by: orphan_account
(2013-08-25/2013-9-24)
Chapter 2
'Sorry! I deleted your message by accident, but I luckily had the email. It's funny. I guess we have similar tastes in schools? Thanks for the compliment, but this is just a journal of sorts. (:'
In all seriousness, it should not take Lauren approximately two hours to decide what to say, but it does. It does because it's tumblr and sure it's easier to get along with people on here, but she knows she has a little bit of a crush on this girl, this girl she's never seen, but technically stalks.
And really? Lauren should not be tailoring her blog to make sure anything and everything she reblogs isn't too weird. She wants to do that thing again, that thing where she slams her head into the keyboard.
Instead, she responds to the girl with; 'What's your top choice? I really hope I get into Columbia, it's great. I've never even been to New York! My name's Lauren by the way, I probably should've mentioned that earlier.' It's more like a large ramble, but it's something.
She hits 'ask' and checks her clock, ten forty-seven. She's not even tired. Tumblr it is.
She grabs her Mac and turns on a random Spotify station, hoping it'll fill the silence. It's easy enough that way.
She sees that Camila has reblogged a few things a few minutes ago, reblogging them on instinct as she scrolls down more.
It's not till she goes back up her dash does she realize that she's for something in her inbox. Smiling, the Miami native clicks the little envelope. 'I'm Camila! If I'm being completely honest, I crept your blog before replying so I sort of knew that already. You're also beautiful.' The smile that covers her face now is too large and she thinks it should hurt to smile this big.
Before she can hit reply she gets another '1' and refreshes her inbox. 'I'm the idiot who forgot to answer your question. My too choice is Columbia or Brown. It's a pipe dream, but it's something! Visit New York ASAP, beautiful city, beautiful people.' See now, she's sure her smile is hurting her.
It's the excitement, she'll blame it later. She replies instantly to the second message; 'I've obviously crept yours, but I've never seen a picture! I bet you're beautiful too. Maybe we'll both get into Columbia! One can dream, anyway. I actually hope will be during Late December!' She hits send before she can second guess it.
It's stupid that she's this excited about messaging a girl she's been stalking for weeks. Well, sort of stalking. She'd like to call it admiring.
She realizes she said she hadn't seen a picture and now she hopes she wasn't incredibly too forward. That would be bad. What if Camila doesn't reply? What if she thinks Lauren is weird now? Ugh, fuck.
She contemplates telling Normani just so she can vent and not feel like a huge loser but doesn't. Instead, she plays solitaire. She refreshed the page another billion times until finally, she's for a message in her inbox. She chews on her bottom lip before opening up her inbox; 'Late December?! That's great! I may be there for New Years' this year! Sorry, that's a lot of exclamation points. Whoops. If you want a picture you're going to have to work harder than that (: tell me something about yourself?'
Dead. Lauren swears she's dead.
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"Oi! Get off your computer so we can go!" Harry wants to smack Camila most days.
"What? Where are we going?"
"On an ice cream run."
"Oh. Can't you just get me something?"
"The point of living with one another is that we get to do everything together!"
"You are a grown man. You can function on your own."
"Mila! What is so important that you can't go down the street with your favorite person in the world for ice cream?" Camila sighs, running her fingers through her hair before she shuts her laptop and slips on a pair of crocs. Harry threatens to burn them on the daily.
"You should really be less dependent. I'll be leaving soon."
"Why leave the beauty of Boston at all?"
"I need to get away and just go out and live. It's been a crazy year, don't you think?" She replies. He continues to walk beside her. It's nearly November and the winters in Boston are a usual gamble, but this one is brutal. She tucks her hands into the coat pocket and moves a bit faster.
"Do you regret any of it?"
"I don't know." She thinks back to it. Thinks back to all of the things she's been through. Thinks about her life and the court rulings. She thinks about Sofia and Demi. She thinks about her subsequent transfer from school. It's overwhelming.
"You shouldn't. I'm proud of who you are because of it."
"You're obligated to say that."
"Not really. You're the one bumming off of me."
"Hey!" She rips her hand out of her pocket to slap him, immediately regretting it when she feels the cold cling to her fingertips.
He flinches laughing at her before they enter the snack shop. Harry always has these odd cravings for ice cream at the worst of times and she swears he'd be pregnant if it weren't for the whole penis thing.
She waits at the counter as he goes to grab a pint of Ben and Jerry's. When he comes back to pay they leave swiftly. She practically jogs back to the apartment complex and it's not a good idea because she's such a klutz.
"Do you want some?" He offers politely when they return into the warmth of their apartment.
"No. You're the only idiot who needs ice cream in the winter."
"Ay! Not true at all!" He yells from the kitchen. The apartment is painted a hue of colors, tiny, well cozy, and it's two small bedrooms, but moving in here during the summer was a saving grace for Camila and she's come to love it.
"It's a shame. You come in and you go straight back to your laptop like it's a baby you missed."
"It is my baby!" Camila replies back with a smirk on her face.
"Thankfully. Otherwise, we all know you'd be all over me."
"So many things wrong with that, buddy."
"Ouch, you called me buddy."
"Harry, stop being so sensitive." She throws a random object at him only to receive a laugh in return. He settled down on the couch beside her and flips the television on.
"Oh my god, get off of tumblr."
"No." She turns so that the back of the laptop is towards him so he can't see what she's doing.
"Stop flirting with people."
"No." She says once again.
"Sofi texted me earlier. Asked that we come around." Harry says a few minutes later. He looks over to see his roommate grinning like an idiot.
Camila can't hide it and she wants to, but this girl, Lauren, she's almost bashful and it's terribly cute. 'That's amazing! Maybe we'll run into one another? Tell you something? Well, I'm terribly shy for some reason and I've been creeping your blog for some time. Never picked up the courage to say anything till the other day; your turn!'
"MILA!" She looks up, the smile still on her face.
"Hmm?"
"Why're you grinning like a Buffoon and did you hear what I said?"
"What'd you say?"
"Sofi asked if we'd come round for dinner."
"When?"
"This Friday."
"Tell them alright." She nods off distractedly. Thinking of a reply. She begins to type, 'I'm glad you found the courage, then! You're making me smile.'
It's short and to the point. She's never really flirted like this and she can't say if it's the fact that Tumblr's doing it or what.
Nonetheless, it occurred to her that it's late and school is tomorrow. She opens a text post; 'It's been quite a few days, but even then it feels better than anything has this past year. School again in the morning. Maybe I can get through the day by actually concentrating?' She tucks it under a 'read more' and closes tumblr.
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"Camila!"
"What is with people yelling my name?"
"You'd think you'd actually pay attention so that people wouldn't have to."
"You're hardly the type of person to do that for anyone either," Camila says to her friend. Ariana laughs at the girl before tugging her to homeroom.
"Why don't you get off the phone, ever?"
"Why is your hair red?"
"Shut up." The shorter girl huffs before sitting in her usual seat.
"There's a party this Friday at Jake's house. Are you in?"
"I can't. The thing with Harry."
"There's always a thing with Harry!" The girl whines. Camila laughs before she replies with, "that's cause we live together."
"Are you guys together? I've never asked. Seems sorta young, but it's pretty cool." Camila laughs harder this time, shaking her head no.
"He's like a brother. We grew up pretty close." Ariana seems satisfied with that answer and directs her attention to the teacher at the front. Camila met her the first day of school and considers her a good friend. Mostly, it's someone she talks to. She misses De-. No, she can't let her mind drift there.
She cruises through the day, texting underneath her desk and whatnot. Mostly she tumbls a ton of things. She also realizes that Lauren hasn't messaged her back, but she's met a few people on tumblr she messages. Those are the people who seem better than the people she meets around here.
By the time the day ends she's walking away from the school intent on making it to the Bay Area with her laptop. She texts Harry so he doesn't worry and puts her headphones in.
Her parents say she's insane for loving Boston's winters, but there's something about the way the snow falls and how comforting things like sweaters and hot chocolate provided. She wonders if it's merely the associations she's made with them that make it comforting.
As she approaches her favorite little coffee shop she tugs out her wallet. She quickly orders her usual cinnamon latte and head to a cozy little single couch. Tucking her legs under herself she pulls out her laptop and immediately opens her email and then Tumblr. She's maybe a bit of an addict.
She checks her inbox next because she's anxious for a reply, however silly that is she doesn't care. She's come to realize that it's the little things, plus, it does help that Lauren's incredibly cute.
'I'm glad you're smiling, I bet it's beautiful.' Camila blushes, she won't admit it and if someone were to ask she'd say it was from her skin warming from the cold air outside, but she's blushing and smiling nonetheless.
She wonders if it's too forward to say something like, 'you are' back or rather something bashful. She has no idea because this is odd. It's really odd because those pictures tell her this girl is beautiful and her blog shows the things she's interested in and maybe, just maybe, Camila really likes her. She'll settle for the flirtation and a friendship now because it's got to be stupid to try something with a girl on tumblr.
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The weeks fly by easily and Lauren has nearly pulled her hair out from frustration. She's spent the past week between Normani and Alexa's houses, avoiding the loud noise from her brother and sister, hoping to get a moment of peace.
It's the last week of October and the deadline for Columbia is actually November first. She wants to jump off a bridge at the thought of that being only four days away.
The only thing that's really been keeping her sane is Normani. Camila isn't helping one bit. If anything, she's making Lauren want to commit.
That girl is a flirt and it's been a month now since they've met, well since they've begun speaking and she swears she's got a crush on the girl. It's stupid, once again, she tells herself it's incredibly stupid because she should worry about her senior year and the winter formal and prom and apps and financial aid, but she's not.
She's thinking about a girl she's never seen in her life.
Normani would straight up laugh at her because it's pathetic.
Her life isn't interesting. Not in the slightest. She's never felt heartbreak cut her deep or the loss of a family member or anyone she's close to. She's never had problems of any sort, except the occasional self-esteem, she's completely normal.
Really, she knows she's been blessed. She's observant by nature and attentive to those she cares about. She's a hard worker, she's smart, she's pretty, she's athletic. Lauren remembers the first time her mom told her to make sure she remains humble, keeping her family first and a good head on her shoulders. She's lived by that because that's precisely what her grandmother had told her mom and that's something like a family motto.
The only thing she's ever struggled with was whether or not she is a lesbian.
She was sure of it when she had her first boyfriend and his kisses were nice, but never too much. She never felt anything other than an admiration towards him and they ended it amicably. Since then Lauren Jauregui has not dated.
Normani knows, her family knows, that's as far as it goes. She's open on tumblr and the thing about that is that it's comfortable. It's exactly the place that she needed. It's safe and reliable and she knows she's accepted there.
She's seen what has happened to kids who are out around here and maybe that's why she wants to go to New York so bad, maybe she thinks it's a lot safer there. Reinventing herself can begin there.
Her thoughts round back to Camila. She's ninety-nine percent sure that the other girl is at least bisexual if not lesbian, mostly she's sure because of the flirting but then there's that unspoken rule on tumblr. Gay until proven straight. She wishes the world was like that.
She's thought of asking, but the flow of conversation has been sporadic. Some nights they'd trade ten or fifteen messages packed with information and some nights it would be zero to one. She knows it's because they're busy, busy with applications and school and being seniors.
But, she really wants to talk to Camila. Like, talk talk.
So she asked Camila to skype with her, actually, she found it really appropriate to ask Camila to skype with her on October 31st in the evening. Then she remembered there is something called Halloween and she face-palmed because the message had already been sent to Camila's inbox.
She told herself it was whatever, but she was a bit anxious because she really really really wanted to talk to Camila and she really really really wanted a distraction that evening. Is it bad that she also thought that submitting their apps together would be cute.
Lauren waits patiently at her computer, not eager to go out today. Monday's always have a habit of wearing her thin.
This, thankfully, is one of those nights where they're talking a lot. So Camila's response is within a few minutes, she nervously opens the message.
'I would love to! My roommate Harry is going out for Halloween with some college kids or something and I'd rather stay in. My skype name is milalovespizza95; don't judge me! I was young and stupid and hadn't realized those things would haunt me, but they are. Let's say around six? I've got an after school thing and this thing with this girl. Sorry, that was vague. Six?' Lauren smiles, giddy at the thought of it all.
She replies back with, 'Sounds perfect! I'm almost done with my app. Nervous is the understatement of the year.' She also wonders what the thing is that Camila has to do with a girl. Maybe it's a date? Lauren's immediately regretful at thinking of it that way because the jealousy that bubbles up makes her want to puke.
Jealousy is not her thing. Especially for a girl she's never met who's never said she's bi or gay and who's she's never actually spoken to or seen.
No.
She's not going to be that girl.
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