Riptide (a camren fic)

chapter 22: you put me on and said i was your favorite

a/n: yikes. still just as surprised as you are

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She doesn't come back.

It's been five days of complete silence. Of pain medication. Of the awful ache in her knuckle. Of the desolate loneliness.

And yet, she doesn't come back.

All that's left is a gaping hole in Camila's chest. A seismic fissure that carves right through her, pulling everything that's remotely life sustaining out of her.

It's an eyesore for everyone around her. Her family can see it. They can feel it. She knows they can, as they give her a wide berth.

Her mom is the only one who approaches her, smothers her. But even that feels like it's done behind a cautionary, transparent barrier. Like she's a deadly hazard.

She's alone.

That's the only thing that seems to pierce through the numb fog that has encapsulated her mind.

She's grievously alone.

And it feels like a sickness, an infection that's slowly poisoning her bloodstream. If she dies, she doesn't think she'd care so much. Nothing really matters to her. 

The first day didn't feel real. Everything was made up, at least that's what she told herself, until she scrambled around looking for her bottle of pills.

The second day, she simmered in her anger, refusing to even acknowledge anything remotely resembling her. She kicked her broken laptop around and threatened to punch a wall. A thoughtless plan that came to her before she realized she couldn't even properly close her right fist anymore.

The third day, Camila was so doped up on pain medication she thought if she cried hard enough she'd come back. If she begged hard enough, she'd see her lounging across the foot of her bed.

The disappointment was so shattering. So disheartening that by the time the fourth day came, she expected the bitter despair to hang over her like a dark cloud.

Dinah doesn't come back.

Neither does Lauren.

The ache of her absence is fleeting, but sharp. It's a hot sting that seeps through her, briefly penetrating the mindless fog. She had suppressed the urge to look out the window, across the yard, towards the comforting warmth permeating from her neighbor's window.

It was just a dream.

The entire summer was a fever dream, and she questions whether any of it truly happened. Perhaps she had made it all up. The time spent with Lauren. With her friends. The rush of excitement and inclusion had simply just been a figment of her imagination.

Camila turns to her side and promptly feels the ache in her knuckle. No. She couldn't have imagined it. Not when the evidence was throbbing right down to her fingertips.

She tries to flex her hand through the thick bandages and winces.

No.

She couldn't have imagined the long, agonizing hospital visit. Nor the bloody, shattered mirror her father pried off of the bathroom cabinet frame. Not one of her finer moments, Camila thinks grimly.

Since then, her mother has kept a watchful eye on her. Hanging over her. Camila can't even fault her for it. When she had returned to the bathroom to find Camila cradling her injured hand, she had gone into full blown hysterics.