face as she sits with the most beautiful smile of self accomplishment I've ever seen.
"That's amazing!" I say, my words caught on her shoulder as I embrace her in a hug. She bites her lip, a smile trapped between humility. We stay quiet for a while.
"You know I love you, yeah?" I whisper, my voice breaking quietly and nervously through the air as I crawl closer to her small body. She's so petite, so delicate, that I find myself feeling big and heavy in her presence. Perhaps it's how tense she is, or how quiet she grows, but suddenly I feel like a monster beside her.
But our story is slowly turning black and white. We are main characters, and this movie that's become our life is mute, built purely around our actions and expressions. We loved, we smiled, we laughed, and then I became a work obsessed asshole and now we're left with silence. We're stuck in this scene, one so deadly silent that even our eyes refuse to enunciate.
Hannah doesn't reply to this, but I can tell she wants to. Words sit on the tip of her tongue as she looks at me, her mouth hanging open, only to be closed again in a fit of neurological amendment. I sigh.
"I should go," I say, and neither of us bother to stop it. I stand, I hold my breath, I leave, - and still, as if this scene in our black and white movie has been discarded, forgotten, never to be finished, neither of us find the strength to say anything.
And this is why we need to go to Australia.
HANNAH
"I'm just saying," Noah sighed, brown eyes rolling to the back of his head, "you have to be careful."
I groaned at my brother, frustrated with his overly romanticised approach on life. "It was two years ago, N! He's almost certainly moved on, just like me!"
"He loved you!" Noah cried out, hands flying above his head in such a dramatic manner that I made a mental note to sign him up for acting classes once he'd finished being an irrational dick. "You lied to him. Jesus, Hannah."
I threw my luggage into the back of his car, turning with disbelief to my brother, "Oh, and you don't think I already knew that? That I haven't spent the last two years of my life wishing 15 year old me wasn't such a self centred bitch?"
"I'm not trying to make you feel bad!" His eyes softened, arms gripping my shoulders. He breathed out. "I just want you to see it from his perspective. I don't want the reality of you and Shawn to hurt him."
With my tongue pressed to my top set of teeth it took everything in me to choke back a scream. "I don't know what his perspective is! I haven't seen him since 2013, and people fucking change!" This time it was me that breathed out, calming, re-evaluating. "And there is no Shawn and I."
"Bullshit, Hannah. I love you, but you're either naive, blind, or both." Noah waved his left hand in the air as if whatever was to be said from here on out was to be deemed redundant. He slipped into the drivers seat and Chloe climbed silently into the back.
And it was only as Noah's second hand Toyota pulled into Shawn's driveway that I realised just how badly I wanted there to be a Shawn and I again. The brown eyed boy looked nervous, his hair neatly swept to the left in a way that made my insides shallow but heavy. He slipped into the seat beside me as if he weighed nothing, as if his insides were nothing but air and the longing to be forgiven.
I offered him a smile, because I couldn't open my mouth - not when the heavy feeling in my chest was emphasising my words to Noah. There is no Shawn and I.
Because he stopped caring, I thought. But with Shawn it was never that simple.