Who do you think you are? ~ Shawn Mendes

Eye of the Tiger

That night I lay in bed and binge watched Friends, hoping the laughter and comedy of the show would distract me from the awful afternoon I had.
"Sophia?" My Mum screamed up the stairs.
"Yeah?" I shouted just as loud back.
"Come down here."
I moaned as I rolled out of my little cocoon of duvets and pillows and dragged myself down stairs.
"This is Harold." My Mum said leaning into a rather plough guy. "He'll be joining us this afternoon."
"Hello Sophia. I've heard so much about you."
"Hi." Was all I replied before I turned and headed back up to my room.
As soon as I closed my door I changed out of my pyjamas and into jeans and a jacket. I opened up my balcony door and swung over the balcony banister and managed my way down the tree to the garden below.
The night my mother had planned with Harold was one I did it want to spend upstairs listening to their physical activity in the room next door.
"Where are you going?"
As I wiped my hands on my jeans I looked up to see a shirtless Shawn leaning over his balcony.
"Anywhere but here." I mumbled.
"Want to talk about it?" He pestered.
"Like you would actually care." I scoffed.
"I told you I was sorry. I want to show to you, prove to you that the guy you were in the house with yesterday wasn't me."
"And how would you do that?" I asked.
"Come up here and I'll show you."
"That sounds like the way a fuckboy lures a girl into his room." I folded my arms.
"Shut up and come up here." He shook his head.
I started to climb back up the tree when I saw Shawn give me a weird look.
"What?" I asked.
"Well I was going to open the front door. You know how normal people enter a house."
"Mendes carry on this attitude and I'll be out faster than I came in." I said landing on his balcony.
He smiled, a genuine smile. Not one of his smirks he makes when he wants something. A smile.
"Welcome to the den." Shawn held out his hands like he was god.
I entered his room, which was surprisingly clean for a guys room. His room was a mix of dark colours, mainly black and a dark blue colour that he used for his bed sheets and walls. A sound system was built into the wall either side of his wide screen tv that he was now playing GTA 5 on. Typical.
A desk similar to mine was in the corner where his Mac book sat with books and paper piled on top. I think I actually saw dust on that pile.
"So what's up England?" Shawn said laying down on his bed in only his joggers.
"What you mean?" I asked putting my hands on my jacket pocket.
"Tell me your story. Not the one you wish you had or the one you want to live when your older. The one now. The real one." He said.
"Where do I start?" I chuckled licking my dry lips.
"How about the beginning." Shawn said.
"That will take a long time." I said.
"We have all night." Shawn smiled and patted the spare space next to him.
I hesitantly took a seat next to Shawn as he lay on his bed and I lay on the edge, leaving as much space as possible between us.
"I was born in London, England. My mom
And dad were madly in love with each other and we grew up a happy family. I attended a private school and I had a best friend called Alesha. Everyday we'd be by each other's side, She was the one friend I think you find in a lifetime. She was bitter sweet, growing up with her when we were vulnerable children but now I'm without her and really without friends at all. Then on my eleventh birthday, my parents figured that this was the day to tell me that they were getting a divorce."
I glanced over at Shawn who was clinging on my every word, his mouth slightly falling open when I told him about the wound in a perfect girls life.
"That must of been hard. I'm sorry." He said.
"It was whatever. I cried for about two weeks every night and day, Alesha got me through it trying to cheer me up everyday at school with her weird creations she would make out of twigs and leaves. I carried on with my education in private school as my father moved out which I never found out where to, because whenever he wanted to see me he'd take me out and treat me as if he had all the money in the world. Buying everything I looked at whether I liked it or not as if perfume and makeup could hide the reality of our family disaster under a cloud of foundation. Then on my seventeenth birthday I came back from school and my mom sat me down and told me we were moving. 10 months later, I find myself the other side of the ocean in completely unknown territory with no friends or balance. And that brings me to the end of my miserable masked fairytale." I slightly giggled facing Shawn.
"I'm so sorry." Shawn said sucking in his bottom lip. "We, I treated you like shit."
"It's today's society, a new girl from another country dropped into a sea full of strangers. It's our biological tendency to, I don't know, show the new person that there are rules to follow. But they're not rules they have to oblige to and I think that's where you went wrong."
I looked at Shawn sympathetically and blinked my big brown eyes at him as I had to slightly turn over my shoulder to see his face.
"That's still no expectation for how I treated you yesterday." He objected.
"So then, you called me up here to prove to me your different. Now's your chance."
Shawn let out a sigh as I saw him thinking.
"So, what you going to do?" I asked.
"I'm going to do what I've never done before."
"And what's that?"
Shawn turned to me and locked his eyes with mine before replying,
"I'm going to make myself vulnerable."