Love Me, Please (Camren)

Chapter 22

They meet up and study French all throughout the week. On Friday they meet in the evening, and the library is completely empty, save for the librarian who makes easy conversation with Lauren while Camila works on the sixth section of poetry.

Afterwards, Lauren joins her at their usual table and Camila smiles at her easily.

"Hey, um, Lo?"

Lauren doesn't want to answer to that but she does anyways, deciding to let the nickname slide. She's been doing that a lot lately. All week, maybe.

"Yeah?"

"My frat is having another movie night and I was wondering if you wanna come? I think Normani will be there."

A week ago Lauren wouldn't hesitate at all to say hell no right to Camila's face. Today she tries to come up with a suitable excuse. She can't think of one.

"Um, okay.”

"Really?" Camila looks very surprised. Like she was offering to be kind but expected Lauren to say no.

"Yeah," Lauren agrees, trying not to feel lame about not having any legitimate Friday night plans. Honestly, she was envisioning herself going back to her dorm and watching cheap indie films on her laptop until it was late enough to suitably fall asleep on a Friday night. It seems like that's not going to happen, unfortunately.

Camila tells her to come at eight o'clock, and that everyone's supposed to bring snacks but it's okay if Lauren doesn't because she's coming on such short notice. Then they begin studying, and everything falls back into the norm of this week.

As Camila reads aloud much more fluently than on Monday, Lauren nods along and corrects her when she messes up but mostly her mind wanders.

When she looks at Camila now she doesn't see the person everyone always says she is. All Lauren sees, really, is the way Camila bites her lip when she's deep in thought, or how she drums her fingertips on the table in silent rhythm as she reads. Or the way she repeats lines of poetry she really likes, which always end up being the sappy ones Lauren likes too, though she has to pretend she doesn't like them because having the same favorite lines is just strange, and something that shouldn't happen. These are things Lauren has never paid attention to before, so it's startling to notice them now.

In French, Lauren asks Camila a few questions about what she just read, and has her respond verbally. Despite the fact that they're the only one's in the library and there's no one to disturb, they speak quietly, voices hushed and soft, just above a whisper. It feels strikingly intimate and Lauren doesn't know how to make the sensation go away, nor does she really want to make it go away.  "Ça a été?" Camila inquires at the end, asking, How was that?

"Merveilleux," Lauren responds honestly, "Bravo."

The way Camila beams at the praise is a little too much to handle.