Bound To You (camren au)

this is far from over

IM SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO WRITE THIS LMFAO IT'S THE LONGEST CHAP YET & I HOPE IT YOU LIKE IT

-

That's the funny thing about promises, isn't it? You never mean to break them.

But sometimes it just ends up happening. Without warning, without preamble. One minute you are keeping them, and the next they are slipping right out of your hands, sand through your fingers, horribly, awfully fleeting.

You never mean to break them. But you will, and you do.

-

Camila sees her mom off at the airport when her visit comes to an end. She cries - they both do. They can't help it. Camila's been through some shit with her family, but her mom - god. Lauren was right when she said you can hate something somebody does and still love them with all your heart.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Camila murmurs, and they don't bring up her father.

"I'm going to miss you too, mija," her mom says. Maybe it's enough.

"Tell Lauren it was very lovely to meet her," her mom adds, right before she has to go through security, and Lauren's such an annoyingly charismatic bitch for winning over her mother like she did. Camila chuckles and her heart swells with love and she says, "Okay, mamá, I will."

Her mascara runs all over her face and when she gets back to the parking lot where Lauren is waiting, Lauren laughs at her, and then presses her hands to her mouth because seeing Camila all teary is enough to make her teary, too. "Oh, Camz," she says, and wipes the black smudges from under Camila's eyes, half-giggling the whole time.

"Shut up," Camila grumbles, and Lauren laughs more and kisses her smack on the forehead, right where her third eye is supposed to be, or some bullshit like that.

-

School starts, and Camila returns to a certain type of routine.

She isn't living in the dorms anymore, but most days Normani and Dinah will swing by to bring her to the club because their hours are different than the rest of the girls'. Her work days are shorter, but her school days drag on, and she's tired all the time but she doesn't really mind it. Everything is obnoxiously fast-paced, and the days snap by so quick, and it keeps Camila on her toes in a way she craves.

Most weekends she goes over to Lauren's if Hailee's at work and has no room to protest, and the two of them have picked up their cleaning-and-watching-shitty-shows routine, often fit with baking and songwriting and lots of talking about nothing and everything, because that's just how they work.

"Teach me guitar," Lauren demands one day in that endearingly bratty way of hers, sticking her bottom lip out. She wiggles her fingernails, all short and painted black. "I got rid of my acrylics so you could teach me."

"Bitch, why?" Camila glares at her. "Don't you already know guitar? And what if I say no?"

"Bitch, barely," Lauren mimics her. "I dabble, remember? I know how to do like two things and they're mostly wrong and I want to learn more. And you can't say no to me," she tells her with big eyes, and Camila snorts and pushes her arm because she's totally right.

There's a certain level of intimacy between them now, something that Camila can't really describe. Maybe there aren't even any words in the English language to name how it feels when you are so close to someone that you could probably merge into one person, twin flame style, one soul turned two turned one. It all sounds very profound for a friendship that mostly consists of the two of them swearing at each other ninety percent of the time and singing stupid songs the other ten percent, but it is what it is.