𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑜 𝑥 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 | 𝐥𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐞 𝐞𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞

Chapter 10. Wish

That night I had decided to skip dinner entirely, after the farmer's fields. I didn't feel up to eating. The knot in my stomach grew tighter as the butterflies began to eat away at it. I returned to Casita briefly to grab my clothes and then set pace for the watering hole, hoping Camilo might join that girl there.

About ten minutes into this, Camilo joined me, not speaking a word. He silently walked up to the edge of the water, where my feet were planted on the ground, and looked up at me scarcely before staring back towards the glimmering water reflecting the sunset as she fell behind the tree line, the shadows of leaves creeping slowly towards us.

But soon it became apparent that we would not be discussing last night's events. He wouldn't speak at all, just sitting next to me, watching me work on my small bit of laundry that Abuela had left me with. I waited for him to bring it up, or say something, anything, but I certainly wasn't going to break the silence. Could I play in my fantasies while he was right next to me?

Suddenly Camilo broke the silence. "You know... you never told me your last name."

"Zayas."

"That's really pretty, actually. Have you got any middle names?"

"A few..." I confessed. "At home, they give the girls three middle names; her mother, her mother's mother, and her father's mother. There can be more, like if the father has a mother and stepmother, you know." I continued. "So I'm Y/N, Y/N Yael Eleanora Magdalena Zayas." 

"I see. I'm just Camilo. Madrigal, of course." He chuckled. "But it's kind of nice. All those names have to be hard to remember."

I shook my head, "Not when it's your own."

"Fair point."

I continued doing my laundry.

"I really like this skirt. It's really comfortable and I think it makes me look good." I commented on the article I was holding as I gently wet it in the water.

"You always look good." He replied.

I immediately disagreed. "No, not really. This makes me look way better. I replied." I held it out to him, showing him the small flowers that dotted the skirt.

"It's a nice skirt, but you always look nice, whether you're in a skirt or a dress or your top's see thr—" he caught himself on his words, pretending to cough. "Or what top you're wearing."

I blushed intensely and halted conversation, focusing on my task.

"I didn't mean anything gross, I swear—" he babbled on. "I just remember it really well, I guess."

I didn't speak again.

"Hey, maybe this will make you feel better about yourself." I looked over to where he was sitting and there I sat; it was an exact recreation of me. "Like what you see?"

Had he... really shapeshifted into me?

"Cause I feel pretty cute right now." He gestured to himself... me? Myself?

I shook my head, and scolded though I grinned. "Quit playing around, Camilo."

He shifted back into himself. "Hey, come on, have a little fun."

"I'll be ready to have plenty of fun once we can talk about last night."

"What's there to talk about? We were both there." He dodged, standing up. I'd never quite noticed that he was much taller than I was, only by a few inches, though it was certainly enough.

"But... things have been weird ever since."

"No they haven't. Now we just know what Bruno sees for us."

I didn't reply to that, clipping my last article of clothing to the clothesline and pulling the water out. How could he be so calm about this? How could he let it change the way we interact but not acknowledge it at all? "Well... did you like his vision?" I asked.

"We don't get to like or dislike his visions, they'll happen either way."

"But were you displeased?" I shot back.

"Truthfully, no. It didn't scare me much. I was just happy that... we looked older, you know? I don't want a baby yet, or anything that... leads up to one."

"Well good, because maybe it wasn't even ours, maybe it was someone else's." I reply as I unclip my last skirt and crouch to the ground to fold it in the basket.

"Then why was I there?"

"Because you were close to me at the moment. Maybe that's just Bruno saying you'll stand by my side, as friends."

Camilo got a sour look on his face. "Then who would it's father be?"

"I'm not sure... Isabela, maybe."

He began laughing. "And you tell me to quit joking around!"

"I wasn't joking! I'll get married to your cousin...Isabela! And we'll have a wonderful child! It'll have pretty straight hair like her!" Truthfully I just named the Madrigal that I interacted with the absolute least.

"Glad to know Isabela's my competition now." He laughed as I picked up my basket and placed it on my hip for balance, and we began to walk back to Casita.

"But Y/N... I did want to let you know something."

"What?"

"We do have a laundry machine."