The Soulmates Series Camren

Neverending 2.1

The city was cold this time of year.

Or perhaps, it was the girl with the army green eyes and the black ink and the vodka in her veins that was cold.

Every brick. Every mortar. Every lick of paint that coated her no longer placid skin. Lived and breathed in shades of icy blue and cool white. She lived within four white walls, she slept under white sheets, she drank clear liquid that set her cold throat alight and survived on white lines that blurred the lines that constrained her person.

She'd been astonished with herself at just how quickly she'd reverted to her old behaviour once Camila was once and truly gone. Once her eloquent, passionate relationship with the brown eyed girl's voicemail had come to one, pivotal, shattered glass end on her bathroom floor, she'd turned to clear liquid and white paint. She'd repainted not only her cold apartment but the inside of her dark body. She'd been transformed from an all black, deep red, army green phoenix to a soft colour, fade filtered softball captain with a dirty mouth. She'd kissed maybe 40 girls since she'd moved to Seattle four months ago but Cara was by far her favourite girl to kiss. Cara captained her rival softball team and Lauren thought no one had ever looked better in blue than Cara did. She hadn't thought of Camila in a little over a month, or she had, but she hadn't named the girl in her thoughts Camila. She was brown eyes, or full lips, or a universal ass. She was body parts and broken sentences and Lauren thought that she no longer loved her. Lauren loved three things in the absence of Camila.

Lauren loved her sport. Lauren loved her vodka.

And Lauren loved herself.

Three things may have been a little bit of reductionist view point on the expanse of her current passions. Lauren loved her art, Lauren loved her family, Lauren loved her friends.

Lauren loved her. But she didn't have a name anymore so the feeling didn't quite feel like it was supposed to. It no longer felt like shivers down her spine and tantalising sex appeal. It felt like Monday mornings and the taste of bad coffee and it left a taste in her mouth that she hated more than she hated Florida.

"You know you can't look out that window forever," Cara said, her mid-morning voice dripping over Lauren's skin like icy rain. Her arms snaked around her waist with a hint of affection that Lauren displaced as lust. She couldn't comprehend the idea of Cara loving her, and so Cara did not. "It's freezing in here,"

"It's not so cold anymore," Lauren commented, never tearing her placid green gaze from the cold glass before her. Through the cold glass she regarded the cold buildings with their cold bricks and their cold doors, and the ice white people that drifted in and out of them like ice white moths attracted to the death they faced by ice white light. In the midst of it all lay Cara's icy blue eyes and her icy white skin and her cool pink of her lips. Lauren thought for a moment that maybe in a projected 365 days she could learn to love this girl. Or perhaps she couldn't. Perhaps she didn't want to but she thought if the opportunity presented itself then she would learn.

"You feel like ice." Cara told her softly, her cool breath intensifying the ice of her skin.

"I'm not the only one." Lauren contemplated, "The city feels like ice too."

"You have a high opinion of yourself, don't you Lauren?" Cara asked her, taking a step back to allow the green eyed girl to turn to face her, her head tilted to one side just a fraction, just enough to mirror the contemplation that bounced off of the inner walls of her mind.

"Maybe," She shrugged nonchalantly, "It's been higher,"

"Do I make you feel grounded Lauren?" Cara asked, a hopeful tone in her voice that Lauren didn't care enough to notice.

"Sometimes," Lauren replied, "I don't think anything can ground me now, I'm too far gone."

"I don't think anyone is ever all gone." Cara shrugged, her hands grabbing for Lauren's. "There's still a little something left in there," She paused for a second and then her lips parted as though they'd never reunited, "I like to believe I've seen the real you once or twice,"

"I wouldn't be able to tell you if you had," Lauren told her, biting down on her bottom lip. "I haven't quite figured out who Lauren is just yet," She admitted.

"You're only 20, you don't need to know who you are just yet." Cara smiled encouragingly, her hands snaking over Lauren's shoulders, sliding over the beginning of her most recent ink, a twisted geometric shape that resembled DNA, beginning at the top of her arm in a ribboned format, much like a frayed end of rope, and twisted into shape, curling over her shoulder, across her ribs and under her left breast, a simple design with two outer lines and thousands of tightly packed connecting lines wrapping themselves between. For now it was an elaborate, spanning piece of art. In the years to come it would be a small piece in a much bigger gallery. Cara's lips were soft and began at the end of her tattoo, working up her neck until she met her jawline. Lauren lost her train of thought just about then, her naked back hitting the cold glass, sparking her to life in the way that the lips of a Floridian once had.

The city was a hostile heat this time of year.

Or perhaps it was the warm desert of her skin or the hot chocolate of her eyes or fire the cigarettes set in her lungs that were a hostile heat this time of year. Nevertheless Camila was on fire, and so was everything she had known. She'd been burned to a pile of black ashes and the curtains never opened in her apartment. She worked double shifts and when she wasn't at school she was at home, tucked under a blanket wishing she was in Seattle. Wishing she'd called her back. Wishing she'd never driven her there in the first place. Ariana had taken her side in the beginning but when Camila stopped leaving her house and burned out the last remaining flicker of hope she had Ariana had gotten tired of being her babysitter. She still visited on Thursdays because Sofi no longer did, but Camila rarely let her in and when she did they'd sit in silence and wish things were different. Chris smiled at her in the grocery store and Taylor looked like she wanted to cut her throat. Lauren's parents were around even less and who could blame them. The Jauregui household was about as hostile as the city once Lauren left, the mediator of all of the family banter, of all of the family love. Once Lauren froze over so did her world. Taylor took pills from older men and had stitched her school skirt to half it's length. Chris was so busy with lacrosse that he barely looked at Normani anymore but they remained together so Lauren had some remaining faith in love, even if it were false. Camila had found out in the early hours of three mornings ago that Lauren had a new girlfriend, it wasn't true but August hadn't shied away from telling Camila that she didn't love her anymore, which also, coincidently wasn't true. The only people that ever came to visit now were Dean and Alexa. Or at least, they were the only people allowed inside the silent citadel that was Camila's apartment.

"What do we know about this Cara?" Alexa asked as though she was genuinely interested, but there was spitefulness under her tone and Camila knew it all too well.

"Who cares," Dean shrugged, taking a drag of a roll up that most definitely didn't contain tobacco.

"I care." Camila snapped at him, wrapping her arms around her chest.

"Camila she left you behind, she isn't your problem anymore," Dean told her, stubbing his roll up out on the arm of her leather couch that was decorated by a selection of cigarette burn circles.

Camila tried to bite back but her voice fell flat, her shoulders hunching around her body. She couldn't defend Lauren but she couldn't defend herself either. It had been Camila who had cheated on Lauren. It had been Camila who had told her she didn't love her. That she'd been in it just for the sex.

Camila missed Lauren. Camila intended to stop missing her.

Camila intended to get her back.

Hellooooo guys! So I've decided (yet again) to get around to writing this god damned sequel. I promise this time it will be of the utmost quality. Everything has finally settled and I'm feeling inspired. Remember to strap yourselves in and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times- We're in for a bumpy ride.

- Amy