The Perks of Being a Lesbian (Camren)

Chapter 26

A/N: This sucks, but I hope you like it!

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Lauren: Hey I know you're being interviewed so you prob won't see this til it's over but I'll be in the ticket booth when you're done

Lauren sent the message to Camila as soon as she'd settled herself underneath the counter for the second time that day.

Why is it that this theater was now tainted by some kind of negative energy? Before, she couldn't sit under here without thinking about the day she came out and now she had another bad memory to add to the list. Just thinking about this was frustrating for Lauren since her head was already aching from what she'd just learned.

There were two things she knew for sure now.

The first was that Charlotte was a heartless, manipulative bitch and had gone too far to keep Ally and Normani under her control.

Ally and Normani had been completely straightforward about explaining everything that had happened, probably figuring it was best to just get everything out in the open. And Lauren could appreciate that, it was just a lot to take in.

First of all, the whole not believing her about what happened with Ariana thing was just a cover that Charlotte had come up with. Ally and Normani had believed everything Lauren told them about Ariana randomly coming onto her. They even tried confronting Ariana about it which is how Charlotte got the stupid deal into their heads in the first place.

Charlotte said if they stayed away from Lauren, she'd find a way to get the bullying to stop or at least calm down. And amazingly, she did, as Lauren brought up when recounting the random lack of pushing, tripping, and name-calling after Ally and Normani got distant. Apparently, Charlotte used her position in Austin's group to convince them that Lauren was a waste of time.

At first, Lauren couldn't believe it, but after remembering what Austin had told Camila on the first day of school, that she wasn't "worth her time" or something like that, it seemed to reaffirm her friends' story.

However, after a while of hanging around Charlotte and Austin's group, Ally and Normani tried to end the deal, tired of the whole thing. But Charlotte threatened them with going to her parents with a fake story about Lauren harassing her so they would call the cops. After that they quit trying to drop the deal. And as punishment for trying to leave, Charlotte made them do a bunch of horrible things, using the same threat as leverage.

Lauren had frowned especially hard after hearing that. That was so fucked up and it didn't really make any sense why Charlotte would try so hard to keep them around. Something wasn't adding up, but she kept quiet and let her friends finish.

Once summer break was halfway through, they tried to leave the deal again, claiming that Charlotte couldn't make the harassment claim now that they weren't in school anymore and they never saw Lauren. But Charlotte had another trick up her sleeve, saying she had evidence of all of the things she'd made Ally and Normani do. She threatened to send it to their parents, keeping them from trying again that summer.

They never said it, but Lauren suspected they'd been involved in something illegal since they were that scared of getting in trouble. She couldn't find it in herself to get mad at them for that since, well, she didn't know what they'd done and getting into trouble with the law was a scary thing. She knew from experience, the memory of Charlotte's parents threatening to report her still an effective reminder of why she never tried to do anything to Charlotte after she outed her.

They were caught between a rock and a hard place. Lauren could relate.

Normani said that she was only able get them something to use against Charlotte when the school year began again, the same day as Lauren had popped Calum's football actually. She had to go to another party with the blonde that night, covering for Ally since the shorter girl hadn't felt well after the day's events, guilty and depressed.