Boyfriend + Brother || Shawn Mendes

-=chapter 30 =-

That night, after Madeleine and I finally made our way home to Pickering, I pick at the macaroni that Manny made for dinner, I then collapsed into bed shortly after. An entire day of trailing around shops was simply too much for my poor feet to handle, so the exhaustion from the extensive socializing was enough to put me to sleep long before midnight. I don't know what I was thinking about before I dozed off, but I'm pretty convinced I was thinking about Shawn. I know that he was all I thought about when I was eating dinner. I couldn't get today out of my head. It was the way he pulled up to the mall with Caitlin and was taking her to all the fancy and expensive shops probably to buy his way to forgiveness but It was the way he'd smiled at me afterwards, the way his eyes had crinkled, the way he smiled with his straight pearly white teeth, and keeping us a secret. That's what I couldn't stop thinking about. 

Suddenly I'm stirring awake again, my room dark, the house silent. I stare at my wall through half-closed eyes and behind me I hear my door squeak open again, and I realize this is what has woken me. I moan into my duvet. 

"ellie? Are you awake?" a voice whispers across the room. It's Shawn, and my eyes promptly fly open, my door groaning as it clicks shut again. Now I most definitely am awake, I think. I don't move an inch. My eyes just rest on my dull wall as I listen to the muffled sound of Shawn's footsteps shuffling across my wooden floor. 

"Yeah," I murmur. "What time is it?" 

"Three," Shawn says, his voice still hushed, like we shouldn't dare make a sound. I hear him exhale from behind me just as the mattress shifts beneath my body, my comforter lifted up as he slips into my bed.

"Can I sleep with you?" I'm still pretty much half asleep as my eyelids flutter closed again, but the corners of my lips pull up into a small, tired smile. When I don't reply straight away, Shawn starts to babble. "I mean, not like sleep with you, just fall asleep, you know, like, rest," he blurts quickly, his breath tickling the back of my neck, his body never touching mine. 

"I know what you meant," I say. There's a long silence. The only thing I can hear is our breathing, completely out of sync. Whenever I inhale, he exhales, and it almost begins to sound like a rhythm until his breathing slows. That's when I feel his warm, bare skin press against my back, his chest hard yet somehow comfortable, his long fingers moving to touch my arm. The sensation makes my body shiver. 

"I'm sorry about Caitlin" he whispers in my ear as he runs his other hand through my hair. 

"You should be." 

"Just let me figure it out," he almost pleads, his voice laced with something that I can't quite understand, and, quieter, "I'm trying to figure everything out." I'm still staring at the wall. 

"Like what?" 

"I don't know ellie, I guess everything. my family, my friends, my career" He draws his body away from mine and rolls over to face the other way, so I finally tear my eyes away from the wall and switch onto my other side. I stare at his back now, my gaze resting on his muscles and on his birthmark on his shoulder blade. I lift my hand and press a finger to the patch.  I trace a line going around it clockwise gradually getting slower and slower and then I continue to bring my fingertips down to the bottom of his spine and back up to his other shoulder, edging my body closer into him, craving the heat from his skin. I wrap my arm around him and close my eyes, whispering, 

"you are a lot stronger than you think. you are going to get through this I promise. I will be with you every step of the way." only moments before I fall back asleep once more. And by 7 AM, he's gone.

***

madeleine and I drive over to Ethan's house on Saturday afternoon all dressed and ready for the school summer beach party which I still don't know why I am going because I do not even go to their school but anyhow they are still making me go. once we arrive the house is full of people drinking. I follow Madeleine in and we manage to find Lana, Charlie, Ethan and owen.