Imaginary Lover // Camren Fanfiction

Chapter 18

Mistake number one: Going to Lauren's meeting. I shouldn't have done it. It was the same as not going into school with our younger friends and I should have had the sense to realize that Luke's school is the equivalent of Lauren's workplace. I could have kicked myself.

Actually I did, but Luke thought it looked so funny that he started doing it to himself and now both his shins are bruised. So I stopped.

After I left the meeting I walked back to Sam's house to see Luke. I sat on the grass in the back garden, keeping an eye on them wrestling, hoping it wouldn't end in tears and also doing my favorite mental sport.

Thinking.

It was constructive thinking too because I realized a few things. One of the things I learned was that I went to the meeting that morning because my gut instincts were telling me to. I couldn't figure out how my being there would possibly help Lauren, but I had to go with my gut feeling and I just presumed she wouldn't see me. My meeting her the previous night had been so dreamlike and unexpected that I started the day feeling as if it were all in my imagination. And yes, I am aware of the irony there.

I was so happy she saw me. When I saw her swinging on that garden bench looking so lost, I knew that if she was ever going to see me, that was going to be the time. I felt it in the air. I knew she needed to see me and I had prepared myself for the fact that one day she would, but I hadn't prepared myself for the shiver that ran up my spine when our eyes first locked together.

It was odd because I'd been looking at Lauren for the past four days and I was used to her face, knew it inside out, could see it clearly even when I shut my eyes, knew that there was a tiny mole on her left temple, that one cheekbone was slightly higher than the other, that her bottom lip was larger than her top, that she had fine baby hair at the edge of her hair- line. I knew it so well, but isn't it strange how different people can look when you actually look them in the eyes? They suddenly appear to be someone else. If you ask me, it's true what they say about eyes being the windows to your soul.

I had never felt that way before, but I put it down to not having been in the position before. I had never had a friendship with someone of Lauren's age and I supposed it was nerves. It was all a new experience for me but one I was immediately willing to take on.

There are two things that I am rarely. The first is confused and the second is worried, but while I waited in Sam's back garden on that sunny day, I was worried. And that confused me and because I was confused, that wor- ried me even more. I was hoping I hadn't caused trouble for her at work, but later that evening, as the sun and I were playing hide-and-seek, I soon found out.

The sun was trying to hide behind Sam's house, covering me in a blanket of shadow. I was moving around the garden, trying to sit in the very last patches of sunny areas before the light disappeared completely. Sam's mom was having a bath after doing a dance workout video in her back room that looked out onto the garden, which had been hugely entertaining, so when the doorbell rang, Sam answered it.

He was under strict instructions not to answer to anyone except Lauren.

"Hello, Sam," I heard her say, stepping into the hall. "Is your mom here?"

"No," Sam replied,

"She's at work. Me and Luke are playing in the garden."

I heard footsteps coming down the hall, the sound of heels on wood, and then an angry voice as she stepped out into the garden.

"Oh, she's at work is she?" Lauren said, standing at the top of the garden with her hands on her hips, looking down at me.

"Yeah, she is," Sam said, confused, and ran off to play with Luke.