A Change Of Directions (Camren)

Chapter 44: Prom

The next chapter is the last one :(

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Sometimes, all you needed to move on was a metaphorical punch in the stomach and a blow to your head, just to rip you out of your self-pity and open your eyes.

For me, the visit of my fathers was like a slap to my face. But it was a slap that finally set me free. For too long I had been drowning in 'what if's and imagining thousands of scenarios on how to react to them should they ever come crawling to me. None of those prepared speeches and trained reactions had helped me any bit when it had come to the real thing. All the time in the world couldn't have prepared me for that.

But now the long chapters about the miserable parts of my life were coming to an end, I had reached the turning point and everything that used to hurt so much was now just a distant memory.

It was over.

Now that I knew that my fathers had realized their mistakes and had started to begin the long process of earning my forgiveness, I could finally live in peace. And that was the only thing I had needed in the first place. Just knowing that they still loved me, that I was worth loving after all.

And this confirmation would help me to get rid of my irrational fear that I didn't deserve Lauren. Because how could you give a hundred percent to someone if you were afraid of them leaving you?

Yeah, insecurities were a bitch. I knew better than to listen to them but I still did and even though I knew that everything was just in my head, I still thought they existed in the outer world. It was like one of those moments where it was late night and I would be roaming in the dark to get water, when something inexplicable would startle me and I'd be briefly scared by the concept of ghosts though I knew they didn't exist.

I had no explanation for these kind of things. And sometimes it was better to leave things unexplained, because the more thought you gave them, the heavier would they last on your mind. It was the same with insecurities.

Your doubt would only grow with every second of attention you feed it.

This was why you sometimes needed a good hit to your head to snap you out of it and force you to stop thinking. Not everything needed an answer. Nothing was so important that could justify consuming all your time and energy if it only resulted in misery.

I was almost glad that my fathers had visited me. Or I would still be stuck in the mental cage I had built myself, not able to get out on my own.

With Junior Prom coming nearer and nearer, all the students in junior year and below were going crazy for whatever reasons. I didn't know that Junior Prom was such a big deal compared to Senior Prom, but apparently, it was one of the biggest popularity contests of the year.

Whenever I walked past posters of Prom candidates advertizing to get votes, I shot a nervous look at Lauren and she would notice and dismissively wave it off with a reminder, "You know that I don't care anymore."

And I believed her and loved her for it, but I still couldn't help feeling that she had to relinquish this experience of being Prom Queen because she didn't have a proper Prom King to candidate with. She was nominated, of course, but she had no intentions of pairing up with one of the male nominees to win. Since the announcement of the candidates, she had done nothing to promote herself to get votes for Prom.

Dinah and Normani on the other side had actually found a solution to this problem, though I still didn't know how that was possible. Normani was nominated for Prom King. How this high school worked was beyond me.