ILLUMINATE
Shawn Mendes
Chapter-26
"I know that you have a secret love for winter." Those words come from her mouth like a bullet, shooting me directly in the heart as my face sinks and seemingly feels to be pale of guilt.
"I can expl-" With a heart that's stopped beating in my chest, my lips slightly parted from hurt, I stand before her, trembling on the inside.
"Which is totally ridiculous," she continues, cutting me off, "because I thought fall was your favourite season."
A long sigh of relief departs from between my lips, my tensed shoulders drop, and my heart began beating its normal pattern once again. "O-of course," I play along, knowing if I didn't, I could get myself in loads of trouble, "how could you not know winter was my favourite season, Madison. We've established this before." I choke on my words, guiltily.
"Grade A listening is a quality I don't have, mister." She tisks, tapping the tip of my nose.
I nod in agreement, "yeah, pft, I forgot." I softly hit the palm of my hand onto the side of my head. "So, about your friend.. Should I be worried about competition?"
She shrugs her shoulder and a side smile creeps onto her pink lips. "I don't know, he's just a really good friend, that's all."
"Alright. Um, I guess I should get going. Leave you guys to it." I press the top of her hand to my lips, stepping back slowly, gently releasing her by her fingertips.
"So soon? You should stay a bit longer, get to know Matt. Might become great friends, you never know." She steps forward enthusiastically, her eyes and smile glistening from the sun.
"You sure? I really don't want to intrude." I insist, raising my hands. She tugs the ends of my shirt down to cover my stomach area and she leaves her hand on me for a second more. She was feeling me.
I lift my hand to hers and she flinches away covering her face. She thought I was going to hit her.
"I-I wasn't gonna hurt you, Madison. You know that I wouldn't." I retry my motion, but this time bringing my hand to her cheek, rubbing my thumb over it as I cup it.
"I know," she mutters, "I just had a moment. Let's get you inside, I'm sure Matt would love to meet you." She flashes her cute, sad smile. She takes me by the hand and walks me inside.
"Shawn, this is Matt." She introduces us, My hand goes in for a sophisticated hand shake, her friend choosing otherwise. It made me cringe, but I was comfortable a few seconds after.
I was pulled into a familiar hug, also known as the 'bro-hug', which caught me off guard by a hundred miles.
"You better be good to her." He mumbles threateningly into my ear, smiling afterwards. The dark lighting in the room sets everything in a gloomy and intense mood, I just couldn't shake off.
"Is that a threat?" I mutter back, he responds with a shrug, and lies on the couch, trying to make this conversation suspenseful.
"Okay sweets, we met, we're pals, what's next?" Madison's friend being here sort of makes everything weird. I've never hung out with my girlfriend, let alone another guy included. I was always used to the romantic setting, the dim lighting, the girl and I sitting close, me telling her how gorgeous she is, our lips making contact, taking things slow.
It's pretty much me just wanting to full on love her yet doing it in a slow manner. Nothing else but the two of us with much, way too much on our minds, making little conversation, for we are only paying attention to each other's presence.
"Nothing, I guess." She wraps her arms around my torso and pecks my neck as that is as far as she could reach.
"There is such thing a room, miss Montgomery. So go use it!" Matthew encourages Madison incoherently whilst shooing us away.
Without further notice, she takes me to her bedroom, which is one place I've never been in. I've pictured it to be an all alternative themed bedroom, posters of her favourite bands posted on dark coloured walls, paintings that meant a lot but looked like a jumble of nothing.
What it really was on the inside was nothing compared to my imagination; it was bright, the windows wide open which allows the sun or cool breeze to enter, a shrine- like setup of pictures of her, Ian and I. (She cut Cecelia out of the picture, literally.)
And when you look to the left all you see is a different coloured wall. A red wall to be exact. It contained folded sheets of paper that had either oil or water stains, many photographs of her and a boy seeming to be deeply in love, and on the wall is written in bold white:
♡Jack + Madi♡
5/23/13 - ∞+
"So you were in love with him."
She chuckles out a 'yeah' and pulls out her green notebook for math. She flips through the pages that had her gorgeous handwriting written beautifully between the lines, searching for a blank page to write on.
She plants herself in the middle of her bed, where the sun's rays could beam intensely onto her skin, allowing it to glow.
There's something about that wall...it just called for me. I trace a finger over the slips of paper, opening it with caution to not catch her attention.
To: Maddee From: Jack
2/9/13
Hey maddee, (Idk if that's how you spell your name..sorry), um I really like you, so maybe we could go on a date? You don't have to if you don't want 2. We barely know each other, but I'd like to get to know you better. If you like me after a date, if you even want 2 go on one, I wanna ask for your father's permission 2 date u ☺
I fold the paper back up and pin it back to the wall, then taking a picture of them two in my hands. I turn it over and it read, BEST DATE EVER! EEK btw jack's mannerism just makes me want to marry him. Momma would be so proud :)
"H-Hey, do you remember that lesson we learned on Friday, in math?" She questions with a small stutter at the beginning because she'd caught me looking through her notes from jack. She didn't even try but her voice still brought my heart to life. "S-Something about derivatives?"
"No, I, um, I don't pay much attention in that class. But I'm sure I could be of some help." I brought my bottom lip between my teeth, regretting that I've been caught looking through things I wasn't supposed to.
I place the picture back on top of the drawer, not putting it back.
"Oh, well i mean if you don't understand what we learnt, I don't think you would be of help." She pouts, folding the edge of her homework.
"Don't doubt me, babe." I take a seat next to her brushing her hair to the other side of her shoulder. "What's the problem?"
"I don't know, it says to write an equation for a derivative, whatever that means." She sighs, falling back onto her pillow. "I'm dumb."
"You think you're dumb. I think what I'm about to say is going to make you think otherwise." I grinned. "the derivative of my love for you is 0, because my love for you is constant."
She stared at me with her lips pressed together, "aw. You're too cute." She laughed silently, but I could feel the bed shake lightly. "Shawn, um, why were you reading the stuff on that wall?"
I could feel my cheeks brighten, "That's actually a really good question. My answer to that is, um, I wanted to see you happy, I wanted to see how he treated you so I could maybe treat you better than he ever did."
"Oh."
Then I remembered.. I planted a flower for her outside her bedroom window the other day; it was one of the activities Cecelia an I did.
I pace quickly to the window, peering over the small ledge to see if it were still in its place; standing boldly in the rocky soil. And surely, it was. "I've got something to show you. I'm well over positive that you'll love it." I motion her over, she groans, per usual, throwing her head back and putting her work aside.
"It's a rose." I can't even make out what her face was describing. She certainly has a shocked face, her hands covered her mouth, probably there to stop her from bursting into tears.
"Where'd it come from?"
You must be thinking, wow.. is this girl for real? But allow me to explain; here where madi lives, no grass, trees, or plants grow.
"I came a yesterday when you were gone, and I decided, 'hey, maybe it's time to be a good friend a do something nice for a change.' So I planted you a rose, because you need something beautiful, besides me, in your life."
"Oh, my, you're such a great guy, cocky, but I'll get used to it.." She side hugs me, mumbling 'thank you'.
"You're very welcome. But this isn't just any rose. This rose is ours, considering it is the only thing we can take care of, together, at this age." I sigh, wanting to rip that flower out of the ground, mind you, I hate roses with a passion.
Why? Well, because it's a constant reminder of my parents, my dad, would bring my mum roses everyday, which started to irritate her.. causing her to think he was over obsessed with their love, and she then divorced him.
I don't want that to be Madison and me.
"that's really sweet of you."
"Yeah, so, I got you this rose, but I need to know, will you let it die, or let it grow?" My eyes drop down to hers, breaking my heart for no reason.
"We need to let it grow."
I already knew her answer, I just needed to know that that's what she was really thinking, and it wasn't all in my head.
What My friends said about Madison and I was wrong, they've doubted love for me, they never wanted me to love, they wanted me to themselves; to watch them find love from the sidelines, to rub what love they're to find, in my face.
Then again, I probably would've done the exact same.