Counting Up The Days (Camren)

Before (Dark and Light)

Ours was a romance like no other. We had no label because we were too scared of what one might bring, so we loved each other fiercely by not naming it love. In a world where words are what imprison people and we were imprisoned by them, our only act of defiance was this. Endless days were filled with burning stares and lustful glances, all whilst we danced with the Eyes of the world that are the media. Exhaustion was a very minor worry when we had a counted number of days to look at the moon together and talk about everything and nothing at the same time. We discussed every thought and tangent that popped into our heads until we had exhausted our supply of words. Then we would press skin against skin, moulding our bodies into a single being, holding each other in our exhausted arms as if there would be no tomorrow. Which one day there was.

Saturday, October 17th 2015. Over a year before she left, the day that we became two separate people once more. We were too young, too naive, too everything except ready to show the world who we truly were in soul rather than flesh. We were too in love, it hurt us to the extent that we were deluding ourselves of the fact that we were doing anything other than crippling each other. Our love was growing and growing in this small cage that we were in, sooner or later it would explode breaking the cage and exposing us. Yes our love could have broken our cage, but we were too scared of being free. We were slaves in our cage, but least we were safe, at least the worst of the prodding and poking couldn't reach us from here. We thought, Camila and I, that we were saving each other by giving the other up. In reality, our hearts were irreparably broken and our courage had been stolen from us. I'd blame the men in suits, but it was me who wasn't strong enough to ultimately break free from their grasp.

262 days later Camila's departure was already perfectly planned, no one wanted her to go but no one felt is was their right to stop her if that was what she had set her mind to. Okay who am I fucking kidding? This might have been what our conscience was saying but in practise we tried to convince her in every damn way we could come up with. We begged, we pleaded, we fought, we guilt tripped, we swore at her, we showered her with love, but ultimately it broke us and it broke her and it ruined some of the last few months that we were going to have together. The turning point was an unexpected one, and yet when it came it felt completely right: Barcelona.

That night was our wake up call, it showed us that our days with her were slowly coming to a close, and we could either sit still and let them pass by mourning what had come before, or we could use them as an extended final goodbye party. That show lifted us all up, between the deafeningly loving crowd and the tears that Dinah shed on stage followed by our pure instincts taking us over to protect Dinah as a five-some instead of five different individuals, something in us clicked. Something clicked in all of us, realising that at the end of the day it was love and not any other emotion that prevailed with us. We couldn't fight the oncoming tsunami so we decided to surf the wave until it hit instead, and maybe in this way show Camila that it was worth staying in spite of everything. After all, human beings are very selfish creatures, it's the only way that we survived. So we suddenly became the girls we had been 3 years ago, we were a show coming back on stage for its final encore, we were the calm before the storm. We were playing at something we were not, but it's the only thing we thought could do.

I feel the need to apologise profusely right now, I've been beyond selfish only focusing on Camila and I when there's another three girls whose lives were irreparably altered as well. It fills me with so much guilt and loathing when I say that they're not the same thing as Camila: I love them as much as I love my siblings, but therein lies the problem- I don't love them in the same way I love Camila. That being said, they were as distraught about Camila leaving as I was. We had built this thing together over four years ago, and it felt like betrayal that someone was departing the ship and leaving the rest of us behind to clear up the mess.

Normani was losing the girl she'd so patiently shown how to dance, to exude confidence; it was her who had seen the quiet shy girl bloom into the butterfly she now is at the closest hand.

Ally was losing the girl who was always there to exchange jokes with at delirious hours of the morning, the girl that shared her joy and enthusiasm for every minuscule wonder of the universe.

And Dinah, Dinah was losing her best friend, her partner in crime, the girl she had always relied on to make her laugh or at least smile through even the worst of days. They were all losing something, they knew they were all going to lose a part of themselves when Camila left.

At this point the outsider always wonders why it is that we stopped talking after that final fateful day, why we went from being as close as sisters to complete and utter strangers. There is never as easy answer to these questions, but everyone knew this was ultimately what was going to happen; whether we chose to accept it or not is another matter entirely. We knew that once she was gone, she would be gone. She would disappear into a puff of smoke like in those magic tricks where there's always a trap-door underneath. In Camila's case, the trap-door took the shape of the black hole that is the entertainment industry, and everything that is brought with it. That regret and anger for abandoning us would finally spill over souring our rose tinted view of her, and fans would poison us with their words over social media. Camila also wanted it this way, claiming that it would be easier for everyone if we went our separate ways entirely- better to rip the band aid off in one go than to endure the gradual pain of the sticky material slowly peeling our flesh away with it. Camila's words not mine.

However, most of all, it was our label and managements who would never have allowed us to be seen together even if we had wanted to. Remember those spelling lessons in school, where your teacher would dictate a paragraph and you would have to write it down word for word? I always hated those lessons as there was no freedom in what we were doing. Irony of ironies, I end up making a living from the real life representation of this analogy. Our lives are a set of sentences we are told to copy down, deviate from what the men in suits say and we get it wrong, which doesn't just mean a red cross on a piece of paper I can tell you that. My life is a dictation, and I can't escape from it, what they say goes with little leeway for discussion.

I sometimes feel like I can't complain, so many people don't even have enough food to feed their hungry mouths, and here I am- able to buy my mum a new car and my dad a new state of the art grill every Christmas- still complaining about how my life is absolute bullshit. There's a quote I really like, that says "someone who's drowned in 7 feet of water is just as dead as someone who drowns in 20 feet of water." I try to remember this every time I feel unworthy of my tears or my pain or my anger over something that has also given me so many opportunities and so much life and love. Camila was the one that showed me this quote first, and then slowly taught me what it meant. She taught me to understand that each of us is the universe and the level of our understanding of each other will rise the moment we honor this fact in ourselves. So I decided to honour my selfishness days later, only afterwards realising that this was not the type of self indulgence Camila was talking about.