Not Just One Night

Chapter 27

Camila's POV

When I got off the subway around eight, I called Lauren to let her know that I was nearly there but she didn't answer. So I tried three more times in the length that it took for me to walk from the station to her building, but still nothing.

I sent her a text on the elevator to no reply, and then called while walking down her hallway. She didn't answer. When I turned the corner, and her door came into view, I saw a white piece of paper taped to it. As I got closer, her handwriting became legible.

Hey Babe. Come in!

Obviously she had been ignoring my calls and texts for a reason.

I did as I was told and I opened the unlocked door, pushing it inward to the apartment.

Everything seemed to be normal and I would know because Lauren's place had grown familiar over the past two weeks. I walked in to a silent living room and not even three steps after closing and locking the door behind me, I heard a crinkling beneath my boot.

I looked down to find another sheet of lined paper, lying flat against the hardwood floor.

It read:

Keep coming :-).

So I followed that one, then another, then another until I was led to the back of her apartment to her bedroom.

I was growing more and more excited but there was still as twinge of nerves as I turned the knob, pushing open her door. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dimness of her room but they eventually did, and stepping further inside, I saw that there were lit candles placed around. All vanilla scented I'm assuming because I was drowning in the smell that I associate only with Lauren.

A face splitting smile appeared.

The brunette was nowhere to be found but I could hear the faint sound of a song playing from her dresser. It was My Everything, the one that we had danced to; the one that she sang softly against my ear. And on the nightstand, I could see The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and the angle of it allowed the bookmark to been clearly seen. It was a piece of paper stuck in the middle of the novel and it was killing me not to walk over and see which page she had marked but before I could, I saw a folded note on Lauren's blue duvet. My name was written in script on the outside and I picked it up, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I unfolded it and there was nearly a page of words that seemed to all blend together in the low lighting. But I raked over each one of them, committing them to memory.

She wrote:

I do remember the night that I asked you about the future. Where you wanted to end up. What you wanted to be doing. I remember the conversation clearly because I was terrified to even bring it up. At that point, we had only known each other a week-and-a-half. It didn't seem like nearly enough time to warrant a conversation about something so personal as to where you see yourself in five, ten, twenty years. But I asked anyway because I wanted to know what you'd say.

And when you wouldn't give me an answer, it scared me because at that moment, I already knew that I wanted something far beyond one night; far beyond something casual. A week-and-a-half in, I already saw myself having a relationship with you. And me being the type of person who likes to think ahead; the type of person who doesn't want to get too invested if I know I'm only going to be hurt, I asked to see if we were on the same page.

But then you shrugged your shoulders and said, what's the point of planning when we have no idea of what will happen.

It crushed me that night although I would have never admitted it. I was defeated because I took it as you not wanting the same things that I do.