Imaginary Lover // Camren Fanfiction

Chapter 25

"What's wrong?" a voice called from the back patio door.

Lauren was sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands, as still as Muckross Lake on a calm day.

"Jesus," Lauren said under her breath, not looking up but wondering how it was that Camila always managed to appear at the moments when she least expected her, but needed her most.

"Jesus? Has he been giving you a hard time?" She stepped into the kitchen.

Lauren looked up from her hands. "It's actually his father I'm having an issue with right now."

Camila took another step toward her; she had the ability to overstep the boundaries, but never in a threatening or intrusive way. "I hear that a lot."

Lauren wiped her eyes with a mascara-stained crumpled tissue.

"Don't you ever work?"

"I work all the time. May I?" She gestured to the chair opposite her.

She nodded. "All the time? So is this work for you? Am I just another hopeless case for you to deal with today?" she asked sarcastically, catching a tear halfway down her cheek with the tissue.

"There's nothing hopeless about you, Lauren, however, you are a case; I've already told you that," she said seriously.

She laughed. "A headcase."

Camila looked sad. Misunderstood again.

"So, is that your uniform?" She nodded at his attire.

Camila looked down at herself in surprise.

"You've been wearing that outfit every day I've seen you." She smiled.

"So it's either a uniform or you're completely unhygienic and lack imagination."

Camila's eyes widened. "Oh, Lauren, I don't lack imagination at all."

Lauren laughed wearily.

Not realizing what she had implied, Camila continued, "Do you want to talk about why you are so sad?"

Lauren shook her head. "No, we're always talking about me and my problems. Let's talk about you for a change. What did you do today?" she asked, trying to perk herself up. It had seemed like such a long time since
she had kissed Camila on the main street that morning. She had thought about it all day and had worried about who had seen her, but amazingly, for a town that learned of everything quicker than Sky News, nobody had mentioned a thing to her about the mystery woman.

She had longed to kiss Camila all day, had felt scared about that longing
and tried to numb herself of feeling for her, but she couldn't.

There was something about her so pure and untarnished, yet she was powerful and well-versed on life. She was like the drug she knew she shouldn't take, but the drug that kept coming back to feed her addiction.

As her weariness set
in later in the day, the memory of the kiss had become a comfort to her and the uneasiness vanished. All she wanted now was a repeat of that moment when her troubles fizzled away.

"What did I do today?" Camila twiddled her thumbs and thought aloud.

"Well, today I gave this town a big wake-up call, kissed a very beautiful woman, and then spent the rest of the day being unable to do anything but think of her."

Lauren's face brightened and her warming brown eyes warmed her heart.

"And then I couldn't stop thinking."

"About what?"

"Apart from the beautiful woman?" Camila smiled.

"Apart from her." Lauren laughed.

"You don't want to know."

"I can take it."

Camila looked uncertain. "OK, if you really want to know." She took a deep breath.

"I thought about the Borrowers."

Lauren frowned. "What?"

"The Borrowers," Camila repeated, looking thoughtful.

"The television program," Lauren said, feeling irate. She had prepared herself for whispers of sweet nothings, like in the movies, not this unscripted loveless conversation.

"Yes." Camila rolled her eyes, not noticing her tone. "If you want to refer to that commercial side of them." She sounded angry. "But I thought long and hard about it and I've come to the conclusion that they didn't borrow.

They stole. They downright stole and everybody knows it, but nobody ever talks about it. To borrow means to take and use something belonging to
someone else and then eventually return it. I mean, when did they ever give anything back? I don't recall Peagreen Clock ever giving anything back to
the Lenders at all, do you? Especially the food, how can you borrow food?
You eat it and it's gone, there's no giving it back; at least when I eat your dinner you know where it's going." She sat back and folded her arms, looking
cross.

"And they get a film made about them, a bunch of thieves, while us?
We do nothing but good, but we get labeled a figment of people's imaginations and are still"—she made a face and made inverted commas with her fingers—"invisible. Please." She rolled his eyes.

Lauren stared at her openmouthed.

There was a long silence as Camila looked around the kitchen, shaking her head in anger, and then returned her attention to Lauren. "What?"

Silence.

"Oh, it doesn't matter." She waved her hand dismissively. "I told you,you wouldn't want to know. 

So, enough about my problems, please tell me what's happened?"

Lauren took a deep breath, the question of Tay lor distracting her from the confusing talk of the Borrowers. "Taylor has disappeared. Joe, the man with his finger on the pulse of this town, told me she headed off with the group of people she was hanging out with. He heard it from a family member of a guy from the group she's with, but she's been gone for three days and no one seems to know where they've gone."

"Oh," Camila said in surprise. "And here I am rattling off my problems. Did you tell the Gardaí?"

"I had to," she said sadly. "I felt like a snitch, but they had to know she
was gone just in case she didn't turn up for her hearing in a few weeks, which I'm almost sure she won't be at. I'll have to get a solicitor to go on her behalf, which won't look very good." She rubbed her face tiredly.

She took her hands and cradled them in her own. "She'll be back," Camila said confidently. 

"Maybe not for the hearing, but she'll come back. Believe me. There's no need to worry." Her voice was soft, but firm.

Lauren stared deep into her eyes, searching for the truth, and smiled sadly.

"I believe you." But deep down, Lauren was afraid; she was afraid of believing Camila, afraid of believing at all. When that happened, her hopes
were raised up the flagpole, waving and blowing in the breeze for all to see, and there they would weather the storms and winds, only to be lowered tattered and ruined.

And she didn't think she could spend any more years with her bedroom curtains open, with one eye on the road waiting for a second person to return.

She was weary and she needed to close her eyes.