Happier

1

"Miss Cabello?"

Camila turns her head towards the smiling blonde woman. "Miss Hernandez will see you now," the assistant informs her, gesturing towards the blurred glass door with small black lettering on it. Even though her bad eyesight (curse you, genetics) keeps her from reading the lettering, Camila knows the name on the door as well as she knows her own.

ALLYSON BROOKE HERNANDEZ

PUBLICIST

"Thanks, Karlie. And please, call me Camila, okay?" Camila returns the assistant's polite smile. Karlie flushes slightly and bows her head. "Of course, Camila."

Camila stands up and brushes invisible dust off of her tight-fitting jeans before stalking over to the door, the click of her heels echoing against the linoleum of the office. When she pushes open the door, she's greeted with a rush of cool air and the scent of soft rose. "Hey, Ally."

Ally looks up from the paperwork she's going over and breaks out into a huge grin. "Camila!" She rises from her chair to give Camila a hug.

When they break apart, Camila laughs breathily. "You're excited."

"Can't a girl be happy to see her best friend?" Ally retorts, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her chin up slightly. Despite the fact that Ally couldn't be over 5 feet, she still looks stern in a weird maternal way. Camila's suddenly reminded of her own mother for a brief moment, but then Ally beams again and Camila remembers she's in front of her best friend and she's got nothing to worry about. Not yet, at least.

Ally opens her mouth to say something, but Camila's eyes are already drifting towards the large canvas on Ally's wall. A subconscious smile plays on her lips. She recognizes the picture immediately- it's of her and Ally in a little coffee shop in New York City. Ally's hands are wrapped around her coffee cup and she's caught mid-laugh, her head thrown back and her straight white teeth on full display. Camila is sitting across from her, hair spilling across her shoulders, and she looks genuinely happy. A rarity, she muses. It's hard to get that kind of smile out of her. Leave it to Ally to bring forth that side of her.

"Camila." Camila snaps back to reality when Ally interrupts her thoughts. "Sorry," Camila says sheepishly. "What were you saying?"

But Ally knows where she was looking. "That's one of my favorite photos too, you know. It's the one on that magazine issue about us." She taps a magazine on her desk. Camila chuckles. "The real ego-booster one, huh?" Ally nods and laughs along.

After Camila got her first book published at nineteen, she had risen to fame extremely quickly- way quicker than she thought she would. Her younger sister Sofi had always been the one to encourage Camila's writing, and she figures her grades in her creative writing class speak for themselves, but she never imagined she'd earn as much money or sell as many copies as she did.

Three self-standing books and one fully-fledged series later, Camila is (as that magazine and also, like, fifteen news websites say) the new young adult novelist of this generation. But she's gotta admit that if she wasn't young and conventionally attractive she's not quite sure she'd be as popular or as frequent on red carpets as she is currently.

Also, she's best friends with Ally, A.K.A Allyson Brooke Hernandez, A.K.A Broadway superstar and publicist extraordinaire, and that's not something people ignore.

It's a strange combination, Camila knows that- her and Ally's friendship brings together the readers and the musical theater fanatics in an odd kind of compromise. But they go way back- the two girls met in high school. Choir class, to be exact. And yes, Camila knew Ally would make it big someday the moment she heard her audition for the school musical freshman year.