Signs of Destiny

Treaty and Pinkyswears

"The best gift anyone could ever give to themselves is the gift of a friend."

- David Baird.

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Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello had known each other and been closest friends since they were little kids and their mothers met in the park one summer afternoon. Karen Mendes and Sinuhe Cabello immediately found something to talk about as they both had children who were almost the same age and so they discussed their son and daughter and all their stories about them while the two brunettes in question played in the sand pit in front of them, too shy to speak to one another.

Eventually, Karen noticed that while she and Sinu were getting on like a house on fire, their children were not actually talking and so she excused herself to speak to her son and took the opportunity to check on her son.

"Shawn, why haven't you spoken to Camila yet?" Karen asked her son softly.

"Cos I don't know her and she's a girl and Andrew said that girls have cooties," Shawn mumbled, avoiding his mother's gaze.

"Well, first of all you won't know her until you actually speak to her, secondly, half of the people in the world are girls so you're going to have to speak to one someday and thirdly, Andrew doesn't know what he's talking about," Karen smiled, holding back laughter at Shawn's stereotyping of girls.

"But what if she doesn't like me or what if she really does have cooties?" Shawn whined.

"Shawn, how do you expect to make friends and to get people to like you if you never speak to them? And Camila does not have cooties, so stop being silly and go and speak to her," Karen told him, pushing him slightly in Camila's direction before returning to the bench where she and Sinu were sitting and picking up her conversation with her again.

Shawn eyed the curly-haired girl who was drawing pictures in the sand with a stick from the corner of his eye, trying to work out if what Andrew had also said about girls being killer robots was true or not. Then he caught his mother's eye and she gave him a look that told him to go and do as she'd told him to.

So, he sidled up to Camila and stared at her from a couple of metres away, trying to decide how he should start the conversation.

Camila could feel the boy's eyes on her and she turned to him, her eyes blazing as she asked, "Why are you staring at me? I don't like it when people stare at me so cut it out!"

"S-Sorry!" Shawn stammered, unused to a girl speaking to him that forcefully, "It's just my mom said I had to speak to you."

"And so you thought that staring at me counted as talking to me?"Camila demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

Shawn was entranced by the girl: all the other girls he spoke to were just like girls were meant to be - sweet, quiet and girly but Camila was smart, sassy and sarcastic and he sort of liked it that she was different.