The Heart of Camilo (A Camilo Madrigal x Reader Fem Y/N Story)

Found

*Camilo*

It had been 5 days. The longest 5 days of all of our lives. We had searched the forest as far out as we dared to go. We had found Armonia, one of the horses that Y/N and Mirabel had taken, on the second day, wandering through the forest. Aunt Julieta was beside herself that day. I'll never forget her screams. With each passing day, the unspoken reality grew louder and louder, but no one dared to say it out loud. They were gone, probably dead. Two 15-year-olds in a forest and we knew they had lost at least one horse because something must have happened. None of us dared to even speculate.

Every day, the weight of what had happened crushed me more and more. I ate less and less, never relented on joining the search parties. My parents didn't try to force me to go to school and let me search as long and as hard as the search parties were permitted to go until night fell and we retreated back home, defeated. Losing Y/N and my cousin ... I refused to let myself go down the rabbit hole of possibilities, telling myself every day that tomorrow we would find them, tomorrow I'll be with her again. I didn't speak to anyone, went through tasks automatically, as if I wasn't even really there.

"Camilo," Dolores said to me as I came downstairs, throwing on my cloak, getting ready to head to the stables and join the search party. "Can we talk?"

"Not right now," I said stiffly. I had been waiting for someone to try and have "the talk" with me as time had passed. Wasn't going to happen. I was not admitting they weren't coming back and moving onto grief, despite whispers of that eventuality popping up in people's conversations in town.

"Camilo, please..." Dolores gently took my arm, but I whipped away from her, far more aggressively than she was expecting.

"Don't you dare!" I yelled. "Don't you dare tell me to not go out there to look for them!"

"I just ..." Dolores looked like I had slapped her. "Camilo, you are killing yourself, you barely eat, you are out all day in the forest, you aren't sleeping, can you just stay home today and rest? Others will be searching! I'm scared for you." Tears came up in her eyes.

"Don't be scared for me, be scared for Mirabel and Y/N and let me go find them," I retorted, glaring at her. "Have you been listening?"

"Of course I have been listening! I sit in my room all day and listen for them!"

"Okay, so make yourself useful and go do it," I shot back, not caring how cruel I sounded. "You do your part, I'll do mine! Don't tell me to stay home and sleep like some useless -"

"Camilo!" my father had started down the stairs. "You will not talk to your sister that way. We are all terrified and doing everything we can."

I buckled my cloak and turned around, ignoring him. Julieta came to the door, dressed and ready. She also joined the search parties every day. She took my hand. "Let's go, Milo," she said quietly.

"Julieta ..." my father started to say as we opened the door. I held my hand up to block the sun from my eyes while they adjusted, and as I lowered them, my mouth dropped open as I looked down the pathway to town.

Y/N and Mirabel were walking up the path towards us.

I felt rather than heard Aunt Julieta's scream and watched her, as if in slow motion, drop her bags to the ground and run to her daughter, screaming for my uncle, hugging her until they both fell down. Y/N bent down to check on them and Julieta pulled her into the pile with them, hugging and kissing both their cheeks.