Camila P.O.V. (it will be in Camilas' pov until i say otherwise)
We are in the parking lot at Dodgers Stadium, and once again, Lauren has forgotten where we left the car. I keep telling her that that it's in Lot C, but she doesn't believe me.
"No," she says, for the tenth time, "I specifically remember turning right when we got here, not left." It's incredibly dark, the path in front of us lit only by lamp-posts featuring oversized baseballs. I looked at the sign when we parked.
"You remember wrong" I say, my tone clipped and pissed off. We've already been here too long, and I hate the chaos of Dodger Stadium. It's a warm summer night, so I have that to be thankful for, but its ten p.m., and the rest of the fans are pouring out of the stands, the two of us fighting through a sea of blue and white jerseys. We've been at this for about twenty minutes.
"I don't remember wrong" she says, walking ahead and not even bothering to look back at me as she speaks. "You're the one with the bad memory."
"Oh I see," I say mocking her. "Just because I lost my keys this morning, suddenly, I'm an idiot?"
She turns and looks at me; I use the moment to try to catch up to her. The parking lot is hilly and steep. I'm slow.
"Yeah, Camila, that's exactly what I said. I said you were an idiot."
"I mean, you basically did. You said that you know what you're talking about, like I don't."
"Just help me find the goddamn car so we can go home."
I don't respond. I simply follow after her as she moves farther and farther away from Lot C. Why she wants to go home is a mystery to me. None of this will be any better at home. It hasn't been for months.
She walks around in a long, wide circle, going up and down the hills of Dodger Stadium parking lot. I follow close behind, waiting with her at the crosswalks, crossing at her pace. We don't say anything. I think of how much i want to scream at her. I think of how much I wanted to scream at her last night, too. I think of how much I'll probably want to scream at her tomorrow. I can only imagine she's thinking much of the same. And yet the air between us is perfectly still, uninterrupted by any of our thoughts. So often lately, our nights and weekends are full of tension, a tension that is only relieved by saying good-bye or good night.
After the initial rush of people leaving the parking lot, it becomes a lot easier to see where we are and where we parked. "There it is," Lauren says, not bothering to point for further edification. I turn my head to follow her gaze. There it is. Our small black Honda. Right in Lot C. I smile at her. It's not a kind smile. She smiles back. Hers isn't kind, either.
----------- (Flashback)
ELEVEN AND A HALF YEARS AGO
It was the middle of my sophomore year of college. My freshman year had been a lonely one. UCLA was not as inviting as I'd thought it might be when I applied. It was hard for me to meet people. I went home a lot on weekends to see my family. Well, really, I went home to see my adoptive sister Dinah. My mom and Sofi are secondary. Dinah was the person I told everything to. Dinah was the one I missed when I ate alone in the dining hall more than I cared to admit.
At the age of nineteen, I was much shier than I'd been at seventeen, graduating from highschool toward the top of my class, my hand cramping from signing so many yearbooks. My mom kept asking me if I wanted to transfer. She kept saying that it was OK to look someplace else, but I didn't want to. I liked my classes. "I just haven't found my stride yet", I said to her every time she asked. "But I'll find it."
I started to find it when I took a job in the mailroom. Most nights, it was one or two other people and me, a dynamic in which I thrived. I was good in small groups. I could shine when I didn't have to struggle to be heard. And after a few months of shifts in the mailroom, I was getting to know a lot of people. Some of them I really liked. And some of those people really liked me, too. I was excited to go back in January. I missed my friends.
