Love Me, Please (Camren)

Chapter 21

They spend the next two hours studying as they did yesterday, with Lauren having Camila read lines aloud and then translate them. After that, they focus on the type of questions Camila will be asked on her exam, and they work on writing responses. As Camila writes a few paragraphs in her journal answering one of Lauren's more extensive questions, brows furrowed in concentration, Lauren pretends not to watch her.

After all this time, she's never really seen this side of Camila. This quiet, careful side of her. The shyness with which she offered Lauren coffee and apologized if it wasn't made the way Lauren liked was so unexpected, it was jarring.

And then the way she's so earnest about studying and doing well in her classes... That was unexpected too. From all the rumors she hears of Camila, all the stories on what she gets up to on the weekends, how she uses her wealth to get what she wants, how she has people always falling at her feet just to have a small piece of her attention, she hadn't expected her to act like this but here they are sitting quietly in the library, reading French poetry and analyzing it together.

At the end, Lauren has to get to class, so she says goodbye and leaves her soulmate sitting there, practicing essays on French poetry. They make plans to meet up the next day and as Lauren leaves she wonders why she's agreeing to help Camila when there's nothing in it for her.

She thinks she's being used, manipulated even, to help her study and ace this exam, because she needs it so badly. And that makes Lauren resent Camila a little, but she counters it with the fact that Camila could've gone to anyone else and they would've done it happily. Still, it's clear Camila knows how easy Lauren is for her, despite all the hatred and the fear. How she'll always bend to her will because she can't help herself no matter how hard she tries.