Serendipity // Camren

Chapter 30

Miami looked almost exactly the same as it had seven years ago when Lauren and Camila had graduated from Miami High School and headed out into the world. Kids still rode bikes down the middle of the street, front yards were still filled with balls and bats and abandoned skateboards, houses were still kept tidy, and font gardens still bloomed with the bright colors of summer. It was the same and yet, at the same time, it was undeniably different because this, Miami, was no longer home.

"You can never go home again," Lauren murmured as she steered their rented Mini Cooper into the Cabello's driveway.

Camila turned and looked at Lauren, trying to gauge her mood. Ever since they'd landed in Miami earlier that morning, Lauren had been quiet. Introspective. She hadn't been too worried about it because she'd learned that Lauren fell into moods like this occasionally and she just attributed it to nerves about them seeing Nicole later that afternoon, but there was something in the former Cheerio's tone that had her wondering if it was something more than just that. "I've heard that phrase before. What is it from?"

"It's the title of a book, by Thomas Wolfe," Lauren answered, as she put the car into park and killed the ignition. "And the title itself is kind of a summary of a paragraph in the novel where the protagonist comes to terms with his life, but..." her voice trailed off as she watched Camila smile at her. " What?"

Camila grinned. "You know that paragraph by heart, don't you?"

Lauren nodded. "Lit geek, remember?"

Camila chuckled. Yes, she had been exposed to quite a few of Lauren's so-called 'lit geek' tendencies in the last few weeks, including the snappish way Lauren would sometimes respond if she tried to talk to her when she was reading, and the utter joy that would fill her green eyes when she was talking about specific books and the characters in them. "Tell me."

Lauren arched a questioning brow at Camila but could see that the brunette was genuinely curious, and had that look in her eye that said she wasn't going to back down, so she sighed and said, "Do you want the entire paragraph, because it relates back to the story in quite a few places so it won't make sense to you, or can I give you an abridged version that you might understand better?"

Camila shrugged. It didn't really matter to her. She just wanted to be let into Lauren's mind, to know what her girlfriend was thinking. "Either one."

"Abridged it is," Lauren said, smiling softly. "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame... back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake-" she winked at Camila "-back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' ... back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

Camila licked her lips and nodded. "I think I like the shorter quote better."

Lauren grinned and nodded. "I thought you might. It's less... jaded, that way."

"Right, because I can still sing for singing's sake," Camila said, pointing out the one line that had, for obvious reasons, stood out to her the most. "It's fun. It's a release. It's part of me that I don't think I would ever be able to give up completely – no matter if I'm on Broadway or not."

"Are we really going to sit in your parents' driveway and discuss the merits of a paragraph from a book you haven't read?" Lauren chuckled.

"Maybe we are," Camila said, crossing her arms over her chest and shooting Lauren a challenging look.