Through Her Eyes (Camren)

Chapter 16: From the Other Side

Camila took the rejection better than Lauren did.

There was a routine to life, a norm that Lauren needed to hold onto. Even when Lauren hated the routine, it was still comfortable, it was still the way things should be. The puzzle pieces fit in a certain way, the same way Lauren’s beanies fit on her drawers, organized and perfect.

Camila wasn’t supposed to want her that way. Lauren wasn’t supposed to want Camila that way. If she didn’t know anything else, she knew that.

So Lauren did what Lauren was best at. She took the memory of the kiss and shoved it to the back of her mind. She pretended it hadn’t happened.

Lauren didn’t think of what could have been or even if she would have wanted it to be that way. She didn’t wonder if Camila would leave now. She didn’t wonder what she would do without Camila. Lauren didn’t think of the feel of Camila in her arms, Camila’s stupid smile and the stupid way she talked and the stupid way she made Lauren’s life so much better. She didn’t think of Camila’s soft lips and her possessive fingers and her trusting eyes.

Lauren didn’t count the moments, the seconds since Camila’s lips had met hers.

She did count the days.

The first day was the hardest. Everything faded with time.

With her heart trying to knife its way out of her chest with every breath, Lauren had to hope everything faded with time.

It was the first night Lauren slept alone in a bed that had almost been theirs. She woke to emptiness and, in her sleepy haze, she didn’t know why.

Lauren grumbled sleepily, patting her hand across the pillow where Camila’s head should have been but inexplicably was not. “Camz…?”

Lauren hoped Camila wasn’t in the closet rearranging her beanies again.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, looking around the empty room. Silence was extremely rare in Camila’s presence. Even when she slept, Camila mumbled and huffed and talked sleepily about the evils of lamp posts.

The silence in Camila’s absence was louder than Camila ever could have been.

“Oh,” Lauren said to the empty room, awareness retuning to her in a sickening rush. Oh.

Somehow, still, Lauren knew Camila hadn’t left. It was the difference between silence and deafness.

The smell of coffee was wafting under the door frame. Lauren dressed slowly, trying to prepare herself for Camila’s unhappiness, trying to prepare herself to say no to Camila’s clinging fingers and wanting looks.

When Lauren walked into the kitchen, Camila was wearing a faded apron with butterflies on it and one of Lauren’s red beanies on her head. She was dancing with a spatula.

Lauren glanced frantically around the room, half worried that Camila had started up the stove and was attempting some elaborate dish made of inedible ingredients. The stove was off, to Lauren’s great relief. Camila did not appear to actually be cooking, simply dancing with a spatula.

“Lolo!” Camila called with unexpected cheerfulness, skipping over to drape herself over Lauren’s shoulders. Her touch made Lauren’s skin prickle like she’d just woken up.

Lauren would have pulled away.

“I made a friend,” Camila said, tapping the metal of the spatula merrily against Lauren’s cheek. Lauren hooked her fingers around Camila’s wrist without thinking.

“What’s his name?” Lauren asked, her voice scratchy from sleep.

“Her name,” Camila corrected, tapping Lauren again on the cheek in emphasis, “is Ariana.” When Lauren nodded vaguely, Camila huffed discontentedly against her neck. “Don’t be rude, Lauren! Say hello. She likes you, of course.”