You Complete Me (Camren - Norminah - Vercy)

Chapter 9: All I Want for Christmas is You

Camila's POV

I was surprised when Lauren complimented my singing that one night. Had she really liked it? Or was she just mocking me? Knowing her, it was probably the latter. Lauren probably just wanted to show everyone how she was the better person for complimenting me on my song, when I hadn't complimented her on her song. She'd sung 'American'. Again. I'd heard Lauren sing that song a million times in camp and watched people fawn over it like it was the most impressive thing in the world. Even Dinah, who was rarely impressed, loved Lauren's song. But I didn't. I hated 'American' and everything to do with Lana Del Rey because of Lauren Jauregui.

When I came back from Thanksgiving break, no one was on the first or second floors, so I went up to the third floor to check. (I rarely went up there because a certain someone lived there). No one seemed to be there either. I was about to text my housemates when, suddenly, the bathroom door opened. I startled and dropped my phone.

"Hi, how's your Thanksgiving?" Lauren asked, stooping down to pick up my phone. She'd just gotten out of the shower and had an orange towel wrapped around her wet body.

I quickly took my phone, looked at anything but her, and mumbled, "Good. Thanks. Where's everyone?"

"Mani just texted me and said they left to get dessert from Suga Mama. So, it's just you and me for a while. I recorded the X-Factor finale for you. If you're free, do you wanna watch it with me?" Lauren asked uncharacteristically.

Why was Lauren being so nice to me out of nowhere? She was up to something, but I wasn't going to fall for her bullshit.

"You said no one was here, right?" I asked and Lauren nodded, readjusting her grip on the towel. "Then quit acting like we're friends. Cuz we're not. Save your performance for the housemates." With that, I walked downstairs to the second floor and shut the door to my room.

Lauren's POV

My heart dropped as I watched Camila walk away. I'd suggested X-Factor as a chance to bond with Camila because she'd been obsessively voting for her favorite acts. I'd even recorded it just for her, but apparently, she thought I was pretending to be nice to her. I needed to make Camila see that I was being genuine if I wanted to stop feeling guilty about how I'd behaved with her in the past. So, I got dressed and went to talk to ther.

I hesitated for a few moments, before knocking on her closed door. "Camila? Can we talk?" I called nervously.

When I didn't get a response, I lost my nerve and decided to try to make amends another day.

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December 2016

We were all supposed to fly home after finals, but our flights were cancelled because the airport was shut down due to severe weather. Ally had been really excited about meeting Troy because she hadn't seen him in months and she was understandably very upset about being stuck in Boston. Sure, Ally cried easily, but she was rarely legit upset about stuff, so we were all trying to cheer Ally up in our own way.

I was curled up against the corner of the couch, scrolling through Google on my phone for ideas on how to cheer sad people up. Normani and Ally were both also on their phones next to me. Dinah came thundering down the stairs and sat on the other side of Ally.

"Since I'm the tallest in the group and you're the smallest, what'd you say we start a rap duo named Biggie-Smallz?" Dinah asked Ally.

"I'm obviously Biggie," Ally snorted with laughter.

Normani and I exchanged smiles when we noticed Ally's spirits rising. Ally was the queen of freestyle rap. The only night the five of us had gone out, we found Ally in the middle of a circle of people, spitting out rhymes to a beatboxer. Obviously, we were all surprised because we all thought that Ally was just a cute little operatic grad student. But she could throw down some sick freestyles.