Paper Towns (A 5H Fanfic)

T h r e e

Day 0: The Night

The girls had moved their bags into their hotel rooms. Ally and Normani in one, Lauren and Dinah in another, Camila had a room to herself. If this was 2014, Lauren and Camila would have been switched, but it was 2015, things had changed drastically.

"You want to go prank Dinah and Lauren?" Normani asked Ally who was already laying in bed. It was 12:30am and the girls had just had a long day of rehearsing and more rehearsing for their GMA performance. They'd have to get up at four in the morning as well to soundcheck at the GMA stage and get dressed and performance ready by seven.

"Lauren will rip your head off if you bother her while she's trying to sleep." Ally mumbled, turning over in the bed so she wasn't facing Normani anymore.

"They're both up. Dinah just posted a Snapchat story of her trying to prank Lauren." she laughed. Ally shook her head. Normani let out a sigh. " Fine. I'm going to go see if Mila is up then? Maybe she'll go prank Laurinah with me." Normani grabbed a room key off the desk then slid out to the hallway.

Normani walked down the brightly lit hallway to Camila's room. She knocked on the door. "Mila, let's go prank Dinah and Lauren. I stole one of their room keys." she laughed to herself. No answer. "Camila. I know you're in there."

"What?" Camila said. Normani nearly jumped when she heard the girls voice from next to her. "I was at the vending machine." Camila replied.

She held two bottles of water, a bag of chips, a Pop Tart and had a Red Bull sticking out from her sweatshirt pocket.

"Hungry much?" Normani questioned and raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't eat dinner. And I'm thirsty. The Red Bull is for the morning." Camila replied. "Can you grab the room key out of my pocket for me?" she turned so Normani could reach into the large front pocket of her sweatshirt.

Normani pulled out the key card and a one hundred dollar bill. "Woah. That's a large bill to carry in your pocket." she laughed.

"Can you just open the door for me." Camila said, nearly annoyed with her bandmate.

The older girl opened the door and held it open for Camila. "What are you doing with a hundred bucks in your pocket?"

Camila took to key from Normani's hand, in her mouth then spit it out into the room, landing it on the floor. "I was gonna see if the hotel had an ATM so I could break it. Guess not. Good night." she nearly shut the door on Normani before her hand reached for the door.

"You could probably just ask the front desk to break it for you. I can go with you if you-"

"It's fine." Camila shot. The two stood in silence for a minute. "Sorry. I'm just kind of tired." she apologized.

"Tired is not what you've been lately. It's more than just sleep that you're lacking." Normani kindly said. "Are you really ok?"

"I'll be fine. I can get through this. Don't worry." Camila faked a smile.

"The tour hasn't started yet. It's not too late to take a break you know." Normani smiled at the girl who just shrugged.

"Am I an attention whore?" Camila asked abruptly, catching Normani off guard.

"What? No. Who made you think that?" she sounded defensive of the younger girl. Probably because she was.

"People. The internet. Everyone."

"The internet is not everyone and that is not true. Don't ever think that." Normani stepped into Camila's room and hugged her tightly. "You are not the things people say about you."

The girls pulled back from their hug and smiled at each other. "Thanks." Camila said.

"Are you gonna be ok tonight?" Normani asked, taking a step out of the room.

"Perfectly fine. Don't worry about me." she said cheery. A side of Camila Normani hadn't really seen much of recently.

"I'll see you four hours for soundcheck. Get some sleep Mila." Normani called as she walked down the hall towards Lauren and Dinah's room, still set on pranking them.

Once Normani was out of sight, Camila shut the door. She tossed the food and drinks into a backpack and let out a long sigh. She opened tumblr on her phone and reblogged something that was siting in her drafts. Nearly a minute later, she saw Lauren reblogged it from her. Of course she was online, she always was.

Camila listened closely and could hear a distinct raspy voice shout 'what the fuck' at the top of her lungs behind a closed hotel room door across the hall. Normani successfully scared Lauren. Camila took that as her opportunity to slid out of the room. She hesitated before opening the door. This was it. This was where she was about to leave it all behind. She thought about the last thing she said to each girl.

She told Normani "don't worry about me." about her mental health. She told Dinah she loved her before they split off to their different hotel rooms. She told Ally "why are you like this?" because Ally wouldn't stop doing her Shakira impression. And she told Lauren "I promise." because she promised Lauren she'd be ok. And she would be ok, just not in a way everyone else would be ok with. She wasn't going to die, she was going to just leave the world of Prada purses, controlling management or lack there of, she was leaving the world of paparazzi flashes and red carpet premiere's. She was leaving the world of Fifth Harmony. For good? She didn't even know that. Time would only tell if she wanted back in.

One deep sigh, Camila flung the backpack over her shoulder and stepped out the door. She took the back entrance of the hotel and was on her way. She had it all mapped out for weeks, it was finally time to execute the plan. Tomorrow morning, the girls would get a surprise as would the rest of the fandom. You're not a missing person until twenty four hours have passed by. Enough time for the girls to get their performance and interview done, enough time for Camila to get as far away as she could from everyone. Enough time to drop off the grid and not have anyone worrying about her. When that twenty four hours were up, game on. Cops, FBI, fans, the girls maybe, anyone could find her at any time. So those twenty four hours were crucial to Camila getting everything she needs then disappearing.