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lukesjpg · 6 years

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Your name: submit What is this? document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /Mariana/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); walk(document.body, /Mari/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); walk(document.body, /Mar/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value) }); function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; } } function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v; }

Mariana’s strumming her guitar, her delicate fingers still just starting to form calluses. It’s not that she’s new to guitar — she’s definitely not; she’s been playing since she was ten years old now. But she gave up her life of music for 5AM shifts at a coffee shop and seven hour study sessions at night. All in all, she’s just been too busy to pick up her guitar and strum her stress away. All that changed when she met Shawn though. Now, her life consists of 5AM shifts at a coffee shop, seven hour study sessions, and late night FaceTime calls with him.

When they first met, she didn’t think much of him. He was just another pop star who had another overplayed song on the radio. She was a fan, don’t get it twisted, but she knew that she was just another face in the crowd to him. Only… she wasn’t.

He didn’t notice her in the crowd. No, that would’ve been nearly impossible because unless the house lights were on, there was no way in hell Shawn could properly see anyone past the first few rows in the crowd. She didn’t spend more than $80 on her concert tickets, so she was somewhere much higher, somewhere where he couldn’t see.

It was actually a mutual friend who introduced them. Her friend, Rei, invited her to her wedding in LA, and Mariana packed up a weekend’s worth of clothes and drove her ass to Los Angeles. She was sat at the same table as him, and they hit it off instantly. Their conversation flowed easily, and while Mariana was thinking she was never going to see him ever again, Shawn couldn’t wait to ask her when they could meet for coffee. Except… Shawn got cold feet and left without even saying goodbye, much less her number.

They didn’t talk after that until two months later, Mari got a text from an unknown number one morning asking her if she was free for coffee. She texted back asking who it was, and Shawn didn’t hesitate on calling himself a dumbass and telling her it was Shawn from the wedding and that he had gotten her number from Rei and that he’d only be in LA for the weekend and he really wanted to get a cup of coffee with her.

You can only imagine how much his heart sank when she told him that she didn’t actually live in LA, sent with a broken heart emoji and a bunch of sad faces. She let him know that she was actually from around San Francisco, and his heart found new hope before he replied with ‘coffee next Thursday then? I’ll be in San Jose.’

It was love at first sip for Shawn when they finally met up for coffee. He wanted so badly to fall in love with someone, and when he thought all hope was lost, it was as if the universe finally answered his prayers and brought him Mariana. The only problem? She was all the way in California whilst his home was in Toronto. But he figured that’s a problem he’d think more thoroughly if they ever get far enough down that road.

So here they are now, five months later. Mariana’s strumming her guitar for the first time in maybe two years whilst he’s on FaceTime with her, tucked in his Toronto bed.

“How is it we’ve been together for four months and I never knew you actually sang — like for real? And that you play?” Shawn’s voice is groggy and croaky due to a mixture of sleepiness and a sore throat. Mariana shrugs, halting her strums and resting her chin on the base of her guitar. “Are there any other secrets you’re hiding from me?”

“I play the piano… kind of.” Shawn’s ears perk up a little at her answer. “I used to be in choir? I don’t know. I used to take music a lot more seriously.”

“Babe, what the fuck.”

Mariana laughs at his curse and places her guitar back on its wall stand across her room. “Sorry, sorry! S’not my fault that it never came up!”

“Fuck, Mar, I really thought you just had a nice voice! I didn’t think you actually were trained or anything. What the fuck, dude. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Calm down, dude,” Mariana snorts. “I haven’t touched my guitar in ages, and I haven’t sang properly since high school. And it’s not like you had any reason to ask me about it. You’ve never been to my house so you’ve never seen my choir pictures or any of my guitars — ”

“You have more than one?!”

“Or like my piano in the living room or anythin’.” She ignores his interruption and sighs. “D’you see what I’m getting at here?”

“No?”

Mariana rolls her eyes. She doesn’t know if he’s genuinely this clueless or if she’s just not being obvious enough or if he’s just really sleepy. “You’ve never been to my house. You’ve never met my family — only my cousin that one time and that was on accident, and like, babe, we’ve been dating for almost half a year. I know you’re busy as hell, like trust me, I know, but I just? Don’t you think it’s kind of weird that we’ve never met each other’s families?”

“You wanna fly out here to meet my family?”

“No, Shawn I — ”

“So you don’t wanna meet my family?”

“That’s not what I meant. I just mean that it’s — ”

“What do you mean then, Mar?” She’s annoyed by now. He keeps interrupting her, and it’s such a pet peeve of hers whenever she can’t finish her sentence, and he knows this.

“Jesus fucking Christ, if you would just let me finish.” Her Macbook is perched on the edge of her bed and she’s thankful for this because now she has two free hands to tangle into her hair due to frustration. “You’re such a fucking Leo.” Mariana spits out his zodiac sign like it’s a slur, but she knows damn well that she loves that he’s a Leo.

“Hey!”

“I’m just saying that, like, you’re in California pretty often and we see each other often enough.” She hears him trying to start a sentence but she glares at the webcam on her laptop before he even gets a chance to speak, as if saying try it, Mendes with her eyes. “I know it’s not often enough, but we talk everyday and you come to visit when you can, but whenever you visit, you don’t say hi to my family. And you know how important they are to me. They’re starting to think I’m lying about even having a boyfriend, and you know how hard it was for me to even convince them that I’m 20 and I’m allowed to be in relationships now, and just... ” She trails off before she starts rambling unnecessarily.

“Yeah, I know that baby, and you know that it’s important to me especially since it’s important to you. Next time I’m there, I promise, I’ll meet them. We can have a cheesy dinner at the table, and then I’ll fly you out here and then you can meet my fa — ”

“Shawn, I don’t… have a valid passport anymore.”

“What?”

“My passport expired like four years ago.”

“Mariana, why haven’t you gotten a new one?”

“There was never a point before! I haven’t left the country since I was like 10! And, like, I’ve been meaning to get a new one because I wanted to visit Canada anyway before I met you, and visit Mexico too but, like, passport books are just so expensive and I figured — ”

“Babe, I’ll pay for your fucking passport, just — ”

“No, Shawn I can pay for it myself, I just wanted to let you know that it’ll take about two months or maybe longer before I can even think about leaving America, but also I don’t know if my parents will let me travel to a whole ass other country by myself to meet my ‘maybe real’ boyfriend’s family.” She puts quotes around ‘maybe real’, recalling the time her dad accused her of making up Shawn being her boyfriend.

She doesn’t have to look at the screen on her laptop to know that he’s rolling his eyes. “You’re 20 years old and you have to ask your parents for permission to travel. I know it’s not my place,” Shawn starts, and Mariana already gets irritated before he even continues, “but I think they have too much of a hold on you. You’re literally an adult.”

“Well, sorry, that I didn’t start travelling the world at like 12 years old,” Mariana rebuttals, crossing her arms.

“I wasn’t 12!”

“Whatever.”

And that was the end of that. Mariana lays down on her bed with her laptop beside her, eyebrows still furrowed, but her irritation dies down slowly. Shawn’s still on the screen, but his eyes are closed and his face is dimly lit by the light on his own laptop. She can tell he’s still awake, but by the slight movement of his shoulders and the soft snores that are leaving his mouth, she can also tell that he’s ready to fall asleep at any given moment.

“Goodnight baby,” she murmurs, and she thinks that he doesn’t hear her, but the subtle curve of his lips prove her otherwise and her lips mimic his as he responds with a mumbled out ‘night, love’. Her heart still skips a beat every time he calls her a pet name, and yeah she’s probably being dramatic, but she squeals a little inside her head and her cheeks blush a little, and it’s just her favourite thing to be called cute little pet names and it’s even better when it’s coming from her favourite person.

She’s happy and content as her own eyes close and she falls into a blissful sleep.

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