ashes to ashes ➵ camren

6. blinding

Listen while you read - 'Blinding' by Florence and The Machine

By the time everyone starts filing out of the classroom, Lauren has basically taken over the class. When she realized Lauren knew what she was doing, the teacher had recruited the new student to go up to the board and demonstrate the math problems for the class.

Now, Camila stays behind after they're dismissed to wait for Lauren, who is engaging in some sort of enthusiastic conversation with the teacher. Normani sticks behind as well, and laughs to herself when she sees Camila roll her eyes.

"What's up with her, anyway?" Normani asks, gathering all the papers on the desk together. "Why'd she leave her fancy entitled life to come here, of all places?"

Camila tenses for a moment, and her brain is running a million miles an hour to try and come up with an answer. Unfortunately, she's never quite useful in high pressure situations, and all she can do is shrug and hurry over to the door to retrieve Lauren.

"Come on," Camila whispers, grabbing Lauren's arm and offering the teacher a forced polite smile. Before the dark haired girl can argue, Camila pulls her out of the room and down the stairs to find Dinah. Lauren's taken aback by the girl's actions, but she doesn't seem to protest.

Dinah's waiting for them by the doorway with Sofi and Regina, who she's picked up from their classes. Camila and Dinah start talking about something, but Lauren isn't paying attention. The older girl is taking in everything around her. This place... the society... it's all so... weird to her. She's never seen anything like it.

"Earth to Lauren," Dinah laughs, snapping her fingers in front of the green eyed girl's face. When Lauren quickly comes to, Dinah simply chuckles and motions for her to follow them.

They don't head towards the front doors like they had this morning. Instead, Dinah and Camila lead them through a string of concrete hallways to the back of the building, where an entire chunk of wall is missing. It's overgrown with vines and when Dinah climbs up onto it, she warns Lauren of the broken glass.

"It's a shortcut home," Camila explains when she see the girl's uneasiness. "C'mon. This is the fun part."

Lauren follows Camila, peering through the hole in the wall as Regina flies off with reckless abandon, jumping into Dinah's arms and giggling when her sister spins her around playfully. Sofi does the same. It's quite a big drop for the smaller girls, and Dinah holds her arms up to help Camila's sister make it to the ground safely.

"See? Not so bad," Camila shrugs, grabbing onto a vine and making sure it's steady before pulling herself up through the crumbling hole in the building. She glances back at Lauren for a moment, giving her a shy smile before abandoning the vine and jumping down to the ground.

Lauren quickly rushes over to the opening, letting out a breath of relief when she sees Camila rolling in the grass, laughing when she comes to a stop and her younger sister playfully throws herself down beside her. But then, Lauren's breath catches in her throat when she realizes everyone's attention is back on her. They're expecting her to jump down and join them.

"I-I don't know about this," Lauren calls out, hands fooling aimlessly with the sleeves of her shirt. It's not that big of a drop. But it's still big. And the hill below them is considerably steep. Knowing her luck, Lauren would hit the ground and fly face first all the way down the hill.

"It's not that bad, I promise," Camila calls up. Dinah, Sofi, and Regina are already making their way down the hill. Camila, however, stays at the edge of the building at looks up at Lauren hopefully. "Just... just sit down, dangle your legs over, and push yourself off. I'm right here."