All My Sins (For You To Take)

Chapter 5

Things end.

Things end.

Things end.

Things end.

Things end.

The words are still on repeat in Shawn’s head twenty minutes after Lauren’s gone. It’s the last thing Lauren says to him before she leaves and it’s the last thing Shawn hears when he picks up the phone and calls his boss.

* * * * * *

Shawn dreams of Lauren.

It’s not the first time, of course, but it feels like it. It feels like how he would have wanted things to go; feather-light kisses and the curve of Lauren’s spine, the soft skin at his fingertips, and a smile he knows too well. In the dream he holds Lauren like he’s never held anyone before and when they’re finished the girl in his arms breaks into a thousand tiny pieces, and he wakes with a dry mouth and the sheets twisted around his ankles.

* * * * * *

Lauren calls Shawn twice. The first time it doesn’t even ring before she hangs up and from across the room, she knows Ryan is watching her. She tosses the phone at him and burrows down into the blanket nest on her side of the couch.

The second time it’s 5 in the morning and she knows Shawn’s probably just now getting up to ‘make’ himself a breakfast of coffee and whatever pastry the place down the street from his apartment has fresh. She lets it ring once, twice, then hangs up before she thinks the ringing will go through.

* * * * * *

Lauren doesn’t feel anything but lost when she sees a status update from Shawn that he has decided to move. To Seattle. Smiley. Fucking. Face.

Nobody even calls her, though she expects someone to, and it’s only after fighting her way through her lunch that she doesn’t really want that she tries for a nap in hopes that when she wakes up, she’ll know how to feel.

It doesn’t work out that way, of course, and she wanders through her apartment like a ghost until she remembers that she has a Skype date with Ryan and rushes to get ready for it. It was a tradition of theirs when she used to live back in New York. Once a week they’ll both get the same dinner and pretend they’re in the same room; no sense in stopping that now even though they’re in the same city again.

She’s still not sure how she feels, at any rate, and the longer she avoids really thinking about it, the better. When Ryan asks her about it, she acts like Shawn moving to Seattle doesn’t faze her at all. Ryan raises an eyebrow and taps his chopstick on his webcam like he’s tapping her forehead. “What’s going on in there, Laur?”

She figures it’s not really lying if he won’t believe her, but still, she tries not to look up at the screen when she answers him. “Nothing."

* * * * * *

When Shawn officially signs his resignation letter, it changes everything.

Seeing his name on that line makes him realize how stupid he is to chase Lauren across the country in hopes that it’ll change her mind. Lauren isn’t impressed; that much is clear just from the silence on the other end of the phone when he shoots Lauren a text. Without Lauren, New York is unfamiliar and cold. But his urge to chase Lauren down has suddenly started to morph into an urge to reinvent himself, and that throws him.

Seattle doesn’t seem like the right place to do that, so close to the girl he’s now pretty convinced he’s in love with who coincidentally hates his guts. At least he has a few friends in Seattle other than Lauren.And more importantly, he can reconnect with his cousin, Sydney, who he hasn't seen in almost five years. She was his best friend growing up. And he misses that. Especially now.