june 27th | camren

four

"I don't want you to go to Miami this year," Ally says, a few days before they're supposed to leave if they still want to make it in time for Lauren's birthday.

Camila's head snaps up. "I already bought a present months ago."

Ally closes the book she'd been reading, sitting up a little. "I just think it's too much of a risk. She already saw you once, and we don't know if she still remembers it."

"She doesn't," Camila interrupts. "I know her, she was really drunk that night."

Ally gives her a sad smile. "She may have gotten better at handling her alcohol. You can't keep going back forever, Camila. You keep saying you want her to move on, but if you keep bringing her presents every day she's bound to figure it out at some point. And what's gonna happen then?"

"It's only been four years," Camila snaps. "I don't need your permission to go places. If you don't want to come along it's fine, but I'm going either way, whether you like it or not."

There's a moment of silence, and Ally's nostrils flare like they do when she's getting mad. Camila braces herself for a long speech about how it's time to let go and other bullshit, but it doesn't come.

Ally shrugs, picking her up book again. "Okay. You're right—you don't need my permission. If you want to go you should go."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. You know how to properly use compulsion now, and I can't always be there to protect you anyway. Just promise me you won't do anything stupid, like get yourself killed." Ally lets out a soft sigh, but Camila's still too baffled at her easy win to care.

She jumps up from where she'd been sitting on the couch, dropping a thankful kiss on top of Ally's head on her way upstairs to start packing her bag.

&

It's the first time they've been separated for this long, and it's only been two days since Camila left Ally alone in New York. She thought she'd really enjoy having so much freedom and not having Ally trying to keep her from doing everything that sounds like fun—like bungee jumping without a rope, or swimming with sharks without a cage—but in reality it's kind of lonely.

She misses singing along to the radio with Ally on their road trips, and there's an twist in her stomach every time she turns around to show something to Ally and Ally isn't there. Camila wouldn't go as far as calling it separation anxiety, but it does sort of feel like it.

It's just that Ally has been there for her through some of the darkest times in her life as a vampire, and she started to get used to having her around. Ally makes her feel safe, both physically and emotionally, because Ally doesn't judge. Nothing Camila says or feels makes Ally look at her differently (except that one time Camila slipped on ice and hit her head on a brick), and it's easy to trust her because of it.

But Camila doesn't actually know a lot about Ally. She knows that Ally's old. Like, she's been around for at least two-hundred years, but Camila never dared to ask for her real age. All she knows is that Ally was turned when she was twenty-two by her boyfriend, less than a month before he somehow managed to piss off some other vampires and ended up decapitated. Ally talked about him once after feeding, but when she realized what she was doing she got a dark glow in her eyes and stopped herself mid-sentence. Camila doesn't even know his name.

After that Camila stopped trying to learn about Ally's past—every time she tries to bring it up Ally shoots her a look that shuts her up immediately. It's mildly annoying that Ally knows a lot of things about Camila and Camila knows virtually nothing about Ally, but there are also perks to hanging out with an older vampire. For example, Ally has property in most big cities around the world. (Camila doesn't doubt that most of it was acquired illegally, but it's not her place to judge if she spends most of her time living in those houses for free.)