I don't realize how hard I'm crying till I see the tear stains on the notebook. I smile a little to myself as I picture shawn hugging me, telling me he loves me, now realizing how truly special those words are.
ME: hey, mendes. hoping your flight got in safe❤️ love you so much. miss you already
I put my phone down and sit in silence for a few minutes, using all my self control to not turn the next page.
My phone pings with a text message.
SHAWN: flight was good. I'll call you soon. Just gotta get to the hotel and meet with the manager.
That's it. No 'I love you', no 'I miss you'.
Stop it, Aubrey. He's barely been gone.
I look over to the picture i have of the two of us on my dresser. When we went to dinner, I had the hostess take a picture of us. Shawns arm is around my waist, and he's smiling into the camera. I'm turned towards him a little looking up into his eyes, and we both look genuinely happy.
I smile and take in every aspect of the picture. It's the first time we felt completely comfortable around one another.
My heart hurts a little as I remember the whole incident with Miranda.
God, I hope she doesn't mess things up for us. I know shawn loves me, so why am I scared?
A few minutes later my mom calls me downstairs.
"You have a visitor!!" She yells up the stairs.
Hesitantly i close the notebook and put it in my bottom dresser drawer, along with the picture of shawn.
"Who is it?" I ask her.
"Tatum! She came by to say hi. She says she needs to talk to you, so why don't you come downstairs?" My mom says, sounding irritated.
"Oh, uh. I'll be right down." I say back, my hands shaking a little at the thought of talking to her face to face.
...
"Hey." She says, looking at me once before looking down at her feet.
"Do you maybe wanna talk in my room?" I ask her, rocking back and forth on my feet.
"Sure." She follows me up the stairs, and the second we get in my room we both blurt out:
"I'm sorry."
I laugh a little.
"Tate, what on earth do you have to be sorry for?"
"I wasn't there for you, Aubrey. I didn't support you. And I should have."
"It's not your fault. I should have known you'd understand. I was just scared because I've always acted like I hated him but I really don't." My eyes well up with tears.
"I 100% support the decision you made not to tell us, and I support you still. How long has it been again?" She sits down on my bed and pats the space next to her.
"A couple months." I tell her, and she smiles.
"Now that I think about it, you guys look good together."
I lean over and give tatum a hug.
"I missed you." I tell her, and she says it back.
"So, wheres shawn? I was thinking we could all hang out, and I would bring this guy I met a few days ago."
I hesitate before telling her. She'll still support us no matter what, so why am I scared?
"Hes in Los Angeles writing an album." I say , and her eyes get wide.
"He sings?"
"Yeah, and hes amazing. Don't tell anyone though, his friends don't know." She nods.
"So do you wanna hang out for a little while?"
"Of course, it'll be like old times. I'm expecting a call in about an hour though."
"Wow," she teases, "i wonder who it's going to be from?"
She and i laugh together, and i realize how wonderful it is to have my friend back.
...
Tatum and i are finishing up an episode of Law and Order: SVU when my phone rings.
"I take it it's time for me to go." Tatum says, smiling.
"Im so sorry, come sleep over this weekend!"
"Sounds like a plan, Aubrey. I'll text you, okay? And don't forget that you don't have to go tell the rest of them if you aren't ready!"
"I love you, girly, thank you for being understanding." I tell her, walking her to the door quickly before answering the call.
"Hey." I say, smiling.
"Hey, what's up?"
"I worked things out with Tatum. She's supportive of us no matter what. Or so she says."
"That's great, babe. Now you have someone else to hang out with when I'm gone."
"How's LA? Busy? Found a model to replace me yet?" I joke.
"It's not all its cut out to be, but maybe that's because I just got here. I dunno. It would be way more fun with you here, obviously. And shush, you know I could never replace you. How's your family?"
"They're good. Hey, so I read the first two pages of the notebook. But I have a question. I met that Miranda girl toda—"
"You what?" He asks me, sounding shocked.
"Miranda. She was at your house and well, when I went to look in your drawer it was open and the book ended up being on the bed, opened all the way to the back."
"Shit." I hear him mumble something to himself before he says, "did she say what she's doing here?"
"No, I yelled at her before we got a chance to become bffs. I think she's going after you though. Your mom seems to love her." I say this last part a little bitterly.
"Hold on, you aren't worried about her, are you? Really Aubrey? She's nothing. I promise you. She means nothing to me. I don't even think my mom likes her anymore. You know I'm here for you and only you. And my mom likes you way more."
"Then why did she invite her inside alone?"
"Babe-I. I don't know, okay? Just ignore it. Is anything missing from the notebook?"
"Was something supposed to be in there?"
"No, uh. I'm just checking." Shawn stutters a bit. "I'll talk to her later and see what's going on."
"Is that a smart idea? I mean, she is sort of pining after you..."
"What on earth are you talking about? You barely know her, Aubrey." Shawn laughs. "You think you could tell she was 'pining' after me when you talked to her for two minutes?"
"You don't know what we talked about!" My voice rises a little. "She said she's still jealous. I don't know if that means anything will happen but I know she still feels something!"
"Aubrey. I don't want to do this right now. Why are you so scared of losing me?"
Are we really having our first argument over this girl?
"You're all I have left, shawn. You and Tatum. I'm sorry, okay? I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Babe, you can't just hang up. Look, im sorry too. Can we please not do this now, though? I'd rather at least be able to see your face when we talk about our relationship issues. You're my girl, Aubrey, don't forget it. Okay? Now, I'm so so so sorry to do this now but I really have to go. Sudden change in plans."
Im about to respond when I hear music starting and a lot of voices.
"Hey, where are you? It just got really hard to hear."
"I'm at a release party for this other new artist. I didn't know I was going until I called you. I'm so sorry babe, but I'm gonna have to go. I'll try to FaceTime you later, okay? I promise. FaceTime every other day, call every day. I won't forget it." Shawn says before I hear a squeaky female voice scream,
"SHAWN MENDES!"
"Haha. Hi." I hear shawns muffled voice before he comes back on the phone.
"I love you, okay? Please don't forget that." Shawn says, but it sounds more like he's reassuring himself and not me.
I shake it off and reply, "I love you too. Call me later, okay?"
"I will. Miss you, hun."
The phone call ends and I lay back against the couch.
I hope you keep your promise, shawn.
...
At some point during the night i wake up, lying in my living room.
I look at the click and see that the time is 4:05 am. Four hours since shawn and I talked at 9pm pacific time.
I check my phone, but I don't have a missed FaceTime call or even a text from him. I tell myself not to be worried, I'm being paranoid.
The last thing you need is for shawn to think you're a paranoid girlfriend.
ME: goodnight, baby. I'm gonna get some sleep and maybe we can FaceTime tomorrow. Hope the party was fun.
I sigh softly and try to fall asleep.
......................
AUTHORS NOTE: hi, thank you so much for 79.9k reads!! Idk when I'll update next because I'm busy the next few days and I have plans this weekend soooo it might not be til Monday. I'm sorry this chapter is kind of bad, I just needed to update. This is more of a filler chapter than anything else honestly. I've been thinking about where I want this story to go, so I might make a few changes to certain components of the storyline in the future, and some characters might not appear for a while. Love you guys ❤️ 91 days til I see shawn, haha. Maybe I'll see some of you there :))
* if you don't already follow my Instagram, it's @/curlsmendes !! I'm almost to 9k on there wtfffff
IMPORTANT: please please don't comment saying you need me to update, it's stressful. I update when I have time, which I don't have a lot of lately between spending time with my friends and trying to finish up sophomore year. Believe me, I want to update more often but writing chapters takes a while, and some days I really don't have the amount of time I need to make a decent chapter. However, when school ends for me (May 24) I'll try to update more often since I'll probably have a little more time