Catfish

I Got A Paper Heart

"... I'm sorry, I can't do this." Lauren mutters, making a slashing motion with her hand so someone could stop playing her music. Everyone in the stadium was shocked, knowing that she loved doing soundchecks. Thankfully, there was no audience full of rabid fans demanding her to keep going on, because Lauren needed time to breathe.

"Dude, are you alright?" Her best friend, Normani, asks in a concerning tone, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. Lauren let out a shaky breath and shook her head, her head hanging down in shame. Her shoulders start to shake and Normani's best friend powers activate, and she immediately wraps her arms around Lauren who is now sobbing uncontrollably.

Normani carefully leads her away from the stage and almost successfully brings the sobbing girl into her dressing room (Lauren slipped out of her hold a few times). Normani sets Lauren down on a chair. Lauren takes a glance at herself in the mirror and she gasps, wiping away her tears furiously, sniffling every so often. Normani glances at her best friend, a frown on her face as she thinks about what could have possibly made Lauren so upset.

Normally she would ask what was the matter, but she sensed that Lauren didn't want to talk about it. Come to think of it, Lauren has been very distant lately. All she does lately is mope around and stare at her phone longingly. It's not just Normani that has noticed, the entire crew has noticed. When a performer is in a bad mood, everyone is.

"Normani, I have to tell you something."

░░░

"So what exactly happened?" Max asked, pointing his mini camera at Camila who was trying to not to cry. She hiccuped and showed them her laptop screen, telling them when to start reading. Nev reads aloud their conversation, and each time he reads aloud the hurtful things she typed, she mentally yelps.

By the time Nev finished reading aloud the conversation, Camila was a mess. She was sobbing and hiding her face, because she could feel them staring at her. But they weren't stares of sympathy.

They were stares of disguist.

"Look, I do regret what I said-"

"Doesn't seem like it." a crew member mumbled, pretending to adjust his camera. Camila winces at the unknown person's comment.

"Okay, guys, leave her alone, alright?" Nev says, noticing Camila's reaction to the comment. Camila shook her head and mumbled silently to herself, standing up and walking towards the hotel's balcony.

Max comes into the balcony, shutting the glass door in hopes that the cameras won't hear their conversation. Camila hears him come in, but she refuses to look at him. She leans against the railing and looks at the waves of the Miami beach crashing the shore.

Normally waves calm her mind, just staring at them for a few seconds could help put her mind at ease. But now it's on overdrive, with thoughts of Lauren swimming around. No matter what she does, her mind comes running back to the mysterious superstar. It's like her brain is desperate for love, more desperate than she is.

░░░

"Alright, this next song is for you beautiful people out there." Lauren says into her microphone, grinning when her fans scream in excitement. The band starts the song and Lauren starts to sing. Her fans start to sing along with her, causing her to grin even more.

It's times like these that Lauren doesn't regret everything she's sacrificed to get to this point: her fans singing loud enough that they almost over power her voice.

She sacrificed her childhood by taking singing and dancing lessons ever since she was 4. She sacrificed her social life by choosing to practice rather than to go shopping or go to the movies with friends - not that she had many to begin with. She sacrificed her precious teenage years by wasting her time on making YouTube videos for people that wouldn't watch.

Everytime she got a like or a comment on one of her cover videos, she would leap for joy. She was thankful for the people who watched and left nice comments. She sacrificed hours at night wondering if she would be stuck making YouTube cover videos forever.

While there were many things she doesn't regret sacrificing for the sake of her career, she sacrificed something valuable. Something far more important than anyone in this world. She sacrificed her love life for her career.

That may be the only thing she regrets.

The song quickly ends, too quick for Lauren's for liking, but she feels that it's probably best if she doesn't dwell on her relationship in the middle of a concert.

Lauren puts on a smile to mask her sadness, joking around by saying that the crowd sings better than her. Their laughter raises her spirits and she's excited to sing the next song.

"Alright, this next one's for you lovebirds in the audience. This one's called Paper Heart." The audience cheers.

"When the wind plays tricks, you should hold me close, I might fly away..." Lauren sings softly, the audience starting to sing along immediately. She grinned and sways along to the beat of the song.

Her mind drifts off to Camila. She remembers that she wrote this song for her, and she planned to tell her about it but she decided against it, knowing that revealing herself would be a bad idea.

It wasn't the first time she's tried to reveal herself. She would, on numerous occassions, formulate plans to tell her girlfriend who she really was, but she always chickened out in fear that Camila would hate her for lying. Of course, telling her would've been the best thing to do.

But Lauren can't think straight anymore.

Which is why, in the middle of the song she wrote for Camila, she choked on the lump in her throat and collapsed onstage. She fell to her knees and screamed in agony into her hands, gut wrenching sobs shaking her body.

Gasps were heard, as well as shouts of sympathy, and soon enough, she was being lifted by her bandmates.

She couldn't think of her shocked bandmates, or her concerned fans and friends, or how this would be all over the news soon enough.

The only thing she could think of was her brown-eyed beauty slipping away from her grasp.

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1,060 WORDS YAYYAYAYAY

Oh crap, do you want to know a song you should listen to while reading this? Never Say Never by The Fray (awesomest ballad in the world, it also sounds like You And I by the boys so yeahh) be careful, it may bring you to tears (it relates to them so well omfg)

Hahahahhahaha okay so byeeee

(Ugh this chapter sucked) (oh well)

~ InTheseWalls xo

P.S.: thank you guys for not asking me to update (some of you did but I knew you were joking)