Love Me, Please (Camren)

Chapter 23

Later that night, Lauren ends up stranded in the middle of the room trying to figure out where to sit.

All the seats on the couches are taken, filled with frat boys and girls and the friends they invited. There are just enough seats for everyone already there, including Normani who is squished beside Dinah. No one is sitting on the floor yet because of this.

Lauren doesn't mind being the only one to sit on the floor, especially since normally she would sit on someone's lap or lie across everyone's thighs on the couch, but that's only with people she's comfortable being annoying around. No one in Camila's frat is included on the list of people who make Lauren feel comfortable. She goes to sit on the floor but hears an abrupt noise of protest. Lauren turns around to find that Camila is the one who made it. Because of course, who else?

"Sit here," Camila says, and it's not very noticeable but everyone quiets down a little and starts watching anyways. "I'll sit on the floor."

This must not be something Camila does often, given the overall silence of the room and the way everyone's eyes are on her and Lauren right now, flipping beneath the two like they're watching a tennis match. Lauren falters, before making the quick decision to just go with it, desperate to get the attention off of herself. She sits down in Camila's seat and mumbles a quiet thanks as Camila moves to sit on the floor.

Unlike a normal person, she doesn't move very far away at all. She waits until Lauren is settled before she scooches backwards and presses her back against the couch, resting on it, so she's right next to Lauren's legs. She doesn't seem to mind that they're touching, Camila's outer arm pressed against the side of Lauren's leg, but Lauren sure minds. She can't get her thoughts off of it, to move onto something more productive and less damaging than holy shit why is she touching me right now.

Everyone else goes back to what they were doing before, while Lauren tries not to panic. To comfort herself, she mindlessly readjusts the sleeve on her arm, fiddling with it much too often.

The movie starts and all Lauren knows is that it's a horror movie, because she can't pay attention to anything right now. Anything except Camila, who is sitting at her feet and jumping at everything even though she keeps trying not to show how scared she is. At one point she actually turns her head to the side and presses her face against Lauren's thigh during a particularly scary scene, and all the while Lauren is wondering why she can't do that to the legs of the girl on the other side of her. All the while Lauren is thinking that, and she's burning with it, with the touches and the movements and all the thoughts that will never leave her alone.

On top of it all, there's one of those stupid creepy soulmate drives again, like the time when Camila called crying and Lauren knew she had no choice but to head over there and comfort her. There are some things their matching won't let Lauren get away with and one of those things is the fact that when Camila is distressed, Lauren has to comfort her. It isn't a question. There are not multiple options. It's just something she has to do.

So she allows Camila to cling onto her leg and hide her face in the fabric of her joggers whenever something scary is happening. And then later, as the movie goes on, Lauren slowly and without thinking reaches her hand down and brushes it through Camila's hair. Just once at first.

Camila tenses immediately but she doesn't move away. Lauren does it again without thinking and that's when Camila pushes her head up into Lauren's hand like a dog does when it wants to be petted more.

Still, there's no option to stop. Lauren feels like she's on autopilot, like her soulmate instincts are in control right now. Kind of. She lets it happen anyways.

She isn't even aware of the movie ending because she's still too preoccupied with threading her fingers through Camila's hair and petting her.

It becomes unclear of what everyone should do now that the movie's finished. Lauren is especially uncertain because she has her hand still stroking Camila's hair and she finds that even though she can stop, she doesn't want to. It feels too nice to be close to Camila like this, to finally have something settled within her chest that tells her this is how everything should be.