Through Her Eyes (Camren)

Chapter 11: Wish On a Star

When Lauren woke, Camila was gone.

The bed lay empty, the blankets pulled into place. The pajamas Lauren had lent Camila were folded neatly and resting on the floor by the closet.

Lauren stared into the empty room, surprised. She had been looking forward to Camila’s company, playing some CDs on the stereo or showing Camila the video game with all the sparkly things and little characters that Lauren had bought because it looked like something Camila would find amusing.

Lauren had never thought that Camila might leave while she was asleep. Could Camila really be that anxious to get back to the decaying building she lived in? What was there for her? An expensive watch that was probably stolen, a collection of things others had seen fit to throw away, a sweatshirt, a friend named Michael who had yet to be proven human.

Frowning, Lauren shut the guest room door quietly behind her, walking down the hall towards the kitchen. Sadly, Camila was not there either, though several things that had once been in the trash were now sitting innocently on the kitchen counter. A bent spoon, a cracked porcelain flower holder that had belonged to Lauren’s grandmother, an apple core.

“What the hell is with the apple cores?” Lauren asked the silence. Her only response was more silence.

She picked up the half eaten apple, throwing it up into the air and catching it in her palm again. Lauren was oddly reluctant to throw any of the things she considered garbage back into the trashcan. If they were worth something to Camila…

Lauren sighed and set the apple core by the window to dry out, dropped the spoon into the dishwasher, and hung the useless flower holder back on its nail on the wall.

When she opened the back door to the porch, bowls of cat food in hand, Lauren was surprised to find Elvis sitting there with six other cats, all watching her impatiently.

“Where’s Camila?” Lauren asked the black cat. Elvis watched her with knowing eyes. The harder Lauren looked at him the more she thought Elvis might be raising a superior eyebrow the way Camila did when she thought Lauren was being especially dumb.

Lauren winced and set down the cat food in hopes of distracting the cat. “Shut up.”

——-

Lauren waited anxiously that night but Camila never came.

She couldn’t force herself to stop waiting though, to give up and go to bed. What if Camila showed up to go through her trash the minute Lauren turned her back? What if she came and Lauren missed her? What if she didn’t ring the doorbell, didn’t alert Lauren of her presence, and Lauren slept through her visit and Camila walked home in the dark and got hit by a car and died on the asphalt and Lauren never knew about it and she just kept waiting but Camila never came because Camila was gone just like everyone else?

It was possible.

So Lauren waited, and waited, and finally she folded her arms on the windowsill and fell asleep.

When she woke again Camila was still not there. It was light out, the sun shining too bright through the window and into Lauren’s eyes. Lauren glared at the hated sun, wincing. She jerked the curtains closed, threw herself down onto the carpet and promptly went back to sleep.

Maybe Camila would be there the next time she woke up.

——-

It wasn’t fair, losing Camila twice like that. Lauren was fond of routine and Camila’s routine was that she came to see Lauren every day. Lauren liked that routine. She was used to it, comfortable with it. Every night after work she waited and every night after work Camila came to dig through her trash. That was the deal and Lauren liked it.