The Fall (Camren)

The Syposium

‘So, how’re you feeling Lauren?’ Ally asked, from her position next to Lauren on the tour bus couch.

‘Kind of like someone crawled down my throat and rearranged all my internal organs.’ Lauren answered honestly.

The look of disgust on her bandmate’s face made her chuckle; she stopped abruptly when pain shot through her abdominal muscles, still tender from the copious amounts of vomiting last night.

All five girls were relaxing on the tour bus as Danny drove them to their next destination. It was early; the sunrise was just breaking, painting the lounge in a surreal orange glow. Lauren was wrapped up in the same blanket Danny gave her the night they broke down. The steady motion of the bus was incredibly relaxing; there was a calm atmosphere around them. She sipped on water and tried (unsuccessfully) not to stare at Camila.

Lauren hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Camila yet, Alex’s early morning wakeup call of banging repeatedly on the door and dragging them to the bus in their pj’s made the task impossible.

‘That’s some beautiful imagery, thanks Lo.’ Normani said through a yawn with sarcasm dripping from her voice.

‘Maybe that’ll teach you not to eat funky looking raw fish.’ Camila chimed in from her position on the floor, she didn’t look up from the book on her lap but Lauren could make out the smirk on her face.

‘It looked fine! It just smelled a little…strange.’ She scrunched her face up at the memory and felt her stomach clench. It would be a long time before she would be eating sushi again.

‘You guys should've seen it! That was some next level kinda projectile vomiting.’ Dinah said, laughing.

Lauren stuck her middle finger up at Dinah, shielding her eyes with her other arm out of embarrassment and to try and stop the roll of nausea at the thought of her vomiting. ‘You’re going to get a re-enactment of it if you don’t shut up.’

‘Ooh someone is cranky.’ Dinah teased.

‘You would be too if you’d spent the majority of last night spewing your guts up.’

‘Good job Mila was there to take care of you, huh?’

Lauren removed her arm from over her eyes to squint at Dinah’s smirking face. She considered if she had somehow recently pissed Dinah off, enough to warrant this fresh hell she was putting her through this morning.

Her eyes slipped unconsciously over to Camila who had obviously picked up on Dinah’s not so subtle innuendo judging by the interesting shade of pink she had gone.

‘Yeah it is a good job Camila was there, you couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  There was practically a Dinah shaped hole in the door you ran off so fast.’ She stopped to take a mouthful of water and pointed between Ally and Normani. ‘And you two were suspiciously absent. Some friends you guys are.’

‘Hey! Normani and I didn’t even know you were ill until Alex told us this morning.’ Ally protested.

‘And if you knew, are you saying you would’ve stayed?’ Lauren quirked an eyebrow.

‘Of course!’ Nomani said, trying to sound offended.

Camila laughed and shook her head, finally looking up from her book. Lauren noticed her face was back to its normal colouring. ‘Normani, a baby threw up on you once at a meet and greet and you cried.’ Camila reminded her.

Lauren smiled at Normani’s affronted expression.

‘That’s because I wasn’t expecting it!’